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Getting a Further listen to Dead tunes
Friday, August 25, 2000
By GENE STOUT
The Grateful Dead's jam-loving legacy lives on this summer with The Other Ones, the seven-member group led by drummer-percussionist Mickey Hart and guitarist Bob Weir.
"We all wanted to play together, so we just did it," Hart, a 30-year veteran of the Grateful Dead, said in a phone interview.
"It was born out of our legacy. It was a very natural, easy thing to do."
Despite a feud among former Grateful Dead members that sent bassist Phil Lesh packing, Hart said he hasn't had any qualms about launching The Other Ones' second tour this week.
"It's the right thing to do. I just feel good when I play. That's how you tell. That's how you really know," he said.
"It has nothing to do with the press or what people think as much as how you feel. That's always been the way we've approached music. I'm with the people I want to be with and I'm playing the music I want to play."
The Other Ones are headlining the Further Festival tour, which includes a show with Ziggy Marley Sunday at The Gorge. It's the group's second cross-country trek since forming in 1998.
Besides Hart, the lineup features Weir, a founding member of the Dead and a current member of Ratdog, and Bill Kreutzmann, the drummer who formed The Warlocks with Jerry Garcia in the mid-'60s. The group later evolved into the Dead. This is Kreutzmann's first tour with The Other Ones, who are mostly playing songs from the Dead repertoire.
FURTHER FESTIVAL (WITH THE OTHER ONES AND ZIGGY MARLEY)
The rest of the band includes singer and keyboardist Bruce Hornsby (a star in his own right), bassist Alphonso Johnson (who has worked with Chuck Mangione, Weather Report and Santana), guitarist Mark Karan (who has played with Dave Mason, Paul Carrack and Huey Lewis) and Steve Kimock (the jam-loving guitarist who founded Zero and currently plays in his own band).
Kimock and Karan fill the shoes of Garcia, the Dead's guiding light until his death five years ago.
"He was my best friend," Hart said of Garcia. "We created this music together. So in a sense, it's our music. He's always with me. He's always taggin' along. I feel his spirit."
Hart also leads the eclectic Mickey Hart Band, which performed last month at WOMAD USA at Marymoor Park in Redmond. Hart admitted he couldn't play Dead songs year-round.
"I couldn't do it day in and day out," he said. "It's just not that kind of thing. The Mickey Hart Band is a love for me, to be able to play other music and be able to stretch in another direction."
A portion of Hart's large collection of drums is now on display at the United Airlines Terminal at San Francisco International Airport.
"It went up last week, but it's not complete and the labels aren't in yet. It just sits mute right now. It's in about 45 cases. It's a small portion of my collection, but it's a beautiful exhibit, well curated.
"It goes down the whole United Airlines corridor. Some of the bronze drums are hundreds and hundreds of years old."
Hart, a music historian who has worked with the Smithsonian Institution, also is busy on the music-preservation front. Last year, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota appointed Hart to the board of directors of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.
"I think the senator thought I was most qualified for the position. I didn't even know what a trustee did. But I do now."
As a trustee, Hart is leading a campaign to digitize the vast collection of recordings the American Folklife Center has amassed since it was established in 1924.
"That's my function there, the digitization, the preservation issue," Hart said. "It's a million and a half hours of music, the largest collection of indigenous music in the world.
"And we're in a race against time. The music is endangered. A lot of it is decomposing."
Hart doesn't know what it will cost to digitize the entire collection. Last year, the American Folklife Center received $750,000 from Save America's Treasures.
"We'll be getting more from Congress, this next session. We're just appealing to all parties who are interested in saving these collections to come forward."
Booths at all Further Festival dates will raise awareness of the issue, as well as register new voters for the fall election.
"We want to get people to sign up and vote," Hart said. "We want Al Gore to be president of the United States. That's really important to us."
In April, Hart and Weir performed at a $1,000-a-plate Gore fund-raiser in San Jose, Calif. Tipper Gore, who was a member of an all-woman band in college, played conga drums on a version of Bob Dylan's "Queen Jane," the cynical tune about political pandering and disloyalty.
Hart, who played drums during Tipper Gore's grand entrance at the recent Democratic National Convention, has known Al Gore since he was a U.S. senator.
"I know the man. I've hung out with him. We've gotten loose together. I know him as a very funny, loving family man who will make the best president," Hart said.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER POP MUSIC CRITIC
COMING UP
WHAT: Rock/reggae concert
WHEN: Sunday at 5 p.m.
WHERE: The Gorge
TICKETS: $39.90 at Ticketmaster
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