The next day I emailed him, introducing myself and asking if he had “photographic images of the show, the crowds, and the general scene at Cornell on and around May 8, 1977.” Jon wrote back directly and said he had material, but that he would not be able to meet until July. I did not, but my wife did and, anyhow, Jon was easy to look up. My neighbor was not at all sure about the date, but she was certain who the photographer was. Maybe they were from 1977? Did she remember the photographer’s name, I asked. She seemed to recall a photographer in town who had Grateful Dead photos framed in his studio. Noting the t-shirt, she offered some of her memories of rock shows in the late 1970s and, in return, I shared my anxieties about the paucity of photos from the May 8 show. So I was wearing that t-shirt on June 22 while I was cooking dinner at home, when the doorbell rang. I wore it pretty regularly, especially as the weather became warmer and spring turned into summer. I appreciated his gesture and liked the shirt. They were light blue and, below a recognizable skeleton head, featured the text “May 8, 1977” followed by “Ithaca, New York.” The shirts were a good will offering from Peter at a time when we were all feeling the pressure of meeting a July 15 deadline for the finished manuscript. Even when, earlier in 2016, Melanie Lefkowitz ran a short piece on the research for the book in Ezra, Cornell’s magazine, all I received from alumni were reminiscences.Īround this time, Peter sent t-shirts to Sage House for Dean and me. But the Gazette went defunct years ago, and the credited photographer, Cliff Diver, was clearly using a pseudonym and was thus next to impossible to trace. Then there was a shot on the cover of the Good Times Gazette, a very-Ithaca periodical from the era. But, like many papers, the Journal had long since gotten rid of its morgue and had no files dating back to the 1970s. One image of the Dead had appeared in the Ithaca Journal on the Monday after the show. She seemed to recall a photographer in town who had Grateful Dead photos framed in his studio. His name was Jon Reis. I was wearing that t-shirt while cooking dinner at home, when a neighbor came by to visit. But archival photos of the Dead on stage at Barton Hall were limited to three blurry black and white shots from a Cornell student, Lawrence Reichman, who had clearly been jostling for position amidst the energetic crowd.
I uncovered documents related to the planning of the show, security provisions, and the signed contract that formalized everything from payment to how many bottles of red Bordeaux would be available to the band backstage. Unfortunately, photos of the band related to their May 8 show at Cornell proved hard to find.Īt the Cornell Archives in Kroch Library, Laura Linke, Evan Fay Earle, Liz Muller, and Heather Furnas had been immensely helpful in locating files associated with the Cornell Concert Committee, which had brought the Dead to campus. The contract called for twenty or more images, and both Peter and I wanted the book to have lots of photos and ephemera to help readers appreciate the spirit of spring 1977. In that editorial lull, I was tasked with hunting down visual art. After another round of editing from me and Dean Smith, Director of Cornell University Press (and a Deadhead), Peter was back at the work of revision.
In June 2016 I was consulting with Peter on the book that would be titled Cornell ’77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead’s Concert at Barton Hall. And, as I learned last summer, if you are at the right place at the right time, you would do well to be wearing the right item of clothing.
When the authors, artists, editors, and archivists who play key roles in developing a book live in close proximity, chance meetings that can change a book are more likely to occur. The difference a t-shirt makes: That is a lesson about regional publishing that I learned in the course of editing our new book, from Peter Conners, about the Grateful Dead’s 1977 concert at Barton Hall on the Cornell campus.
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