Friday at The Fillmore ~ “Turn On Your Love Light” ~ Grateful Dead, Greg & Duane Allman, Barry Oakley, Peter Greene & more…..

On Monday I started with Detroit’s Bob Seger’s rendition.

Bobby Bland got first strike with this song, but never did he do it like the Grateful Dead who got second strike in 1966. And certainly not what turned out to be the jam of a historical proportion with members of The Allman Brothers Band & Fleetwood Mack joining them on stage.

Friday At The Fillmore ~ Down By The River ~ Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Written By Neil Young
Album: Live at the Fillmore East recorded March 6-7, 1970.

Neil Young – guitar, vocals
Danny Whitten – guitar, vocals
Jack Nitzsche – electric piano
Billy Talbot – bass
Ralph Molina – drums, backing vocals

This was the first live release and last tour that featured Danny Whitten who died in 1972. The tour which included a stop in N.Y. for the Fillmore performances was to support their May 14, 1969 release of Young’s second album, ” Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere ” and was the first album being backed by Crazy Horse.

Although Whitten wrote songs, played and contributed on more of Young’s albums and recorded one album with Crazy Horse in 1971.

Addicted to heroin during the recording of 1970 album ” After The Gold Rush ” Young dismissed the whole band before the album was finished and in 1972 ultimately it was Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina who fired Whitten from Crazy Horse.

“The Needle and the Damage Done” was actually Young’s expression for Whitten’s destruction of talent caused by his drug use. In Oct. of 1972 Young contacted Whitten for the final time wanting him for rhythm guitar for the upcoming tour behind Young’s “Harvest” album but was so drugged out of it he couldn’t even cut it during rehearsals. Young fired him on Nov. 18th, gave him a plane ticket and $50 dollars to get him back to L.A.

Later that night Danny Whitten O’D on Valiums and Vodka. Another sad ending to such a talented individual.

“Down By The River” was just one of many standards that to today Young still plays at his concerts. As far as I’m concerned everything he wrote and every performance he played on, at or with whom is a standard.

In reality Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young wrote the soundtrack of my adolescence. They never wrote or performed a bad song between the four of them.

Friday At The Fillmore ~ Joe Cocker ~ Mad Dogs and Englishmen ~ Cry Me A River

Written by Arthur Hamilton.
Recorded March 27–28, 1970 at Fillmore East, New York.

Friday At The Fillmore ~ Derek & The Dominoes ~ Let It Rain.

Friday At The Fillmore ~ Mountain ~ Baby I’m Down

Written by Felix and Gail Collins Pappalardi.

This version was recorded on New Year’s Eve – Dec. 31, 1970 at The Fillmore East.

Leslie West – guitar, vocals
Felix Pappalardi – bass, vocals
Laurence “Corky” Laing – drums
Steve Knight – organ