THEN1: Backed by a “wall of sound,” singer-guitarists Jerry Garcia (left) and Bob Weir with the rest of the Grateful Dead perform May 25, 1974, at Campus Stadium of the University of California, Santa Barbara. (Steve Schneider)NOW1: Bathed in colors and a “gorge-ous” backdrop, The Dead & Company performs July 7 at The Gorge Amphitheatre. At center is longtime band member Bob Weir. (Steve Schneider)
Published in The Seattle Times online on Aug. 10, 2023
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Aug. 13, 2023
Photographer grateful his images can ‘hit the moment in time’
By Clay Eals
You grow up an ordinary guy on the outskirts of Los Angeles. You’re not great at academics, but in the late 1960s you pick up a camera and shoot for the high-school newspaper and yearbook. Later, you work at McDonalds and a Ford plant. You deliver sailboats around the country. In 1979, you move north, bouncing from Granite Falls to Green Lake to the Alaska town of Valdez and, finally, to Shoreline.
NOW2: Photographer Steve Schneider at West Seattle’s Husky Deli. (Clay Eals)
All the while, you immerse yourself in enormous concerts by the biggest names in rock, blues, country and folk, your camera a constant companion. Over more than 50 years, you amass a rare archive.
You’re Steve Schneider, whose musically panoramic imagery fills “The First Three Songs: Rock & Roll at 125th of a Second,” a 220-page coffee-table compendium whose title alludes to the brief time at the opening of shows when promoters typically let photojournalists work up close. The tome bolsters Schneider’s uncomplicated mantra: “It’s always been about excitement, about fun. I just want to get the shot.”
NOW3: The cover of Steve Schneider’s book “The First Three Songs.” He held a book-signing Aug. 17, 2023, at Easy Street Records in West Seattle. More info: SteveSchneiderPhoto.net. (Courtesy Steve Schneider)
The 71-year-old has earned day-job pay from documenting conventions of professional associations and occasional journalistic assignments (UPI had him shoot a 1984 Seattle campaign visit by Democratic VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro, see below). But nights and weekends are a different story.
A happy book-buyer chats with Steve Schneider and Cathy Floit at Steve’s signing event Aug. 17, 2023, at Easy Street Records in West Seattle. (Clay Eals)
His “Who’s Who” concert subjects range from CSNY to Pearl Jam, Dylan to Cobain, Bonnie Raitt to Carlos Santana, Willie Nelson to Paul Simon, to McCartney, Clapton, Jagger, Springsteen, Bowie and, yes, the Who. Whew!
Schneider’s most enduring focus, however, has been the trippy Grateful Dead, known for its freeform shows and faithful “Deadheads.” He has seen at least 100 Dead concerts. More than 20 appear in the book.
THEN2: Jerry Garcia plays at the Dead’s last Seattle concert on May 25, 1995, at Memorial Stadium. After Garcia died at 53 on Aug. 9, 1995, this portrait appeared full-page one week later in a Time magazine tribute. (Steve Schneider)
His Dead shots began with a May 25, 1974, gig at UC Santa Barbara featuring then-beardless leader Jerry Garcia. Exactly 21 years later, Schneider captured a greying Garcia at his last Seattle concert, at Memorial Stadium. Garcia died 76 days later at age 53, and Schneider’s portrait filled a page in Time magazine’s tribute.
The band persisted in various forms, most recently as The Dead & Company, which disbanded in July. Its fourth- and fifth-to-last shows were at The Gorge Amphitheatre. Schneider was there, part of “the family.”
For the Dead, and all of Schneider’s star subjects, the most compelling factor has been the music itself. “It once was all new,” he says. “The songs hit the moment in time. Today you enjoy the song, and it brings back good memories. I just preserve a bit of history, that moment in time that I saw.”
You might say it’s what keeps his Dead soul alive.
THEN3: Carlos Santana performs Sept. 9, 1995, at The Gorge Amphitheatre. (Steve Schneider)THEN4:: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (from left: Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young) perform July 16, 1974, at Arizona’s Tempe Stadium. (Steve Schneider)THEN5:: Emmylou Harris performs April 23, 1977, at Irvine Bowl, Laguna Beach, California. (Steve Schneider)THEN6: Robert Cray performs Nov. 12, 2019, at the Edmonds Center for the Arts. (Steve Schneider)
WEB EXTRAS
Thanks to Steve Schneider for his invaluable help with this installment!
2 thoughts on “Seattle Now & Then: Grateful Dead, 1974, UC Santa Barbara”
As I understand it, the Grateful Dead performed at the first Sky River festival in 1968. They heard about the festival and came up to see it but were not initially booked for it.
The earliest Dead performance in Seattle may have been at Golden Gardens park. I can’t remember if it was in the Summer of 1967, although more likely the summer of 1968, I went to Golden Gardens to bring Paul Dorpat an article about a Seattle Folklore Society concert to put in the next edition of the Helix. He was there because he was involved in producing the Dead concert there. Paul urged me to stick around to hear the band, but I wasn’t particularly interested and didn’t stay.
I got more interested in the Dead ten years later when they covered “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”, a song by my first client, Elizabeth Cotten. They did it so she would get the royalties from it. That’s when I got they were very interested in not only paying homage to the sources of their music, but wanted to help them out in tangible ways, too. I think their generosity and kindness is what really made them unique and so immensely popular. To really understand how that worked for the Dead, read “Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead”. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11033232-everything-i-know-about-business-i-learned-from-the-grateful-dead
As I understand it, the Grateful Dead performed at the first Sky River festival in 1968. They heard about the festival and came up to see it but were not initially booked for it.
The earliest Dead performance in Seattle may have been at Golden Gardens park. I can’t remember if it was in the Summer of 1967, although more likely the summer of 1968, I went to Golden Gardens to bring Paul Dorpat an article about a Seattle Folklore Society concert to put in the next edition of the Helix. He was there because he was involved in producing the Dead concert there. Paul urged me to stick around to hear the band, but I wasn’t particularly interested and didn’t stay.
I got more interested in the Dead ten years later when they covered “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”, a song by my first client, Elizabeth Cotten. They did it so she would get the royalties from it. That’s when I got they were very interested in not only paying homage to the sources of their music, but wanted to help them out in tangible ways, too. I think their generosity and kindness is what really made them unique and so immensely popular. To really understand how that worked for the Dead, read “Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead”.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11033232-everything-i-know-about-business-i-learned-from-the-grateful-dead