Nicksilver
(Cipollina-Gravenites Band)
Scala
Herford, WG
1980-11-14
3rd gen analog audience recording
Set 1 - 58:54
Disc 1 - 70:10
1. Blue In The Bottle > chat 7:06
2. Born In Chicago > chat 5:22
3. Signs Of Life * > chat, tuning 5:04
4. Small Walk-in Box > chat "Thanks to support band Merlin" 12:10
5. Southside > chat 4:30
6. Trust Me * > // chat "Why are we doing this?" 5:25
7. Pride Of Man > // chat 4:06
8. I'll Pull The Trigger > chat "We're gonna do one more song" 4:33
9. My Party > chat "Don't go away... We'll be right back" 10:34
Set 2 - 85:50
10. chat JC "I think we'll start off with a black guitar" > Junkyard In Malibu 9:18
11. Bad Luck // Baby > song intro by AS 1:57
Disc 2 - 74:34
1. Trouble In The Teepee * > tuning 6:55
2. Walkin' Blues 5:25
3. I'm A Bluesman > chat, nicknames, "We're gonna do a dancing song" 5:40
4. Dancin' Fool > chat, song intro 5:04
5. Hot Rods And Cool Women * > song intro 4:21
6. Keep On Running * > tuning 4:40
7. Buried Alive In The Blues > "Thank you very much. Now what are you gonna do for us?" 7:41
8. Who Do You Love? % 13:13
9. -> Mona % 3:53
10. -> Cobra -> Mona > "Thnk you very much", band intro 3:22
Encores:
11. chat > Top Of Old Smokie 6:34
12. Goin' Down
13. -> Too Much Monkey Business
Total 144:45
Band:
Nick Gravenites - Guitar, Vocals
John Cipollina - Guitar, Vocals %
Al Staehely - Bass, Vocals *
Marcus David - Drums
Notes:
- poor mix for most part of "Blues in the Bottle" (~ 3:00 - 7:20)
- "Bad Luck" cuts in middle (2 min. fragement only)
About the band's name: This came to me as by Nicksilver, but I don't think that is correct; around this time they were The Gravenites-Cipollina Band (for the 1979 Scandinavian tour, they were billed as The Nick Gravenites Blues Band). Nicksilver, as I understand it, was only used for an East Coast tour, at the promoter's behest.
From Relix, February 1984, Vol. 11 No. 1 ( http://www.michaelcross.me.uk/jc/r-ns.htm )
J.C.: The promoter asked us to come out last year as Quicksilver and we said no. Then they said we'll book you as yourself, but we want to say former members of Quicksilver and we said I don't know, yeah... that sounds okay and they said we want you to play at least 50% Quicksilver stuff and we said forget it.
N.G.: I didn't want to use the name Nicksilver. It was the idea of this promoter in New York named Michael Gaiman. He has been trying for a long time to put together a band that would in some way resemble Quicksilver that he could use to take advantage of that name. We were going to have Nicky Hopkins in the band as well at first, but we just couldn't take Nicky away from what he is doing now. It is just too lucrative for him. He gets double and triple union rates and everything. He is working in Hollywood doing sessions and film scores and all kinds of stuff. We just couldn't afford to have him on tour with us, but he is so good. He makes you sound good. When he plays with the band he makes us all sound good. When we couldn't get Nicky I wanted to go out as a four piece, but Gaiman insisted that we have a keyboard player and he insisted that we take Merl. He was intent on having a band tour that he could connect with the Quicksilver name, so in the end we agreed. I didn't care. I just wanted to get out and tour in my own country. I haven't toured here properly in years, and I just wanted to show everyone just how good I play the blues.
Relix: Will there be any more Nicksilver tours or any records coming out?
J.C.: Well, Nick's recording an album right now, but I don't know if it will come out in the states. As for Nicksilver, I would hope that there will be more tours. I kind of hoped that we could use our original line-up. If the promoters back east would stop being so chintzy, maybe we could. We had a band out in California called Thunder and Lightnin', which is basically Nicksilver except instead of Merl we had Nicky Hopkins. I love Merl; he is very good and he was a real big help and there was no problem with Merl at all, but I am used to Nicky. He is not only a close and dear friend, but he is also an excellent pianist, and I like the rhythms I work off of with Nicky.
NB John Cipollina recordings can be found in various collections within the Live Music Archive ( https://archive.org/details/etree ):
John Cipollina - 214 - http://www.archive.org/details/JohnCipollina
Dinosaurs - 68 - http://www.archive.org/details/Dinosaurs
Barry Melton Band - 55 (many without Cipollina) - http://www.archive.org/details/BarryMeltonBand
Zero - 563 (with Cipollina from 1984 to July 1988) - http://www.archive.org/details/Zero
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