New Riders of the Purple Sage: Panama Red and the Sausalito Years

In 1973, the New Riders of the Purple Sage stepped off the road, walked into Record Plant Sausalito, and came out with the first gold record of their career. The album was The Adventures of Panama Red. Its title song, written by Peter Rowan, became an FM radio staple.

The band kept coming back to 2200 Bridgeway. Over the next eight years the New Riders made records there for three labels, with a changing cast of bass players and producers. They also brought home a live album recorded on the other side of the country.

A band that grew out of the Dead

The New Riders came out of the San Francisco scene in 1969. Jerry Garcia co-founded the band with John “Marmaduke” Dawson and David Nelson. Garcia played pedal steel in the original lineup, which included several members of the Grateful Dead.

By 1973 Garcia was no longer in the band. The group that came to Sausalito had Dawson and Nelson on guitars, Dave Torbert on bass, Buddy Cage on pedal steel, and Spencer Dryden on drums. Dryden had come from Jefferson Airplane.

Four weeks with Norbert Putnam

It was a crowded year. The band's official history lists dates with the Grateful Dead at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco and RFK Stadium in Washington. Between those dates, the New Riders booked the Record Plant with producer Norbert Putnam.

Putnam was a Nashville bassist and producer. Bear Family Records recounts his working standard: a take was good if Dryden got through it without dropping a drumstick. By Bear Family's account, the sessions ran four weeks.

Tom Flye engineered the tracking. The credits add John Stronach and Bobby Hughes as associate engineers, with Tom Anderson, Phil Brown, and Bob Edwards on the crew. Putnam mixed the album at Quadrafonic Studios in Nashville. The Sausalito room holds the recording, not the final mix.

The guest list reads like a map of the band's world. Donna Jean Godchaux of the Grateful Dead sang on two tracks. Buffy Sainte-Marie sang on two more. Robert Hunter, the Dead's lyricist, wrote “Kick in the Head.” The Memphis Horns played arrangements they worked out with Putnam.

Columbia released the album in the fall of 1973. It reached No. 55 on the Billboard chart. The band's history calls it their first gold record, and Bear Family calls it their best-selling album.

The same song, twice in one year

Peter Rowan wrote two songs on the album: “Panama Red” and “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy.” That same year Rowan was playing both in another band.

On April 21, 1973, Old & In the Way played the Record Plant for a KSAN broadcast. “Panama Red” and “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy” were both in the set, along with Rowan's “Land of the Navajo.”

The archive does not yet date the New Riders sessions closely enough to say which version reached the building first. Either way, the song came through the same address twice that year. It came once as bluegrass on live radio and once as a country-rock single.

A live album mixed at home

The New Riders' first live album was not recorded in Sausalito. It came back to Sausalito to be finished.

In November 1973 the band toured the East Coast. The official history says the run set a box office record at New York's Academy of Music, and that the tour was recorded for a live album. The album credits identify the recording truck as Record Plant's East Coast mobile unit.

Jerry Garcia produced the result, Home, Home on the Road. Tom Flye is credited as recording and remix engineer, with Bob Edwards as sound engineer and Tom Lubin as assistant. The Discogs credits place the mix at Record Plant Sausalito.

Columbia released the album in April 1974. Andy Stein, on loan from Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, added baritone sax to “School Days.” The archive record names no venue or date for individual tracks. That gap stays open here.

Brujo and a new bass player

Dave Torbert left early in 1974 to form Kingfish with Matthew Kelly and Bob Weir. Skip Battin, formerly of the Byrds, took over on bass.

That summer the band was back in Sausalito. The liner notes for Brujo place the recording at Record Plant Sausalito in July and August 1974.

Ed Freeman produced and played mellotron. Bob Edwards and Kurt Kinzel are credited as recording engineers. Mark Naftalin and Neil Larsen played keyboards, and Armando Peraza added bongos. Battin wrote four songs with Kim Fowley. Columbia pulled Bob Dylan's “You Angel You” as the single.

Bob Edwards is the quiet thread in these years. His name appears on Panama Red, Home, Home on the Road, and Brujo.

Bob Johnston's New Riders

By 1976 the band was on MCA, and producer Bob Johnston had taken over.

Who Are Those Guys? was recorded at Record Plant Sausalito in October and November 1976. Tom Flye engineered, with Steve Fontano assisting. MCA released it in 1977.

The lineup had changed again. Battin had left for the Flying Burrito Brothers. Stephen Love, formerly of Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band, played bass, wrote three songs, and sang lead on six of the ten tracks. Dryden wrote “Home Grown.” For the first time, the New Riders made an album with no John Dawson songs.

An open question about 1976

One record is still unsettled. The band's self-titled MCA album, New Riders, also appeared in 1976. Its Wikipedia credits name Johnston as producer and Flye as engineer, and place the recording at Record Plant Sausalito in April 1976.

The archive's own census reached the opposite conclusion and traced the album to Wally Heider Studio in San Francisco. Both readings cannot be right. I'm keeping New Riders out of the Sausalito count until the credits on an original MCA pressing settle it.

Feelin' All Right

The last New Riders record from the building came from a band that had mostly changed. Feelin' All Right was recorded at Record Plant Sausalito and released by A&M in 1981. It was the band's only A&M album, and it has never been issued on CD.

Dawson, Nelson, and Cage were still there. Guitarist Allen Kemp and drummer Patrick Shanahan were new, and Kemp wrote or co-wrote seven of the ten songs. Chuck Mellone produced, with Alex Kash engineering. The exact recording year is not yet pinned.

It was the last studio album to feature both Dawson and Nelson as full-time members.

Buddy Cage played pedal steel on every one of these records. Tom Flye's name runs through the middle of them. The credits on those sleeves remain the best map of the New Riders' years at 2200 Bridgeway.