BlairJackson
Blair Jackson and ReganMcMahon coedited GoldenRoad, the seminal high-quality deadzine.
Blair wrote a biography of Jerry Garcia (GarciaAnAmericanLife) and published elements of the manuscript that were cut from the book at his website (http://blairjackson.com):
from http://blairjackson.com/chapter_fourteen_additions.htm :
Page 271, upper-middle; James Booker and the JGB:
Nicky Hopkins' last gig with the band was a New Year's Eve show at the Keystone Berkeley. About a week later, Garcia and Kahn recruited another famous pianist to fill his slot ’Äî the talented but troubled New Orleans session giant James Booker. He lasted just two nights before Garcia and Kahn decided they'd heard enough.
"Booker was my idea," Kahn said with an embarrassed chuckle. "I knew him from doing sessions in L.A. He came to my house in Mill Valley a couple of days before the gigs [at Sophie's in Palo Alto]. First he didn't show up until 5 in the morning. Me and Jerry were there and we're getting calls from his grandmother and his priest ’Äî Booker had gotten lost en route somehow; they'd lost track of him. Finally I got a call and it was Booker himself. He was calling from Dan's Greenhouse, a liquor store. He was in front of there at 5 in the morning with an overcoat and no socks and a hat bag; that was it ’Äî no clothes. He had about 30 eye patches and eight or nine wigs.
"The shows were really cool. But he wouldn't learn any of our songs. We tried to teach him songs and he refused. He was a little crazed, so we ended up doing mostly his songs. He did half a set of solo piano and it was great; you could hear a pin drop. And he played things like the "Minute Waltz"; it was incredible. He could still play great. He could switch between piano and organ really easily and it would sound amazing. But he was out of his mind. He was watching cars go by and was checking out license plates and talking about the CIA. He saw a Louisiana license plate and then John Kennedy's name somewhere and that freaked him out. He saw bad omens everywhere and he was getting really weird. I didn't know he was that crazy, so I might have had delusions that we'd stay together longer."