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It was the
first of a few goofy yet refreshingly serious outbursts on the subject
by Cage that punctuated the two-step grooves, smooth vocal harmonies,
and honky-tonk riffs from his pedal steel and founding member David
Nelson’s B-bender Telecaster that characterized the evening. Even
though he and Nelson were the only longtime members left, the New Riders
had no trouble conjuring up the laid-back sound that made them famous in
the 1970s. Panama Red was back in town, and he was an activist to boot.
The New
Riders of the Purple Sage (the original Riders were a famous 1940s
Western band named after a Zane Grey novel) began as a Grateful Dead
spinoff in 1969 when Garcia paired his newfound love, the pedal steel
guitar, with guitarist John Dawson’s lead singing and songwriting. The
Dead’s drummer Mickey Hart and bassist Phil Lesh, and Jefferson
Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden were in the early lineups, and both
Dryden and Garcia graced the 1971 debut record. By the time Cage joined,
the New Riders were an independent group who went on to release nine
more LPs over the next eight years as their popularity grew, well, like
a weed.
These
days, Dawson reportedly is retired from the music business and living in
Mexico. Currently performing with Nelson and Cage are rhythm guitarist
and Hot Tuna alumnus Michael Falzarano, and bassist Ronnie Penque and
drummer Johnny Markowski, formerly of the jam band Stir Fried. Even
though Dawson was a Jerry Garcia vocal clone, none of the current New
Riders sang as well, although Penque, another Garcia soundalike, came
closest. Nelson’s lead guitar work tended to be rudimentary, reminding
one of John Fogerty’s countrified soloing with Credence Clearwater
Revival, and the fact that Nelson and Falzarano often played identical
open guitar chords during the vocals gave the rhythm section a
simplistic texture that was saved from monotony only by Cage’s
glistening pedal steel licks.
The band
opened with a rarity, country bluesman Mississippi John Hurt’s
“Sliding Delta,” with Nelson fingerpicking Hurt’s original
acoustic guitar part. From there they went to the first of several
well-chosen covers, the Rolling Stones “Dead Flowers,” in which Cage
used a distortion effect to make his pedal steel sound like electric
slide guitar playing. In the course of two long sets they doled out all
the New Riders classics: the dope smuggler ballad “Henry,”
“Lonesome L.A. Cowboy,” with its refrain “Snortin’ coke, smoking
dope, tryin’ to write a song”; their biggest hit, “Panama Red,”
Peter Rowan’s 1973 tune about a rogue who is the personification of
dope, and others. They closed with R. B. Greaves’ “Take a Letter,
Maria,” and encored with a sweet, twangified version of the Grateful
Dead’s “Ripple.”
My
Stetson’s off to the New Riders of the Purple Sage for playing as well
as they did, and to Buddy Cage for reminding us that this old world’s
in a hell of a fix.
Index of Metroland
Articles by Glenn Weiser ©2006 by Glenn
Weiser. All rights reserved.
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