Live at the Boarding House: The Complete Shows


Live at the Boarding House: The Complete Shows is a four-CD live album by the bluegrass band Old & In the Way. It was recorded on October 1 and October 8, 1973, at the Boarding House in San Francisco, and contains the complete concerts from those dates. It was released by Acoustic Disc and Acoustic Oasis on October 1, 2013. The album includes 55 tracks, 14 of which were previously unreleased.
The band Old & in the Way existed from 1973 to 1974 and played less than 50 shows. Its members were Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead on banjo, David Grisman on mandolin, Peter Rowan on guitar, Vassar Clements on fiddle, and John Kahn on bass.

Critical reception

On AllMusic, Jeff Tamarkin said, "Although OAITW was able to handle a traditional bluegrass number — vocal or instrumental — as well as anyone, the musicians brought a jam band sensibility and rock attitude to the proceedings, extending the instrumental segments with improvisations, something alien to bluegrass up to that point. By doing so, the quintet pretty much invented the concept of progressive bluegrass, taking the music even further from its starting point than the New Grass Revival had the year before while simultaneously paying homage to its founders."
In Relix, Jesse Jarnow wrote, "While it was Peter Rowan's sweet silvery holler and the quintet's close dynamics that sold the Stinson Beach supergroup to audiences, it was Jerry Garcia's presence that sold the band's live LP to hippies, and in turn linked banjos to beardos forevermore.... The real stars, though, are the infinitely warm recordings themselves... Inside a tangible stereo field, the quintet's instrumental mesh is every bit as blended as the harmonies — a high, lonesome wholeness forever haunting the hills of Marin."

Track listing

;Disc 1
  1. "On and On"
  2. "I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home"
  3. "Catfish John"
  4. "Lonesome Fiddle Blues"
  5. "Land of the Navajo"
  6. "Down Where the River Bends"
  7. "I Ain't Broke but I'm Badly Bent"
  8. "Lost"
  9. "Kissimee Kid"
  10. "Lonesome L.A. Cowboy"
  11. "Pig in a Pen"
  12. "Wild Horses"
  13. "Midnight Moonlight"
;Disc 2
  1. "Muleskinner Blues"
  2. "Goin' to the Races"
  3. "Old and in the Way"
  4. "Old and in the Way Breakdown"
  5. "Panama Red"
  6. "Hard Hearted"
  7. "That High Lonesome Sound"
  8. "The Hobo Song"
  9. "Drifting Too Far from the Shore"
  10. "Angel Band"
  11. "Wicked Path of Sin"
  12. "Home Is Where the Heart Is"
  13. "Uncle Pen"
  14. "Orange Blossom Special"
  15. "Blue Mule"
;Disc 3
  1. "Home Is Where the Heart Is"
  2. "Love Please Come Home"
  3. "Down Where the River Bends"
  4. "Kissimee Kid"
  5. "Pig in a Pen"
  6. "Uncle Pen"
  7. "Panama Red"
  8. "Midnight Moonlight"
  9. "White Dove"
  10. "Wild Horses"
  11. "Orange Blossom Special"
  12. "Old and in the Way"
  13. "Lonesome Fiddle Blues"
;Disc 4
  1. "On and On"
  2. "Land of the Navajo"
  3. "Catfish John"
  4. "'Til the End of the World Rolls 'Round"
  5. "Drifting Too Far from the Shore"
  6. "I'm Knocking on Your Door"
  7. "Old and in the Way Breakdown"
  8. "You'll Find Her Name Written There"
  9. "Jerry's Breakdown"
  10. "The Great Pretender"
  11. "Working on a Building"
  12. "That High Lonesome Sound"
  13. "Wicked Path of Sin"
  14. "Blue Mule"

Personnel

;Old and in the Way
;Production