Relive the Great Dillo Turkey Jam

Over two hours of soundboard recordings from Thanksgiving 1972

Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 23, 1972. You’re listening to KRMH, “Good Karma Radio,” wondering how you’re gonna fill the day when everything’s closed. Going home to your Nixon-loving family is out, unless you want to hear, ad nauseum, how Watergate is a witch hunt and nothing else. “On the line we have Eddie Wilson of the Armadillo World Headquarters with some interesting news,” says the DJ. The venue was scheduled to be closed that day, but it would be open after all for a free show. “A bunch of friends got nowhere else to go today, so they’re gonna be jamming,” Wilson said. Since the Grateful Dead had played at Municipal Auditorium the night before, it didn’t take folks long to figure out they’d be involved. The special surprise was Leon Russell, who had the #2 album in the country that year with Carney. Wilson was tight-lipped about his appearance lest a bunch of townies show up and yell requests for “Tight Rope.”

Eddie’s phone call lit up the day, as the word spread like fire on the mountain: “THE DEAD IS PLAYING A FREE SHOW AT THE DILLO!

It ended up being just Jerry Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh, as the rest of the band was headed to a Thanksgiving feast in Corpus with top tier Deadhead Frances Carr, whose family was prominent there.

Doug Sahm was the instigator/band leader and Mary Egan from Greezy Wheels played the fiddle that sweetened the deal. It would be a country and rock roots revival without rehearsal. The soundboard recording has the musicians too low in the mix, with the vocals out front, but you can feel how great it must’ve been to be there.

Doug Sahm and Sam Kindrick of Action magazine. Photo by Nancy E. Goldfarb LeNoir

The seeds for this superjam were planted the day before when the Armadillo catered the pre-show meal for the Dead, crew and entourage. After chowing down on those legendary shrimp enchiladas, Jerry Garcia looked around the nice-sized hall, and said, “I’d love to play this place.” Within earshot was Eddie W., who said to tell him when. “Well, we’re not doing anything tomorrow,” said Garcia.

Garcia’s good friend Sahm said, “let’s have a jam session, man, and let everyone in for free!” Later that night, Leon Russell was backstage at the Dead show when Garcia asked if he wanted to stop by tomorrow and play some piano and guitar.

The Dillo started filling at three in the afternoon on Thanksgiving, with attendance eventually numbering about a thousand. Garcia, Lesh and Leon were there first, but they weren’t going to start until Sir Doug arrived half an hour later. “Doug knows a thousand songs,” Jerry told Leon. They seemed to play most of them that day. 

Conferring with the bandleader. Photo by Scott Newton.

Soon after the Thanksgiving jam started, a torrential downpour bore down, so one of the first songs played was “Stormy Monday” by T-Bone Walker. Leon later kicked everybody in on a spirited “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” Garcia played more pedal steel than guitar all day, and Leon played more guitar than piano on the first set, which was heavy with country songs, while the second set was more blues and rock. Jerry Barnett of Shiva’s Head Band warmed the drum seat most of the first set, with Greezy Wheels’ Tony Laier and Jim Finney playing drums the second set. Other players came in and out during the two hour plus show that ended early eve with an all-hands-on-deck medley of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and Little Richard’s “Good Golly Miss Molly.” It was a glorious day to be thankful.

It was not a day to be starstruck. After the jam, Jerry Garcia approached adventurous violinist Benny Thurman and asked if he’d consider going on tour with his band. “You’re a starling and I’m a crow, so I must decline,” said Thurman, the former 13^th Floor Elevators bassist, whose mind was often in a faraway zip code. “You don’t want to be in the Grateful Dead?” someone asked the violinist after Garcia, the guy he’d been playing with for an hour, walked away. “Oh, shit,” said Thurman. “Is that who that was?”