Yup @j_damon, I bought the Old & In The Way album at the time of it’s original release, as previously mentioned somewhere here. I agree, the Dead were a live band, not a studio one. However, their first three studio albums captured them pretty well. When I saw them in ’67, they sounded just like the first album.
The Dead and The Band did that famous tour across Canada in a train together, along with Janis Joplin. There are pics of Janis and Band bassist/singer Rick Danko singing together (Danko simultaneously playing a mandolin. All the members of The Band were multi-instrumentalists. Pianist Richard Manual was a great drummer, playing most the drums on The Basement Tapes, and half the songs on The Band’s brown album), with Garcia in the background.
When The Band played The Hollywood Bowl in 1970, they were given carte blanche for their opening act. Guitarist Robbie Robertson and organist Garth Hudson were huge fans of pianist Bill Evans, with whom Miles’ drummer Jack DeJohnette had worked, so they had Miles open the show. The two bands did some jamming together, though without Miles. DeJohnette and Band drummer/singer Levon Helm became lifelong friends.
