Soviet American Peace Walk video with Jerry Garcia, 1988

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1988. “Soviet American Peace Walk” with Jerry Garcia.
“Goodnight Irene” Jerry Garcia & Zero. Jerry signals my piano solo about halfway through the song.

I had been asked to procure musicians and produce the music for the “Soviet American Peace Walk,” a concert held at the Band Shell in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. The event drew 25,000 people, probably mostly thanks to Jerry Garcia agreeing to come down…but it didn’t hurt that people like Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Mickey Hart, Merle Saunders, Norton Buffalo, John Cipollina, and the band, Zero, and many others also came down to play. It was towards the end of the cold war…but nobody knew that yet, and a large group of Soviet citizens had arranged a peace and goodwill walk across the USA. This was one of the concerts welcoming them to the West Coast.
It was a beautiful day in the park and we had a strict mid-afternoon curfew placed on us by the city. I’d asked Zero to play two songs on their own before switching to the role of back-up band for all the other artists I’d brought down…which they kindly agreed to do. However, in true Zero fashion (I played keys with Zero for a few years, great band), they decided to do what they wanted at the last minute and therefore seamlessly launched into a third song…a very long instrumental. I was playing keyboards all afternoon off to stage left, in order to co-ordinate people coming and going and I had everything planned down to how many songs each of the fifteen musicians would get to play before we had to stop.
I couldn’t believe it when Zero launched into another long tune! I had all these singers and musicians waiting for their turn…including Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick, Mickey hart, and Paul Kantner. I thought the tune would never end and I had to do some quick scrambling and recalculating (while playing piano) to reassess how long everyone’s slot would have to be to make the curfew.
Thanks to my old Zero band mates (who I have to say, sometimes worked very hard at being contrary -:), I had to cut most artists down to two songs each. Don’t get me wrong, I love those Zero guys…we’re all good friends, but still… Anyway, I only cut one of Jerry’s songs as I felt he was the main reason so many people had shown up. It was a fun, if tense (for me anyway) afternoon nevertheless. The overall event organizers, Ron Frazier, Bill McCarthy, and I arranged for a police escort for Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and Steve Parish so they could make a Grateful Dead show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley later that night.

Joan Baez’s sister, Mimi Farina, and I did quite a few shows together around this time. As well as playing shows for her organization, “Bread And Roses,” Mimi and I played a few fundraisers for our non-profit video production company, “Watchfire Productions.”
We also played one memorable folk show on some old railroad tracks just outside Concord Naval base, in California, in support of a couple of hundred grass-roots activists. They were protesting US weapons shipments to the right wing military dictatorships of El Salvador. The El Salvadoran government was killing large numbers of their own people who were simply asking for basic human rights.
Originally, we had intended to set up a little stage on the small grassy area just outside the naval base gates…but the military police had anticipated this and covered the area with barbed wire. We ended up building the stage on another small grassy area outside the base at the end of some rusty old railroad tracks in front of some trees. We used a small generator for the PA. I remember Mimi and myself playing music from her albums plus a few songs from my “Watchfire” album…numbers like “Save Something For The Children.” The whole thing was being closely monitored by the authorities. Military Police cars were buzzing all around us with lights flashing.
It was weird watching this Navy fellow standing on a tower just inside the naval base high fence, videotaping our entire performance. I wonder if it’s lying around in some vault somewhere…I bet they don’t throw much stuff away.
Mimi, who was always so full of life and energy, hiking on Mt Tam, doing good works, eating healthy food, sadly passed away in 2001. We all miss her very much, but the amazing “Bread and Roses” organization she created in 1974 is still going as strong as ever…providing free live music to people confined in institutions – jails, hospitals, juvenile facilities and rest homes.