Flashback: JamBase Launches ‘Songs Of Their Own’ Videos Series 1 Year Ago

One year ago today, the JamBase Grateful Dead 50th anniversary cover series Songs Of Their Own debuted with the first of 50 daily video installments. Teaming with Connecticut-based TELEFUNKEN, we launched the first edition on May 17, 2015 and continued for 50 consecutive days, culminating on July 5, 2015 to coincide with the date of the final Fare Thee Well – Celebrating 50 Years Of Grateful Dead concert held at Soldier Field in Chicago. To mark the anniversary of the release of the first Songs Of Their Own video, here’s a look back at our tribute to the legendary Bay Area rock band.

Like many of the videos in the series, the first installment was filmed at JamBase headquarters in San Francisco. Each playing acoustic guitars, Luther Dickinson & Anders Osborne performed a moving cover of “Black Muddy River,” setting a high bar for those who would follow. JB HQ also hosted performances of Dead tunes by the likes of Hot Buttered Rum, Strangefolk, The Brothers Comatose, Con Brio, Reed Mathis & Cochrane McMillan, Alex Bleeker & The Freaks and several others.

Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads venue in nearby San Rafael hosted a number of SOTO performers such as Keller Williams, Leftover Salmon, Incidental Animals and Midnight North. A number of Bay Area locations also served as scenes for tapings, such as Yonder Mountain String Band at the Fox Theater in Oakland, Jackie Greene at Great American Music Hall, Holly Bowling at the Cadillac Hotel, John Scofield & John Medeski at Stanford’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium and Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers at High Sierra Music Festival.

TELEFUNKEN studios in South Windsor, Connecticut was also home to many SOTO recordings. Among the roster of artists who laid down recordings at our East Coast affiliate were Max Creek, Beau Sasser’s Escape Plan, The Z3, West End Blend, FiKus, Ryan Montbleau & Stephane Wrembel, ShwizZ and Todd Stoops & Hayley Jane.

For the finale JamBase partnered with Playing For Change to produce “Ripple” featuring musicians from around the globe including David Crosby, Jimmy Buffett, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Jerry Garcia’s daughter Keelin Garcia and Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann. “Ripple” was released on July 5 and shown during the Fare Thee Well webcast as well as included on the official DVD/Blu-Ray release. Each of the 50 covers – all of which were original songs written by the Grateful Dead with no repeats – can be viewed in the playlist below: