THE NEW RIDERS of the PURPLE SAGE-Greatest Fan of the Greatest Band

Friday, July 24, 2009

New Riders Co-Founder & Mainstay John "Marmaduke" Dawson Passes Away

John "Marmaduke" Dawson, co-founder of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, has passed away at the age of 64. Dawson died on Tuesday in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where he has been living for several years since retiring.

Dawson occasionally played in San Francisco folk clubs during the early-60's with artists like Jerry Garcia, who would eventually co-found the New Riders. Along with folk music, Dawson was a big fan of the Bakersfield Sound and singers Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and would try to expose his fellow musicians to the up-and-coming music.

After going to college, Dawson returned to San Francisco where he fell in with what had become the musicians in the Grateful Dead. After listening to their sound, he started working on mixing the psychedelia with his favorite urban country. The style fit well with the emerging country-rock groups and, combined with Garcia's new found love of the pedal steel guitar, the two formed a duo that played San Francisco area clubs.

In mid-1969, Dawson and Garcia decided to expand into a full group, bringing in David Nelson, with whom they had both played, Mickey Hart and Robert Hunter who was eventually replaced by Phil Lesh.

Their self-titled debut album was released in late 1971, with all songs written by Dawson, to good reviews and moderate sales. Later in the year, Garcia left to concentrate on other projects and Buddy Cage was brought in to record their second album, Powerglide.

In 1973, the group peaked with their fourth album, The Adventures of Panama Red, which reached number 55 in the U.S. Not as high charting as their first two albums, the Norbert Putnam produced LP included what would become their most recognized song, Panama Red, along with Lonesome L.A. Cowboy and Kick in the Head.

Over the next 24 years, the group would go through numerous personel changes; however, Dawson would stay with them right up until the group retired in 1997. A new version of the group formed in 2005 but, by that time, Dawson had no interest in returning to the rock life.

Former bandmate Buddy Cage wrote the following for Relix:

Henry and Panama Red were one and the same person. My old pal of 39 years, John "Marmaduke" Dawson, the Last Lonely Eagle has done picked up his hat and coat and gone home. The gifted song-writer and creator of New Riders of the Purple Sage, passed away peacefully this morning near his home in Mexico. Muchos gracias, John for all the wonderful, wonderful songs that brought us together and keep NRPS alive and well today! You are SO missed...

Play It In Your Own Spirit

An Interview with Buddy Cage and The New Riders of The Purple Sage

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

The New Riders of the Purple Sage have released their first studio CD in over 20 years. This legendary band’s renaissance began four years ago and continues today with over 100 shows annually to audiences throughout the United States and Canada. The album, Where I Come From, features 12 new songs, seven of which were written by David Nelson and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Included are the songs “Carl Perkins Wears The Crown”, an ode to the rockabilly king written by Michael Falzarano (formerly of Hot Tuna), along with “Something in the Air Tonight”. The album also includes two live show favorites - “Higher” penned by Johnny Markowski and “Olivia Rose” by Ronnie Penque - as well as a cover of the classic “Minglewood Blues”.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage, signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis, released its eponymous first album in September 1971 to widespread acclaim. In the next 11 years the band toured and released over 12 albums, selling over 4 million records. NRPS began as a part-time spin-off from the Grateful Dead when Jerry Garcia (pedal steel guitar), Phil Lesh (bass) and Mickey Hart (drums) teamed up with John Dawson (guitar, vocals) and David Nelson (guitar). Although early live appearances were viewed as an informal warm-up to the main attraction, the group quickly established an independent identity through the strength of Dawson's original songs.

For the next 13 years the band continued to tour and released over 12 albums, selling over 4 million records. The two bands that helped define country rock as we know it today are The Eagles and The New Riders of the Purple Sage. If the Eagles were the Beatles of country rock, then The New Riders of the Purple Sage were The Rolling Stones - rockin', rowdy and genuine.

RockOm caught up with Buddy Cage, steel pedal guitarist for the New Riders to discuss the new CD, spirituality and music, the music industry in general and much more.

RockOm: How did Where I Come From come about?

Buddy Cage: That is a long answer. That comes out of Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist, and his connection to us goes back to the very beginning, in fact he named the band in a rehearsal with Garcia. I wasn’t there at the time but as the story goes a Hell’s Angel in the rehearsal hall said, “How about Riders of the Purple Sage?” and Hunter said, “No, no man. That’s dumb.” From there it went on, “Well, Nelson you like that 'New Minglewood Blues', New this, New that – how about The New Riders of the Purple Sage?” That stuck. So he is the inventor of the name.

It turns out that almost four years ago when the band entered what we call the Renaissance, he picked up on the vibe and the energy that was going on with us. Not a hell of a lot had been going on since Jerry passed so he just got the bug to write for us. He writes all the time - short stories, poems, songs… it doesn’t really matter. He just writes. Last year he came up with six or seven tunes that he emailed off to Nelson and said, “OK, your turn.” Nelson had the mandate to go to work so they co-wrote these great tunes and that sparked another year of New Riders. Hunter has always been a part of this band. I think if you go back to 1969 he was the first guy that Garcia said to “come on down to the pizza parlor and play with us.”

RockOm: It’s an excellent album. Every song is contagious and melodic. The words just flow; it’s a hit. I really like this CD.

Buddy Cage: Me too man! I didn’t come into this Renaissance, to use that word again, to spin my wheels and play old tunes. There’s no future in that. In fact that’s probably the personal reason I left the New Riders in 1982. There was just no new stuff coming in. And if there’s no new, good stuff being generated, I’ve got to move on to other things. It may have been a twist of fate in one way or another that we got some decent gig offers. Nelson and I had talked about it and we said, “What the hell, let’s take the paycheck.” We got done doing a week’s worth of gigs and he looked at me and said, “I love it!” He’d been doing all those years of David Nelson Band stuff and here was a chance to do some New Riders things and explore its potential again.

RockOm: Did the band feel the need, after 22 years, to say something with this record?

Buddy Cage: To say something? I think we say something if a bunch of us are into a potential project together. There’s no need to sit around and say, “Let’s say something.” Or “I’ve got something to say.” I think recording is just a natural extension of the energy that’s going down at a particular time. There’s a lot of writers – Hunter and all the guys in the band – and it’s another part of the art of playing together. Seeing what comes out of a recording situation is another of those extensions.

RockOm: You guys are touring right now, supporting Where I Come From, and I can only imagine that this tour brings different emotions for each member of the band. Talk a little about how you’re feeling.

Buddy Cage: It’s a shared expression because we’re still together. It’s wonderful. It’s kind of a surprise. Back on the last question, with an old audience, there is no future. It’s just stomping back over the same stuff, time and again and there’s just no joy in that for me. However, with the influx of some new tunes to play, new places to go, we’ve been able to extend the enthusiasm in this band to new people coming in, new blood. There’s a whole astonishing dichotomy in the audience factor in this group. We get the old timers that probably think, “Jesus Christ, I’ve waited 20 years for them sons-a-bitches. Me and the old lady only go out once a year.” Fine, how long does that last? The answer being it doesn’t. But seemingly a new generation has come in enjoying songs again with this formidably banal jam band scene that goes on for the most part, for me, I just find it boring – endlessly and hopelessly “not there.” I’m sure people have shared that along the line – “I’ve had endless years of endless trills and riffing and this isn’t what a meaningful jam is anyway.” So there you go. They’ve inadvertently tuned into their family’s record collections and maybe spotted a cactus [the band's logo] somewhere in the corner and said, “A cactus, that’s cute” put it on and just got attached to good songs. Good songs just beat the hell out of most of the stuff I know.

RockOm: What’s your favorite track on Where I Come From?

Buddy Cage: I like “Ghost Train” a lot. That’s pretty much - at least in my opinion - Hunter sharing that same feeling that, “Geez, I’m just sick and tired of this Ghost Train since Jerry’s been dead.” It’s been 13 and a half years of stopping around the graveyard and expecting things you can’t resolve. But you can resolve it. I too am tired of that ghost train. I love that song a whole lot. It’s amazing – “a hundred haunted box cars.” I like “Blues Barrel” immensely. It’s got a groove funk to it that I can really get into. It satisfies another one of my playing passions as a pedal steel guitarist to just settle down and just do funk in the background, a rhythm pattern.

RockOm: Most of the songs on your album are very long. That passion is still there to keep a song going for up to 10 minutes.

Buddy Cage: I answered a question the other day that said, “How do you feel about long songs? And what is the difference between what you did 25-30 years ago and what you do now?” And basically what we were doing then was looking for airplay and commercial hits. They were kept to, for the most part, the two and a half to three and a half minute song lengths and patterns. Right now, we just don’t care about that, so there is a difference. We end up with tunes that just play themselves into eight minutes without having to go into extended [jams]. There are a lot of verses to "Ghost Train", for instance, a lot of story to it. You can’t limit it, cut it down, because you want to get special air time out of it.

RockOm: These songs were recorded in no more than three takes in the studio. What has to happen between musicians or a group of friends in order to pull something like that off?

Buddy Cage: I don’t know. From my own standpoint, I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s just a natural thing. I can do one take and say, “Well did you get that?” and know that’s what’s going on the track. That’s how the track’s going to be played. Each of these songs started out in sound checks and trying them out and then eventually they’d just appear on a set list some night.

RockOm: Take us back to the Festival Express. You, the New Riders, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and others were touring across Canada when you and Jerry sat down together and played steel guitar.

Buddy Cage: Oh, we weren’t sitting down together playing steel guitar. It wasn’t like a “jaaaam”. There was no “we be jamming” stuff about that. I asked him actually, and he said, “No, noo! You’re the guy, man!” It was kind of flattering in one way but in another way I felt I was missing something. You had to know Jerry. He was simply the most attractive, magnetic, personal guy I ever knew. The Festival Express train, the reason that came off at all, was that these two, three promoters had stolen their daddy’s checkbook and cut a few checks here and there. They brought the offer to all the bands they loved at the time and they thought would be the perfect thing to hear. Being three Canadian guys they included Ian and Sylvia (Great Speckled Bird) as their favorite Canadian thing going down, which I was playing with at the time. But it never got further than the managers, because all the managers went “Oh, no, no no! No you can’t tape it, you can’t film it. No audio. We have contracts with…” Nobody could just sign the papers and release forms. Jerry had to call everybody personally, man. With Janice it wasn’t such a long distance call, cause she was a next-door neighbor. But with everyone else he had to call and say, “Are you kidding? You don’t see this as being the best thing you’ll ever do in your freaking career?” And like I said, with his enthusiasm, he just torched off a bunch of guys and they all said, “Ah, screw the taping. We’ll do anything you want. It sounds like a real kick.” Even today if you ask anyone who’s still around about their favorite gig is and they’ll say, “That fucking train, man!” All the people that were there, all the people that didn’t even know each other at the time, had so much to say. We all ended up playing for each other, showing off. “Hey this is what my band does, what do you guys do?” It was one of those charming, amazing things.

RockOm: Did you know it was a career changing tour for you? Did you know something had to happen when you stepped off that train?

Buddy Cage: No, I didn’t actually. Apparently the first leg of that train was supposed to be in Montreal so [the bands] all went there. We boarded the train in Toronto as it was winding its way across country. By that time Jerry had already told the New Riders that were with him, “Guys, I gotta leave the band.” That was a tough place to be, I’m sure. But he had to devote time to The Dead again in writing songs and getting things done, producing the band because they owed two albums to Joe Smith at Warner Brothers at the time.

At that time the New Riders were going, “Jesus, Jerry. Thanks a lot man.” But he said, “Don’t worry; we’ll get you another player. We’ll get you a real player, a guy to take this band up the next few levels.” They heard me playing the first date in Toronto and Garcia said to the guys, “There’s the ringer; go get him.” When they approached me on the train it was pretty amazing and [Jerry] asked if I knew what was going to happen. These guys were a pretty sorry looking lot. I said, “Look at these guys. Look at these freaks.” I was dressed out between a cross of Jimi Hendrix and Cream. These guys, holy Jesus, looked like a bunch of Goddamn bikers. Gerry said, “There are no rules. You’ll never be a side man again.” I ended up getting the rest of my contract and things together during the next six months and jumped right in.

RockOm: The New Riders went on to sign with Clive Davis and Columbia.

Buddy Cage: After Woodstock the major labels were signing these west coast bands. Clive being among the west coast labels was eager to take the pitch for the New Riders. He thought if he signed us the Dead won’t be far behind. Actually, it took a few years for that to come down for him. Yeah, it was a great contract for the time. I’m not a label guy anyway. I don’t work under that kind of the pressure, that kind of rip off is completely unacceptable.

RockOm: Well I don’t know personally, but I’ll take your word for it.

Buddy Cage: You’ve heard of AIG? You’ve heard of Bank of America and Wells Fargo, Citibank? Well there you go. All major labels are the same.

RockOm: The major labels are now defunct and probably not coming back.

Buddy Cage: No, they’re not coming back. Goddamn. Just bury them deep. Bury them upside down so they can’t dig themselves out.

RockOm: What do you think of the digital age and music production? Internet radio and downloads. Is that your cup of tea?

Buddy Cage: Well it’s my cup of tea now, isn’t it? Unless you’ve got some other way of doing it. We talked earlier about the recording process, it didn’t take me long to get over the analog-digital controversy. Digital music is just so accessible. Even now, many years later after digital entered the work force we can drop in to various pockets all over the US. Wherever this band was last year from February to December '08, either coast, beginning or ending of the tour, while we were still all together and without incurring other expenses, we could just drop into little home studio deals. You can record anywhere. It’s just been so easy. For us to own our own stuff from the get-go is the key.

RockOm: It’s also easy for your new fans to access your music.

Buddy Cage: Absolutely.

RockOm: Let’s talk a little about music and spirituality. I’ve been told you are an atheist. Was there ever a time in your life where you were religious or spiritual?

Buddy Cage: Never. Religious or spiritual? What do you mean religious or spiritual? It’s not both. I don’t even really go into that in any kind of detail. It just is. It’s not something I need to record [like] writing a book or a pitch. Like we were talking before where you said you heard [the songs on the new album] were done in one or two takes - yeah, that’s spiritual! The feeling you get out of it, no one has to stand at a lectern and tell you and point to you the reasons why it’s good. There it is! There are spiritual things in all forms. I felt very spiritual of the fact that we actually got those rat bastard GOP fuckers out of our lives to a great degree and got Barack Obama in. We did that on a grass roots level. That’s spiritual.

RockOm: Do you think that perhaps in the 60’s and perhaps to a degree today that people confuse a psychedelic or drug induced experience with something spiritual?

Buddy Cage: Sure there’s confusion! If you’re taking drugs, damn right there’s confusion! If you’re ripped - not that I’m condoning it or tearing it apart - I’m not at all. I wouldn't presume to do that. But sure, there’s some kind of effect. To think of it as some kind of religious or spiritual experience, that’s up to the individual. That’s certainly not what I do. I’ve got this dumb guitar, this weird guitar I sat down to when I was a little kid, and no place to go. Talk about spiritual. I don’t know any other way to place it. What are you going to do with this dumb guitar? You gonna go to Nashville? Hell no! I could see from the time I was 15 or 16 what a dead end street that was. Play it this way or that way or you don’t get the job. Do this, do that; well I ain’t the guy to tell this too. I ended up with a rock n' roll head and with a country and western instrument. I became this weird hybrid at the beginning of the 60’s. By the mid 60’s when the music scene was starting to blossom for a lot of free thinkers and unconventional players, I seemed to fit right in because I knew what to do to serve the song, to fit in without trying to step on everybody. It developed into a style and a form through all these many years. There’s something in that. The time found me or I found the time to fit into whatever was happening. I don’t know if I could ever recreate it or preach it because it just isn’t that way, it never has been. That’s just my personal experience. So, falling through the cracks I fell into a pretty cozy place and a lot of people apparently felt the same way I did. That’s spiritual.

RockOm: What kept you and David Nelson and to a degree Robert Hunter together? You’ve had many lineup changes over the years. What is it about you and David and your association with Hunter?

Buddy Cage: Well, we listened to each other. That’s it. With Hunter and Jerry [Garcia], we always considered them a kind of a guide or beacon because they were always coming up with great ideas we could work with and work into, be part of. As far as Nelson and I go in playing in a practical sense, there you go, it’s the same thing. We listen to each other. I like the combinations we come up with. We always listen to each other. There’s little things, little intrigues going on, some places where we go, “Oh no, no, no. We don’t want to do that again!” And a lot of other places where it’s like, “Oh that’s interesting.” The end product [is] as much of a surprise and a source of pleasure for both of us. We’ve managed to be able to create a sound together that involves listening to each other and caring for what each other played. Nelson is a great guitar player on his own as I am on steel guitar, but together we’ve managed to find our way into something that worked for us.

RockOm: In 2005 when you came back together with Michael Falzarano, Ronny Penque, and Johnny Markowski joined you was it hard for them to fit into the groove you two were in? They have been around and on the scene as well.

Buddy Cage: It wasn’t that difficult. Basically the pitch to us from Markowski was, “Let’s just go out and try it and [see] if you can get Nelson out here. We know these great Marmaduke, these great John Marmaduke Dawson tunes and we’ve learned to do them. We want to present them to you.” Nelson, when he came out for the first rehearsal, he found the energy and the love these guys had for these John Dawson tunes. Nelson was quick to point out (and I stand behind him totally) Nelson said, “Please don’t think you have to copy them like side men. Play it in your own spirit.” That’s pretty much what set it off. I’ll jump into anything pretty much because that’s the way I’ve been all my life as a player. “Can you play reggae man? Yeah, sure. What’s the pay scale?” (laughing) But Nelson is very cautious as an individual about what he gets into and the amount of energy he’s going to [exert]. But when he found out how passionate the guys were about Johns tunes he said, “Think of the guys you are replacing, the rest of the playing with come naturally.” And it did.

RockOm: Is this the most fun you’ve had with the New Riders- making this record and touring?

Buddy Cage: I don’t know about the most fun, it’s the most fun I’ve had lately (laughing). It’s the next thing up and it all worked out so well. This is a whole lot of fun. Think of all the albums and experiences we’ve had; there’s so many experiences it’s amazing. This particular one, it’s what’s happening now and it’s just driving us crazy how good this thing worked out. It means so much to us to have a whole ‘nother future going on, a whole new direction rather. Yeah, I’m getting a huge kick out of it.

RockOm: Any plans for the future?

Buddy Cage: NO! These are the plans, you and I doing this interview. This is the future.

www.michaelfalzarano.com

www.thenewriders.com

Tags: Buddy Cage, David Nelson, Festival Express, Ghost Train, Grateful Dead, Jam Band, Jerry Garcia, John Marmaduke Dawson, Johnny Markowski, Michael Falzarano, music, New Riders of the Purple Sage, NRPS, Robert Hunter, RockOm, RockOm.net, Ronny Penque, spirituality, Where I Come From, Woodstock Records, www.thenewriders.com

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