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Jorma Kaukonen & Rick Danko 11/23/1987

SHOWID 106331

Show Reviews

Jay
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This was a great show to host and strange how it came about.

I met Jorma on a plane from Chicago to Albany. I was returning from a homebrew competition. He was on his way home from a gig and was sitting in 1st class and I walked past him getting on the plane. Having seen him play since I was 16 (I was all of 24 at the time) I recognized him immediately. Once the plane was airborne I suck up to 1st class from coach and told him I was a fan and played his music on my radio show, Stormy Monday Blues, all the time.

To my incredible surprise, Jorma said he lived in Mt Tremper NY and listened to my show a lot. Then he really blew my mind by offering to come on the show to play. He even said he'd bring his friend Will Scarlett along. I couldn't accept fast enough.

We talked on the phone and set a date for 11-17-87 (note that this isn't the date of this show!). When the day of the show came he called me at about 3PM and said he was hung up in NYC with contract negotiations and was going to have to postpone. After weeks of plugging his upcoming appearance I had to go on air and tell my audience the show was cancelled. What a bummer.

Three days later, on Thurs of that week I went to SUNY Albany and saw Rick Danko play. It was a small venue, and after the show Rick came into the only men's room while I happened to be there, and sidled up to a urinal next to me. When I saw it was him I recalled that Jorma had mentioned to me in our conversation on the plane that Rick and he were good friends. So I took advantage of the opportunity to ask Rick if he would like to join Jorma in playing on the show. He was very enthusiastic and said he'd call Jorma the next day.

On Friday I got a call from Jorma confirming that he and Rick would indeed play on Stormy Monday Blues on WRPI that coming Mon. We quickly pulled together a promo and started plugging the appearance and giving away tickets. The room seated maybe 30 people, but because of the short notice on the re-scheduling there were maybe only 15 or at most 20 people in the room.

Troy isn't really known as a culinary capital but Jorma arrived on time before the show, we ordered in some Chinese food, did a little pre-show imbibing (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and got ready for the show. I'd had other area artists on the show before, and had interviewed other Blues artists that had appeared in town, so we started the show off with an interview.

I tried to keep the interview short and not ask too many dumb questions. You can all judge whether I succeded or not :-). Then the boys went to town in what is I think a really great set.

I was saddened to hear of Rick's death a few years ago, but Jorma is still out there and playing really great (just saw Hot Tuna tonight at the Somerville Theatre in MA).

One last side note is that I didn't know that this show had hit the bootleg circuit. Years later I made some new friends through a Boston area homebrew club. One of them was a big Dead Head and Tuna fan, so I told him I'd make him a copy of the tape from the show. When I said that it clicked in his head, and he immediately said, "Oh you're that Jay Hersh?" and told me that he already had a copy on DAT!

Well there you have it. The strange but true story of how beer and peeing led to a really good show...

sincerely,

Jay Hersh aka Dr. Beer (TM)

Set I

 

Set II

 

Set III

 

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