Sunday, September 23, 2012

Norm "Pogo" Fontaine's house, Palo Alto, CA

Norm "Pogo" Fontaine was an East Palo Alto cat with deep roots in the jazz world, as well as an accomplished painter. Though he was in his mid-40's at the time, he hung comfortably in this mainly youthful party scene. In fact, his house, known as Pogo's Place, was another notorious party spot during this era.(1)

David McQueen, "He (Jerry) was listening to a lot of Reverend Gary Davis at the time. But blues, gospel, jazz -- he'd play it all. He used to jam with the drummers who came to play at Pogo's (Norm Fontaine's house)..."(1)


Jerry performed here in
1961
Spring 1962
"One Saturday night in the Spring of 1962, Lesh and Garcia connected. They'd seen each other around, but at a party at Pogo's, Lesh remarked "Jerry, you sing and play good, I work for KPFA, how'd you like to be on the radio?"'(2) 




Norm "Pogo" Fontaine's house, Palo Alto, CA
1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia: An American Life, pg. 31, 42.
2.)^McNally, Dennis, Long Strange Trip, pg. 39.




3 comments:

  1. Although every(?) other source places the party where Phil recorded the demo of Jerry for the "Midnight Special" radio show at the Chateau, McNally in "Long Strange Trip" p 39 places it at Pogo's.

    'One Saturday night in the Spring of 1962, Lesh and Garcia connected. They'd seen each other around, but at a party at Pogo's, Lesh remarked "Jerry, you sing and play good, I work for KPFA, how'd you like to be on the radio?"'. Then follows the familiar story.

    If the first published account with a location (Harrison "The GD" 1973 p 44 is the earliest I've seen) gave it at the Chateau then subsequent accounts could have just copied that and people with fuzzy memories followed that lead. The 1972 "Garcia Signpost to New Space" account gives no location.

    McNally dates it as "Spring" which implies a later date than the "early 1962" usually given but he did have access to lots of sources. I'm not saying that McNally is right and everyone else is wrong but it could be.

    Thanks for your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. runonguiness, Thank you for those tidbits. I've added them to the page.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete