Word: sage
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first thing that became apparent was that the New Riders of the Purple Sage have no business on a stage with the Grateful Dead. They are a very neat group within the limitations of tight, well-rehearsed material. But I would be reticent about endeavoring to present any of my own compositions as back up at a Bob Dylan concert. Unfortunately for Marmaduke et al. (Garcia was sorely missed on pedal steel), when they put their musical cards on the table, they simply did not have the hand. Only once did they attempt to break out of the dreary cowboy...
...rhetorical flourish with which Shakespeare endowed him, and the brilliant soliloquy of the first act ("This is the excellent foppery of the world...") is shortened and presented as part of a dialogue between Edmund and his brother. Jack McGowran's Fool is more than competent but too clearly the sage unrecognized. And, incomprehensibly, Brook leaves out two of the best lines in the play, Lear's dying "Pray you undo this button," and Kent's "Break, heart; I prithee break," after his king's death...
...Sage in Motley. What has Brook done with this ravening epic of the thankless daughters and their wild old fool of a father? He has had to cut it to prevent it from being grindingly long. The cuts have weakened the cumulative impact, and in specific instances the weakness can be felt. A diminished interplay between Lear and his Fool (Jack...
MacGowran) reduces the full irony that the Fool is a sage in motley...
...Riders of the Purple Sage look like a cross between the Grateful Dead and a gospel choir. And in a way, they are. They got started around two years ago when the Dead, in their infinite rock-wisdom, began to "get into" country rock. The band introduced a new concert format: instead of five hours of Electric Dead. Bill Kreutzmann (drums), Phil Lesh (bass), Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (acoustic guitars and vocals) would play "country Dead" for an hour. The songs were those later to comprise Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, along with other country and spiritual tunes...