Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-2-1971, Part 1: The Rowan Brothers with Jerry Garcia

Here's the first set from the third day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Rowan Brothers with Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.

First off, note that this third day of these closing concerts was basically "Jerry Garcia Day." That's because there were three musical acts, and Garcia performed with all three of them. For once in this series, I know the order of the performances, and the Rowan Brothers were first.

The main reason Garcia sat in for this show was because it was a chance for him to play pedal steel guitar in public, instead of his usual electric guitar, and he was really enjoying doing that around this time. David Grisman also played mandolin through this set. He would often collaborate with Garica, as well as Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, in later years. Furthermore, Bill Kreutzmann, one of the two drummers for the Grateful Dead, was the drummer for this set.

Here's some excerpts of what their Wikipedia entry has to say about them: 

"The Rowans, also known as The Rowan Brothers, are an American country-rock group, originally formed by the brothers Chris Rowan and Lorin Rowan. They were joined by another brother, Peter Rowan, for their second, third and fourth album. Chris and Lorin were raised close to Boston, but in the beginning of 1970, they moved to the West Coast to pursue their music. In 1971, they opened for Grateful Dead as their first gig in San Francisco. Their first album, The Rowan Brothers, was issued on Columbia Records. It was very well critically acclaimed, [but didn't sell well]. The album included such guests as Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann of Grateful Dead and was co-produced by David Grisman. The group had problems after the first record because their benefactor, Clive Davis, lost his job at Columbia. They were signed to Asylum Records as the Rowans and issued their next album in 1975, this time joined by their more famous brother, Peter Rowan, who brought in such hits as 'Midnight Moonlight' and 'Thunder on the Mountain.' After releasing three albums as a trio, Peter left the group to pursue bluegrass music."

Here's the link to the entry:

The Rowans - Wikipedia 

This album is 30 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Rowan Brothers)
02 Hickory Day (Rowan Brothers)
03 Heavens to Betsy (Rowan Brothers)
04 talk (Rowan Brothers)
05 Outside Clover (Rowan Brothers)
06 talk (Rowan Brothers)
07 Don't You Worry about a Thing (Rowan Brothers)
08 Better Off Dead (Rowan Brothers)
09 Peace and Happiness (Rowan Brothers)
10 Mama Don't You Cry (Rowan Brothers)
11 Livin' the Life on the Farm (Rowan Brothers)
12 talk (Rowan Brothers)
13 Move On Down (Rowan Brothers)

https://bestfile.io/en/zyQxlTa8C3t0fOd/file

I couldn't find any good photos of the Rowan Brothers from this concert, or any other concert of this era, for that matter. I did find a photo of the two of them posing with guitars out on a hilltop with a forest behind them, in black and white. I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. I also got rid of the forest background, and replaced it with darkness.