New Riders of the Purple Sage

Like every good Deadhead, sometimes I’ve tried to imagine what it must have been like back in 1964 when Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions played at the Top of the Tangent coffee house in Palo Alto.  As most Deadheads know, it was Mother McCree’s, a band steeped in traditional folk and bluegrass influence, that birthed the band we’ve come to know as the Grateful Dead.  Back then, I don’t think anyone could have imagined that the sprawling lawns of the

Some forty or so years ago in the Summer of Love, tens of thousands of Northern Californians – and soon after, many more Americans – changed their minds about certain aspects of American life.  They decided that spending their lives in the pursuit of fun and a higher wisdom would be preferable to an existence devoted exclusively to getting, spending, and serving corporations.  They decided that all of this would be best accompanied by music.

It’s a curious sight; the art on the cover is by Stanley Mouse. The liner notes include songs written by David Nelson and Robert Hunter. The first song clocks in at nearly eight minutes. When I opened the envelope that contained “Where I Come From” I admit I was a bit puzzled. Surely this had to be a best of compilation or a live recording? However to my surprise, it was neither, it was a new studio album from the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Michael Falzarano is like a hidden hand, we've all heard his music, but many would be surprised by his musical resume. So it might be helpful to start with Michael's past in order to explain how his new album came to be. For over 35 years Falzarano has been a member of some of the more influential groups in jamband history.

There is a new trend in the music industry today, bands which have been broken up for decades reforming suddenly in order to cash in on the pocketbooks and prosperity of their baby-boomer generation fans.