New Riders Of The Purple Sage

For most of the early 1970s the New Riders of the Purple Sage™—whose name carries registered trademark protection—functioned as a thriving offshoot of the Grateful Dead. Never matching the parent band’s commercial reach or staying power, they nonetheless drew a sizable following from their ties to Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart; devotees seeking more than the Dead’s own recordings found the New Riders (alongside Garcia’s occasional solo work) an acceptable stand-in, though the group’s appeal stayed largely confined to that same circle. Their earliest style blended country and acid-rock elements, leaning more twang-oriented than the Dead’s customary approach and lacking the exploratory jamming that marked the larger ensemble, yet the Riders later settled comfortably into straightforward country-rock.

Essentially formed so Garcia, Lesh, and Hart could explore country music beyond the albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, the New Riders of the Purple Sage took their name from Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage, an earlier country group that had itself adopted the title of a classic Western novel. At their first shows the lineup featured Garcia on pedal steel, Lesh on bass, John Dawson (born 1945) handling rhythm guitar and vocals, David Nelson—already an occasional Dead contributor—on lead guitar, mandolin, and vocals, plus Hart on drums. Before long the unit asserted greater independence: Dave Torbert replaced Lesh on bass, Spencer Dryden, formerly of Jefferson Airplane, took over drums from Hart, and the band carved its own identity through Dawson’s songwriting, notable for its melodic strength and rhythmic drive.

As a country-rock outfit the Riders lacked the soulfulness or consistent internal songwriting depth found in Poco or the Flying Burrito Brothers, yet their link to Garcia and the Dead—Lesh co-produced one of their albums—secured valuable exposure and listeners. High-school and college fans who barely knew Gram Parsons or Jim Messina but owned multiple Dead records were likely, in that era, to possess or know someone who owned at least one New Riders album. That connection translated into strong sales for the self-titled debut, a fitting counterpart to Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty that fused country textures with psychedelic touches. On the follow-up, Powerglide, Buddy Cage had taken over pedal steel from Garcia; Dawson and Torbert’s songwriting contributions helped the sound coalesce.

Even with Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann appearing on a few tracks, Powerglide demonstrated the Riders could stand apart from the Dead. Through the early and mid-1970s they sustained an audience by mixing country-rock with folk influences—Buffy Sainte-Marie contributed guest vocals to the 1974 platinum-certified hit The Adventures of Panama Red—while drawing the mellower segment of the recreational-drug crowd. A switch from Columbia to MCA at decade’s end coincided with waning momentum and originality, and the rising popularity of punk, disco, and power-pop rendered the band, like most country-rock acts of the period, increasingly dated. Skip Battin, ex-Byrd, joined in 1975 in place of Torbert; Dryden stepped away from performing in 1978 to manage the group; and Nelson departed by 1981.

The New Riders effectively ceased activity in 1982, although a later configuration built around Gary Vogensen on guitar and Rusty Gautier on bass revived the name. Nelson went on to perform with the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band and served as the group’s informal archivist, overseeing Relix’s release of previously unissued recordings.