http://www.pacificsun.com/news/show_story.php?id=2018&e=y
Grateful Dead's Kreutzmann taps the spirit of the Crescent City
by Greg Cahill
July 30, 2010
Ask Bill Kreutzmann how he feels about his new band and the
ex-Grateful Dead drummer is emphatic. "It's a dream come true," he
says, during a phone interview from Boulder, Colorado, where he's
playing with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart and the Rhythm
Devils. "I mean, I've always wanted to play New Orleans music."
Kreutzmann, a Bay Area native and former-longtime Marin resident, is
most identified with the premier band of the 1960s San Francisco
scene. But his roots are in the Crescent City: Kreutzmann's mother, a
former dance instructor at Stanford University, was a New Orleans
native. "I guess I have New Orleans in the blood," he says. "I've
always wanted to play New Orleans music. I especially loved the
Meters [the seminal New Orleans funk band. I remember hearing their
first album [in 1969, the one with [bassist George Porter on it, and
thinking, wouldn't it be great to be able to play that music someday.
"And now I'm playing New Orleans music with George Porter.
"How great is that?"
That new band is 7 Walkers. It formed last year around Kreutzmann and
guitarist Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne, of Shreveport, Louisiana. In
2008, Kreutzmann met the gifted guitarist at the Oregon Country Fair.
"We just got along so well," Kreutzmann recalls, "but he gets along
with everyonehe's a really sweet guy with a big, big heart.
"That last night at the country fair, we played until four in the
morningwe just couldn't stop."
The pair performed a series of gigs that culminated last year at a
recording session in Austin, Texas. Grateful Dead lyricist Robert
Hunter sent a batch of songs for the recording project. The band
found its name in one of Hunter's songs.
"This band has a New Orleans flavorit has a gumbo feeling,"
Kreutzmann muses. "It isn't the Meters and it isn't the Neville
Brothersit's our version of that."
The band returns to the Bay Area next week for a pair of shows. The
firstwith Moonaliceis a masquerade party in celebration of the late
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. The secondwith Big Chief Monk
Boudereaux and the Mardi Gras Indiansbenefits relief efforts on the
Gulf Coast.
"You can't do enough for those folks who have been devastated by the
oil spill," Kreutzmann says. "I'm really saddened by all of thisI
have so many friends in New Orleans . . . this just hurts."
After Garcia's death in 1995, Kreutzmann took a few years off from
the music scene. He returned to the stage in 1998 with Backbone, a
trio that also featured guitarist Rick Barnett and bassist Edd Cook.
In 2000, he joined former bandmates Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Mickey
Hart in the Other Ones. He continued that association after the band
changed its name to the Dead.
Kreutzmann makes no bones about the post-Garcia bands he's formed
with his former Dead bandmates. "The Grateful Dead was at its best
when Jerry was alive, of coursethat was the real Grateful Dead. The
Other Ones and the Dead were really fine bands, but without Jerry,
it's not the same."
Still, in 7 Walkers, Kreutzmann has found an unexpected connection to Garcia.
"Papa Mali has a lot in common with Jerryhe's really charismatic and
he holds a lot of love for people," Kreutzmann says. "He has a giant
hearthe never has a bad word for anybody, well, unless it's a flight
attendant who won't let him put his guitar in the plane's overhead
luggage compartment," he adds with a laugh.
"But Papa has such a great voice and his slide playing . . . is miraculous."
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