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From: spp@ucbvax.ARPA (Stephen P Pope)
Newsgroups: net.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Brent...and Keith
Message-ID: <9516@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 17:08:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9516
Posted: Wed Jul 31 17:08:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 02:08:02 EDT
References: <3363@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 30
Summary: More on Brent


     Seth Jackson's sentiments on Brent and Keith pretty much
correspond to my own.  As with Seth, deadheads of my personal 
acquaintance have never really accepted Brent as a member of
the band.
     For those of you without tape collections who would like
to be exposed some excellent examples of Keith's piano playing,
try listening to sides 5 and 6 of Europe 72.  Most people agree
though that by the time Keith left the group he was not worth
much musically.
     I have personally never liked Brent's keyboard playing,
singing or stage appearance.  But don't just take my word for
it.  Most of the concerts I've been to of late, the rest of 
the dead are paying very little attention to Brent.  The
occasional Brent solos and Brent songs (unfortunately increasing
in number as the years go by) seem to be more the result of
an executive decision than of musical interest.  On rare occasions
Brent actually gets into something with Jerry or one of the 
other dead, and at these times I find him fairly interesting.
But it looks to me like his major musical purpose is to 
provide rhythmical and chordal filler that the Dead seem 
to require these days.
     It is interesting to note that in times past, 
mainly 1970 and 71, the Dead would go through most of
their material with no keyboard accompaniment at all.
Perhaps they would not be able to hold together so well
these days with no keyboards, but I for one would love
to see them try.

                          steve pope (ucbvax!spp)