MMM

and the mother of all bootlegs, the 1964 'Typewriter Tape'



Jorma Kaukonen on Janis Joplin and Recording the 1964 'Typewriter Tape'
Gabe Meline
May 3, 2016

Of the many Janis Joplin bootlegs out there in the wild, there's one that holds a special importance for diehard fans. The Typewriter Tape, recorded in 1964 with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna), captures an early Joplin at a pivotal moment, just after her folk-autoharp phase and just before joining Big Brother & the Holding Company.

The Typewriter Tape would go on to attain mythic status, and, as is the norm for bootlegs, the details of its existence have been distorted over the years. In advance of PBS' broadcast of the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue, I decided to go to the source: Jorma Kaukonen himself, who spoke to me from his ranch in Ohio about that day in 1964, when his wife was typing a letter in the background and he casually recorded some favorite folk-blues songs with an unknown girl from Texas.

Note: Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

<more> A really, really great read, and we learn how the new resident to California, Kaukonen, met Janis, Jerry Garcia and Pigpen on a fateful evening in San Jose. I assume Jerry Garcia was still in his banjo phase.


https://www.kqed.org/arts/11548325/jorma-kaukonen-on-janis-joplin-and-recording-the-1964-typewriter-tape

Much appreciated. Hot Tuna was my favorite band for a minute, and "Genesis" my favorite song from their first album.



More on CA's rock history bandography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Francisco#Musicians_and_bands

(Sorry for the late response; out of town company)

That's where the studios and the Wrecking Crew were; it was the epicenter of rock music by the early sixties

Now, The San Francisco Sound is another story, and one could make the argument, as bizarre as as it sounds, it was beta-tested in Nevada. Oh, but to have been a fly on the wall in the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City.

The Red Dog Saloon. Built on southern Cal infrastructure support, and potheads from Marin County, and "stuff from San Fran."

But national sounds can almost always be said to have started somewhere else, yes?

"How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away" is an example of the part of America's musical scaffold, for sure. I sang that song!

It was part of that Wild West sound, and hippies LOVED The Family Dog. Now, they sound like the creative basis of a kind of music business, and love of music drove all that creativity that also came from somewhere else.

So why shouldn't San Francisco say, at no certain historical point, "Thanks, we got this from here."

And they did.

As did blues, jazz, and other "American" music.

Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks, interestingly, got its start as a warm-up band for the Charlatans. Family Dog founder of Chet Helms, made it all happen.

"At a certain point, the Charlatans were kind of falling apart, there was no good management, didn't seem to be any future in it. Nothing was materializing, nothing was getting better. I was only fond of the music up to a point. Rock and roll wasn't really my love."

"So I sort of took this single act thing and expanded it. I got together with a violinist and a bass player, to see if they could accompany me. We did it, essentially, to make a little demo of tunes. But then I started getting a couple of gigs, that kind of thing, and added the girls, a female accompaniment came to mind. I was listening to Sergio Mendes, stuff with female voices on it, and I kinda liked that. The bass player's wife sang, and she had a friend, and we gave that a shot, started doing gigs this way. Actually, there was no violin yet, it was just two girl singers, a bass and guitar. We did a thing at the New Committee Theater in North Beach [San Francisco] and got a good review from Ralph Gleason. I was still in the Charlatans at the same time, and had to make a decision. I figured I shouldn't do the Charlatans anymore, this new act would allow me to do all my songs, and I was beginning to get more prolific. Having other voices to write for, even just by ear, was very inspiring. So I started writing 'I Scare Myself,' and that kind of thing."

I first heard Dan Hicks and His Hot licks on a bootleg tape when I was overseas in the military. When I returned, I discovered he moved to my hometown in Marin, and when he wasn't running the open mike at the Old Mill Tavern, he was warming a bar stool at the Brothers Tavern, my watering hole back in the day. We acknowledged each other, nothing more. Fast forward twenty years: My party caught Dan Hicks and his Acoustical Warriors. During intermission we went back stage, my wife to talk her cousin, the violin player, and my friend, an accomplished steel guitar and saw player to talk shop with Paul Mehling, lead guitarist, about his slick Selmer guitar. Dan Hicks may have felt snubbed because my wife had a history with him, and my friend was repeatedly asked to join his band, so he talked with me like we were long lost friends.

I sorely miss Dan Hicks. And his outrageous shoe collection, too (we wore the same size clown shoe)