The Perro Sessions (Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra)

The confusion surrounding 'the Perro sessions' is understandable.   Perro, or PER&RO (Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra), refers to a loose agglomeration of players in the San Fransisco Bay area who gathered around Wally Heider's studio during a time of great flux in their respective bands including: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.  Deadheads in particular enjoy the material due to the lack of live recordings documenting the musical relationship between Garcia and Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson/ Hot Tuna). 

A definite high point on this portion of the tape is at 30:24 as Mountains v. 4 reaches its apex (a phenomenal passage in it's own right), when the band led by Jerry starts coaxing out a proto version of  Loser and a brief reprise of Deal including a pause to recapitulate the chords.  Then there is a cold cut in the tape and Jerry plainly recounts the chord progression: C-Em-Am-G-Am.  At which point they go into Deal proper.

The Perro Sessions tapes give us a glimpse into these and other sessions that were never mixed or saved for posterity, the recordings engineer Stephen Barncard is central to the conservation of this material- though perhaps he did not pack the actual pipe of marijuana that was discovered along with the sessions when unearthed.

Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra collaborations have resulted in many songs and formally in two releases; the first credited to Jefferson Starship was the album Blows Against The Empire; the second was David Crosby's solo debut If Only I Could Remember My Name.

Personnel

David Crosby – guitar, vocals
Graham Nash – guitar, vocals
Paul Kantner – guitar, banjo, vocals
Grace Slick – piano, vocals
Jorma Kaukonen – lead guitar
Jack Casady – bass
Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh – bass
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Mickey Hart – percussion
David Freiberg – viola, vocals

PERRO Discography

1970 Blows Against the Empire by Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship
1971 If I Could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby
Songs for Beginners by Graham Nash
Sunfighter by Paul Kantner and Grace Slick
1972 Graham Nash David Crosby by Graham Nash and David Crosby
Rolling Thunder by Mickey Hart  —
1973 Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun by Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg 1983 Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra by Paul Kantner

An excellent narrative on the discovery of the 4 reels of 2 track mixes made in 1971 and the genesis of the sessions (along with the original tape box notations) can be found here.

The roots of PER&RO go back a lot further than 1971. 1 guess it had its inception in the early years of the '60s (prior to the Airplane, the Byrds et al) when Kantner, Crosby and Freiberg used to hang out, play music, get high and rap together around Venice Beach. That was the initial bond, the start of it all...

Later, when they were in bands of their own, there were occasional points of interaction - like Garcia sitting in on the 'Surrealistic Pillow' sessions, like Crosby giving "Triad" to the Airplane when he couldn't get the Byrds to record it, like Kantner, Crosby and Stills writing "Wooden Ships"....  

As Grace recalls, "These sessions were like 'Uh, do you wanna play guitar on this one?' 'No, man, I have to go to the bathroom.' 'Okay, David, you wanna play?' 'Sure'. Whoever felt like doing something did it. Parts interchanged, people interchanged."
 

 

Love For Levon setlist



Love For Levon
IZOD Center
East Rutherford, NJ
10/03/12

1. “The Shape I’m In,” Warren Haynes with house band.
2. “Long Black Veil,” Gregg Allman and Warren Haynes
3. “Trouble in Mind,” Jorma Kaukonen. (Helm played drums on Kaukonen’s version of this on Kaukonen’s 2009 River of Time album. New Jersey’s own Barry Mitterhoff plays mandolin with Kaukonen tonight. A few other musicians also play on this but not the full band.
4. “This Wheel’s on Fire,” the Midnight Ramble Band (Larry Campbell on vocals)
5. “Little Birds,” the Midnight Ramble Band (Levon’s daughter Amy Helm on vocals)
6. “Listening to Levon,” Marc Cohn. A tribute song written by Cohn in 2007.
7. “Move Along Train,” Mavis Staples
8. “Life is a Carnival,” Allen Toussaint sings and plays keyboards. Toussaint arranged horns for the Band’s Cahoots album as well as the Rock of Ages and Last Waltz concerts.
9. When I Paint My Masterpiece,” Garth Hudson also playing accordion on this one. Hudson of course was a co-founder of The Band along with Helm. Big ovation for Hudson. Feel-good moment of night so far.
10. “Anna Lee,” Bruce Hornsby, very stripped-down acoustic version. Hornsby playing some kind of string instrument, I’m not sure what it is, with Campbell on violin and Amy Helm and Teresa Williams on backing vocals.
11. Full band back, with Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboards. Jakob Dylan sings “Ain’t Got No Home,” the oldie from The Band’s Moondog Matinee album. Upbeat, swinging version. Very nice.
12. “Whispering Pines” w/ Lucinda Williams “God bless Levon Helm, his spirit lives on,” she says at the end.
13. “Rag Mama Rag”, John Hiatt and Mike Gordon
-Intermission-
14. “Baby Don’t You Do It,” David Bromberg and Joan Osborne
15. “I Shall Be Released,” Grace Potter, solo, backing herself on organ. “This is one of the great pleasures of my life,” she says before singing, echoing Neil Young’s line from “The Last Waltz.”
16. “Tears of Rage,” Ray LaMontagne, John Mayer
17. “Rockin’ Chair,” Dierks Bentley, Jon Randall, Jessi Alexander
18. “Chest Fever,” Dierks Bentley, Jon Randall, Jessi Alexander, Garth Hudson
Garth Hudson does wild organ improvisation for a couple of minutes as intro to song.
19. “A Train Robbery,” Eric Church
20. “Get Up Jake,” Eric Church
21. “Tennessee Jed,” Larry Campbell, John Mayer
22. “Up on Cripple Creek,” Joe Walsh on guitar and vocals, Robert Randolph on pedal steel. “Jersey boys are here,” says Walsh.
23. “Ophelia,” My Morning Jacket
24. “It Makes No Difference,” My Morning Jacket
25. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” Roger Waters w/ My Morning Jacket and G.E. Smith on guitar
Roger Waters holds up a red baseball cap. Says Levon gave him the cap after a show “and it’s been my fishing hat ever since … and this will be with me till the day I die, because it means a lot to me.”
26. “Wide River to Cross,” Roger Waters, G.E. Smith on guitar, Larry Campbell violin solo w/ *House Band
27. “The Weight,” Ensemble. Roger Waters does the “Crazy Chester followed me …”