The whole subject of Traffic at the Anderson, and the live tape and the 'lost album' is subject to a very tangled chronology. Here is what I have been able to determine.
11.14.70 Fillmore East Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention/Sha-Na-Na/JF Murphy and Salt Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were headlining Friday and Saturday night (the 13th and 14th). The Jefferson Airplane had played the Capitol Theater in Port Chester on Friday the 13th. On the 14th, Grace Slick comes on stage and announces on behalf of Bill Graham that the Dead and the Airplane will be playing a surprise concert at the Fillmore East on Monday, November 16th. This weekend, the Dead were playing in Brooklyn (46th Street Rock Palace). The Airplane were playing Syracuse on Sunday the 15th, and both the Dead and the Airplane had numerous gigs in the New York area in the next 12 days, but Monday seemed to be a free night. 11.16.70 Fillmore East Grateful Dead/Hot Tuna A very pregnant Grace Slick is unable to make the Fillmore East show, but apparently Hot Tuna substitutes for them on the bill. As the entry in Deadlists shows, Jorma, Jack and Papa John Creach participate on numerous songs with the Dead. Steve Winwood also sits in on organ. Traffic was scheduled to play Fillmore East on Wednesday and Thursday (11.18-19.70) of the week. The fact that this show was a late, mid-week addition explains why Fillmore East handbills and programs never mention the 11.16.70 show--it wasn't even announced until a few days before the show, so it was never part of any schedule, nor is it listed in the fine list at the end of Amalie Rothschild's book Live At Fillmore East. 11.18-19.70 Fillmore East Traffic/Cat Stevens/Hammer Traffic, with its new four-piece lineup, headlines Fillmore East and records a live album. The album is ostensibly lost, and definitely scrapped, for various complicated reasons, detailed at <http://www.winwoodfans.com/live70.htm> 11.23.70 Anderson Theater Hell's Angels Benefit Grateful Dead/NRPS: possibly Traffic. This event is shrouded in confusion. A Grateful Dead tape has circulated for many years dated 11.23.70, with Steve Winwood and others sitting in. A reputedly excellent (though unheard by me) live Traffic board tape dated 11.23.70 has also circulated. Since Traffic only had the four-piece lineup very briefly (Winwood, Wood, Capaldi, Grech), it is easy to insure that the tape is from this period. Legend has it that this tape was recorded by the Dead's sound crew when Traffic opened for them at the Anderson Theater benefit. PRO: Rock Scully, in his book Living With The Dead, describes this event in some detail (p.201 and following). The Anderson was a rundown theater near the Fillmore East, and this event was a personal favor for the Hells Angels. A generator had to be hired to provide power. Scully recalls The Dead, Riders, Traffic and Ramblin Jack playing the event. It is easy to criticize Scully's book as he his memory is well-pickled by drugs and time (as he cheerily admits) and his co-writer's research was not exactly University quality. Nonetheless, Scully was actually there. The key question in my mind is whether Scully recalls Traffic members being there--which I don't doubt--or recalls the band actually playing an entire set. The Anderson Theater gig sounded like a giant party. I wouldn't be surprised if Traffic had come out and played a few numbers on the Dead's equipment, but that's hardly proof of an entire show. By the same token, anything is possible. CON: Bill Graham's announcement of the show points towards a Fillmore East recording, unless there was some pranksterish editing involved. What were the Dead and their crew doing on 11.18.70? We know they had gigs later in the week (11.20.70 Rochester, for example), so they hadn't left town. We also know that soundman John Chester had set up a taping system at Fillmore East (from Dick's Picks). It seems perfectly plausible that enterprising Dead crew members collabarated with the local soundmen to make a tape of their friends for their own edification. This begs the question, however, of why the tape is labeled 11.23.70 instead of 11.18.70. Another possiblity, of course, is that Traffic simply gave the Dead a dub of a board tape from the live recordings. This still begs the question of why the show is misdated, but it implies an easy answer: UA Records would not have been comfortable with a board tape that they paid for circulating freely, so Traffic (clearly not friends with their company at this point anyway) simply asserted that it was recorded at the Anderson on 11.23.70. Since everyone was high as a kite, and no record company people were likely at a Monday night Hell's Angels Benefit in the East Village, it was a plausible cover story. Of course, none of these suppostions prove anything. No doubt the real story is even better, should we ever get to hear it. corry Corry Arnold Project Director AMEX Market Operations American Stock Exchange 86 Trinity Place, New York, NY 10006 212/306-1821 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
