#8 Bean Blossom Moment Monroe&Mayfield "First Whipoorwil"l 1954

[Gary Hedrick]

The power and energy of the Mayfield era with the Bluegrass Boys was quite something. That music was legendary and this tape has been often copied.
One of the most interesting copies of it was made by Jerry Garcia and Sandy Rothman on their journey from New York to San Francisco in I believe 1965 or 66. Neil Rosenberg introduced them to my father and they spent the better part of a week recording copies in the basement of his Television and Radio repair shop.

Many years later when I was transferred to Fresno, California I played at jam sessions held by the Kings River Bluegrass Association. While picking, conversations turned to where folks learned how to play and also that I played a more "pure" style of bluegrass mandolin. Come to find out that a number of folks had learned "Kentucky" bluegrass from copies of tapes they got from friends in the Bay Area......tapes from Bean Blossom and of Bill Monroe.....

small world and it shows the influence that Garcia and Rothman had in that area. ..

89 First Whipoorwill .mp3

[Dave LaBoone]

Thanks, Jerry!!

[PFeldmann]

Great version of that song . . . always one of my favorites.

I recall Sandy mentioning a trip with Garcia years ago - an interesting story.

Got any more songs from that tape?

-Pete

[Gary Hedrick]

Great version of that song . . . always one of my favorites.

I recall Sandy mentioning a trip with Garcia years ago - an interesting story.

Got any more songs from that tape?

-Pete

Most folks don't know about Sandy...(outside of the California scene) or don't know much about him. There's an interesting life story in itself. Colorful stories I'm sure. He played with and has been around a lot of folks in the music and around Monroe and playing for Monroe etc. When they were the there I was a middle teenager and coming from the rural background, thought that they were "hippies"....which to a degree Garcia would have been. I still remember having to clean up the area once they were gone and finding a half eaten bologna sandwich .....

As for THE tape...(from the number of times I have heard it referred to on the forum THE seems appropriate), "Knocking on Your Door" that is in #4 posting comes from THE tape and of course THE tape is one of the first that I worked on so the whole thing is up and ready to go. I'll post some more of it. I need slack off a little bit with the posting so I am not dominating this section of the forum.

Tape recorders in that day were a real novelty but my father being today's equivalent of a techno geek was all over it. He saw it as a way to preserve his "precious music" and was always happy to share it. Edd Mayfield was my father's number one guitar playing icon.....thumb pick and all of the runs.....that's how my father played.