Jerry Garcia + Merl Saunders LP Heavy Turbulence Tom Fogerty Grateful Dead Mary

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Fantasy LP 8421 from 1972 One owner of this tremendous LP from Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders. If you ever saw them at the Keystone or the Capital in Pasaic, you know this was as good as it gets and this LP captures them perfectly. LP plays really nicely. Jacket has the shrink wrap and has ring wear from the shelf for 41 years. Initial release : 1972 Fantasy 8421 Merl Saunders first solo release. Jerry Garcia plays on all tracks. Although released as a Merl Sainders album it is essentially theworking Garcia/Saunders band of the time. Tracks My Problems Got Problems (Saunders / Carrier) The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Robbie Robertson) Save Mother Earth (Saunders / Lewis) Imagine (John Lennon) Welcome to the Basement (Saunders / Moore) Man Child (Saunders / Lewis) Musicians Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals Tom Fogerty - guitar John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums The Hawkins Singers (Edwin, Walter, Tramaine, Lynette, Freddie, Carol) - vocals Eddie Moore - drums, saw Kenneth Nash - percussion Bob Drew - saxophone The Tower of Power Horns The original album provides very lmited information. However all the tracks from Heavy Turbulence were included on the 1992 Merl Saunders release Fire Up Plus which provided track by track musician listings. These are given below. My Problems Got Problems; Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals Jerry Garcia - lead guitar Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down; Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, vocals Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar, vocals John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums The Hawkins Singers - vocals Save Mother Earth; Merl Saunders - keyboards Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, vocals Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums The Hawkins Singers - vocals Imagine; Merl Saunders - keyboards Jerry Garcia - lead guitar Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums Welcome To The Basement; Merl Saunders - keyboards Jerry Garcia - lead guitar Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar John Kahn - bass Eddie Moore - drums, saw Kenneth Nash - percussion Bob Drew - saxophone Tower Of Power Horns Welcome To The Basement; Merl Saunders - keyboards Jerry Garcia - lead guitar Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar John Kahn - bass Bill Vitt - drums The Hawkins Singers - vocals Tower Of Power Horns Credits Producer - Tom Fogerty with Merl Saunders and Brian Gardner Engineer - Brian Gardner Assistant engineer - Eddie Harris Recorded at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley Notes The original LP provides a simple list of musicians and brief credits for producers and engineers. The front cover is as shown above. The rear cover depicts Merl Saunders holding up a cocktail glass with ice in it and the torso and head of someone (?Tom Fogerty) in miniature peering out. There's also what may be a tiny image of Jerry just behind. The majority of information provided here is taken from the 1992 Merl Saunders album, Fire Up Plus, which included all the tracks from Heavy Turbulence. In the liner notes for Fire Up Plus Merl commented as follows; In 1971 after my return from living in New York, Heavy Turbulence was born. I was running in a turbulence of heavy musicians and singers. Looking back 17 years, I think I named the album correctly. On two tracks, Welcome To The Basement and Man Child, I used one of the first Yamaha Synthesizers known as YC30 - this was one of the first Yamaha Synthesizers to be recorded. In an interview with Sandy Troy in the 90s Saunders recalled an event which arose from Heavy Turbulence; I'll never forget when we [Legion Of Mary] played the Bottom Line in the spring of 1075. We did three shows in three days and the place was jampacked. We were paying and the audience was just freaking out, and all of a sudden we hear all the noise stop. We hear 'oooh,' and we see a flash go by into the dressing room. We look at each other because we didn't know who went in there. When we went into the dressing room John Lennon was sitting there. We were shocked. He came to thank us for doing his number 'Imagine', on my album Heavy Turbulence. I had done the first cover version of his song. Born in San Mateo, California, Saunders attended Polytechnic High School. In his first bands that played in San Francisco during high school was singer Johnny Mathis.[1] He served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.'s off-Broadway show, Big Time Buck White. He gained notice in the 1970s when he began collaborating with Jerry Garcia, with whom he had begun playing in 1971 at a small Fillmore Street nightclub called the Matrix.[1] He sat in with the Grateful Dead, and co-founded the Saunders/Garcia Band which produced three albums, and which became The Legion of Mary with the addition of Martin Fierro (sax) in 1974. It disbanded the following year, but he and Garcia continued to collaborate in the band Reconstruction during 1979, collaborating with Ed Neumeister (Trombone), Gaylord Birch (drums) and John Kahn (Bass). He led his own band as Merl Saunders and Friends, playing live dates with Garcia, as well as Mike Bloomfield, David Grisman, Michael Hinton, Tom Fogerty, Vassar Clements, Kenneth Nash, John Kahn and Sheila E.. He also collaborated with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart in the band High Noon. Merl Saunders took the lead in reintroducing Jerry Garcia to his guitar after Jerry suffered a diabetic coma in the summer of 1986.