Remembering John Kahn: Playing Oregon State Penitentiary With Jerry Garcia

Today marks 20 years since bassist John Kahn passed away after suffering a heart attack at just 48 years old. The longtime musical partner of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia was a fixture alongside his late cohort, contributing to many of Jerry’s non-Dead projects. Kahn was a member of the bluegrass outfit Old & In The Way and appeared with Garcia many times with the pair’s frequent collaborator Merl Saunders including the famed Keystone recordings.

As a session musician Kahn contributed to recordings by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Brewer & Shipley, Otis Rush, Mike Bloomfield, Tom Fogerty and many others. In 1971, Jerry and Howard Wales released the jazz-rock album Hooteroll? which was the first officially issued recording to feature Kahn playing bass alongside Garcia and their relationship would continue through the guitarist’s untimely death in August 1995 at age 53.

Garcia and Kahn often played together in various incarnations of the Jerry Garcia Band and at times staged shows that showcased the duo alone together on stage. One of those performances, their May 5, 1982 concert held at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon is presented below. The concert for the incarcerated mixed songs from the Dead and Garcia’s solo repertoire as well as covers such as Bob Dylan’s “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry” and the traditional “I’ve Been All Around This World.” A particularly poignantly executed “Reuben And Cherise” encore punctuates an overall fantasticly delivered set of acoustic music played by a pair of simpatico performers, listen below via TwinkleRose11:

Setlist

Set: Deep Elem Blues, Friend Of The Devil, Jack-A-Roe, Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie, It Takes A Lot To Laugh It Takes A Train To Cry, Run For The Roses, Ripple, I’ve Been All Around This World, Valerie, Dire Wolf

Encore: Reuben And Cerise