Grateful Dead / New Riders of the Purple Sage / Commander Cody (opening)
San Francisco
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Rubber Duck Co.
The Grateful Dead opened two nights at the Family Dog on the Great Highway with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Commander Cody and the Rubber Duck Company.
The New Riders at this point were essentially a Grateful Dead side project — Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel in a country band with John Dawson and David Nelson — and the pairing on one bill is the clearest sign of where the Dead were heading in 1969, toward the country-inflected records they made the following year. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen brought western swing and rockabilly. The whole card is a long way from 1967.
Verification Notes
ANTAGONIST-CHECKED. COAU FD index: 'August 29-30, 1969 / Family Dog on the Great Highway / Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Commander Cody, Rubber Duck Co. / FD-690829 / Unknown'. HONEST GAP: designer is listed by the primary source as Unknown -- not guessed. Date-coded 1969 Family Dog catalog (the GHY/FD-yymmdd convention). Dead run is Aug 29-30 ONLY. COAU Family Dog index: 'August 29-30, 1969 / Family Dog on the Great Highway / Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Commander Cody, Rubber Duck Co. / FD-690829 / Unknown'. Opening night. HONEST GAP: the primary source records the designer as Unknown — not guessed.
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