New Riders Of The Purple Sage - The Adventures of Panama Red 1973

One has to wonder if 1973 was the year of drug references in songs...never mind. In any case, The Adventures of Panama Red established the New Riders of the Purple Sage as something more than a Jerry Garcia side project -- which they never were. John Dawson, Spencer Dryden, David Nelson, and Dave Torbert along with pedal steel ace Buddy Cage -- replacing Garcia -- and producer and multi-instrumentalist Norbert Putnam crafted a smoking, hard country-rock and bluegrass hippie record. Also along for the ride were guest vocalists Donna Jean Godchaux from the Grateful Dead and no less than Buffy Sainte-Marie and the Memphis Horns. Trad country it ain't, and dated it is; but nonetheless, Panama Red has considerable charm as a relic from the era. Nelson, Torbert, and Dawson were decent songwriters and enthusiastic performers, and Columbia knew a good thing when they saw one and got behind the album -- which was a minor hit. The title track and "Lonesome L.A. Cowboy," with Cage's whinnying steel, carry a lot of the band's weight and separate them from virtually every other West Coast outfit trying the same thing. The Flying Burrito Brothers were more country and Commander Cody's Lost Planet Airmen swung harder, but one thing the New Riders were more of than anyone was stoned, and these songs with titles like "Important Exportin Man" and "Kick in the Head" and lyrics like "I've been smokin' dope, snortin' coke/Tryin' to write a song/Forgettin' everything I know until the next line comes along" only underline this. The freakiest thing is that the record segues together so beautifully and the songs are so tight with nothing extra between, it feels like it's a lot longer than the mere 29 minutes it is. The listener feels satisfied that after 11 songs it's all been said and done in a delightful way. This endures despite its obvious lyrical stupidity. Musically it can do a lot to teach modern-day alt-country cookie-cutters something about knowing the rules before trying to break them. AMG.

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New Riders of the Purple Sage - New Riders of the Purple Sage 1971

Anyone who enjoyed the Grateful Dead's Workingman's Dead or American Beauty and wanted more, then or now, should get the New Riders of the Purple Sage's eponymous release and follow it with the Riders' next two albums. With Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart in tow, and Jefferson Airplane's Spencer Dryden playing what drums Hart didn't, plus Commander Cody at the piano, New Riders of the Purple Sage is some of the most spaced-out country-rock of the period. Even ignoring the big names working with John Dawson, David Nelson, and Dave Torbert, however, this is a good record, crossing swords with the Byrds, the Burrito Brothers, and even Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and holding its own. Maybe a few of the cuts (especially "Henry") are predictable at times, but mostly, New Riders of the Purple Sage was full of surprises then (the amazingly sweet, brittle guitars, in particular) and has tunes that have held up well: "Portland Woman," "Whatcha Gonna Do," "I Don't Know You," and "Louisiana Lady," not to mention the eight leisurely paced minutes of acid-country found in "Dirty Business." There are no added notes, but they'd hardly be vital -- the album is an open book. AMG.

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New Riders Of The Purple Sage - Brujo 1974

Harking back to the era of singers who did not write their own songs, most record contracts continued to call for two albums a year in the 1970s, a provision most recording artists seemed to ignore. But Brujo was the New Riders of the Purple Sage's sixth album in just over three years. (That includes the band's previous release, Home, Home on the Road, a live LP from earlier in 1974, half of which consisted of previously unrecorded tunes.) Maybe it's not surprising, then, that a group which, on its debut, New Riders of the Purple Sage, in 1971, seemed like a songwriting vehicle for singer/guitarist John Dawson, has had to scrounge around for songs to fill up its albums. One source of material was singer/bassist Dave Torbert, who leaned in a rock & roll direction. But on Brujo he's been replaced by veteran Skip Battin, who has been kicking around the music business since the days of Skip & Flip and most recently was in the Byrds. In fact, with Dawson contributing only the nostalgic leadoff track, "Old Man Noll," the country-rocker "Instant Armadillo Blues," and the macabre story-song "Parson Brown," Battin, with his songwriting partner Kim Fowley, is the dominant voice and pen on the second half of this LP. Four of the last six songs are in his L.A. country-pop novelty style, so that the album can seem less like a New Riders record than a follow-up to Battin's solo album Skip. Happily, before that the band has found some appropriate outside material, including another of its discoveries from the country charts of the 1960s, Don Gibson's 1968 hit "Ashes of Love," as well as a good take on Bob Dylan's "You Angel You" from his comeback album Planet Waves of earlier in 1974. Also, lead guitarist David Nelson has collaborated successfully with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter on "Crooked Judge." Still, the addition of Battin skews what used to be a bunch of San Francisco hippie cowboys into much more of a Southern California-style group. AMG.

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New Riders Of The Purple Sage - Powerglide 1972

The group's second album is pretty much definitive, especially in its remastered version from Columbia's Legacy division (issued in 1996), which has really crisp, loud sound. Joe Maphis' "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)" is a great opener, a honky tonk-style number featuring David Nelson's lead vocals and Nicky Hopkins' piano sharing the spotlight with Nelson's and John Dawson's axes. The guitars on Dawson's "Rainbow" are nearly pretty enough to be a Flying Burrito Brothers or Poconumber. Most of what follows is as good or better, especially Dave Torbert's "California Day" and "Contract," and Dawson's "Sweet Lovin' One." The one letdown is their cover of "Hello Mary Lou," a flat, dullish rendition that could be any bad country-rock bar band, and which isn't going to make anyone forget the numerous versions before and since -- they do somewhat better with Johnny Otis' "Willie and the Hand Jive." Powerglide is a fun record and offers one virtue that the Dead, in particular, sometimes forgot -- they know how to end a song. Jerry Garcia is present on banjo ("Sweet Lovin' One," "Duncan and Brady") and piano ("Lochinvar") -- Bill Kreutzmann and Nicky Hopkins also turn up -- but the best lead guitar work here comes courtesy of David Nelson and Buddy Cage, who plays the pedal steel. AMG.

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New Riders Of The Purple Sage - Gypsy Cowboy 1972

Gypsy Cowboy was the New Riders of the Purple Sage's second album of 1972, released only seven months after its predecessor, Powerglide, and was also the group's third album in 15 months, which may help explain why the original material, written separately by John Dawson and Dave Torbert, was not impressive. Dawson as usual contributed some twangy country-pop including romantic tributes and reminiscences about the Gold Rush and bootleg whiskey, but nothing really memorable. (His eight-minute "Death and Destruction" provided opportunities for David Nelson to play some stinging electric guitar leads, even if it was essentially a rewrite of Neil Young & Crazy Horse's "Down by the River.") Torbert's contributions were even slighter, from his spacy title song ("Let's roll another number") to the by-the-numbers rocker "Groupie." And the New Riders continued to seem like inferior interpreters of others' songs, as their take on "Long Black Veil" was generic country-rock. The band had almost completely spun off from the Grateful Dead by now; the only contribution from the parent act was the appearance of Dead singer Donna Jean Godchaux on backup vocals on a couple of tunes. Gypsy Cowboy did not demonstrate that they couldn't ride alone, but it did suggest that they ought to pause and come up with some first-rate original material before entering the recording studio again, something they proved unable to do. [The 2007 reissue of the album by Wounded Bird Records added four previously released live versions of the songs, three of them culled from the 1974 LPHome, Home on the Road, produced by Jerry Garcia.] AMG.

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New Riders of the Purple Sage - New Riders of the Purple Sage 1971

Anyone who enjoyed the Grateful Dead's Workingman's Dead or American Beauty and wanted more, then or now, should get the New Riders of the Purple Sage's eponymous release and follow it with the Riders' next two albums. With Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart in tow, and Jefferson Airplane's Spencer Dryden playing what drums Hart didn't, plus Commander Cody at the piano, New Riders of the Purple Sage is some of the most spaced-out country-rock of the period. Even ignoring the big names working with John Dawson, David Nelson, and Dave Torbert, however, this is a good record, crossing swords with the Byrds, the Burrito Brothers, and even Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and holding its own. Maybe a few of the cuts (especially "Henry") are predictable at times, but mostly, New Riders of the Purple Sage was full of surprises then (the amazingly sweet, brittle guitars, in particular) and has tunes that have held up well: "Portland Woman," "Whatcha Gonna Do," "I Don't Know You," and "Louisiana Lady," not to mention the eight leisurely paced minutes of acid-country found in "Dirty Business." There are no added notes, but they'd hardly be vital -- the album is an open book. AMG.

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New Riders Of The Purple Sage - Powerglide 19722

The group's second album is pretty much definitive, especially in its remastered version from Columbia's Legacy division (issued in 1996), which has really crisp, loud sound. Joe Maphis' "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)" is a great opener, a honky tonk-style number featuring David Nelson's lead vocals and Nicky Hopkins' piano sharing the spotlight with Nelson's and John Dawson's axes. The guitars on Dawson's "Rainbow" are nearly pretty enough to be a Flying Burrito Brothers or Poco number. Most of what follows is as good or better, especially Dave Torbert's "California Day" and "Contract," and Dawson's "Sweet Lovin' One." The one letdown is their cover of "Hello Mary Lou," a flat, dullish rendition that could be any bad country-rock bar band, and which isn't going to make anyone forget the numerous versions before and since -- they do somewhat better with Johnny Otis' "Willie and the Hand Jive." Powerglide is a fun record and offers one virtue that the Dead, in particular, sometimes forgot -- they know how to end a song. Jerry Garcia is present on banjo ("Sweet Lovin' One," "Duncan and Brady") and piano ("Lochinvar") -- Bill Kreutzmann and Nicky Hopkins also turn up -- but the best lead guitar work here comes courtesy of David Nelson and Buddy Cage, who plays the pedal steel. AMG. listen here