By Blair Jackson

In July of 1973, reeling from a romantic misadventure, I came out to the Bay Area to visit my brother and soak in as much music as I could. I was a lucky guy. Within a couple of weeks of arriving I managed to see two shows at the Keystone Berkeley by the Merl Saunders-Jerry Garcia group—the first time I’d seen Jerry solo, after 15 or so Dead shows on the East Coast; and in a tiny club no less!—and a pair of shows by Old & In the Way, as well. Wow! But probably the coolest show I went to during my Bay Area sojourn that month was a free concert by John Cipollina’s group Copperhead at the band shell in Golden Gate Park. I was a Cipollina fanatic, and the idea that I could see him in this beautiful outdoor setting, for free, and park myself right up on the lip of the stage, was mind-blowing for this New York boy whose most recent concert experience had been at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. I wandered backstage and hung with John a little—don’t know where I got the nerve to do that!—and he was so nice and gracious. I loved that band, too. Besides Cipollina, the other focal point for me was keyboardist/singer Jim McPherson who also wrote or co-wrote a bunch of the material (I learned later when their lone album came out). Copperhead, it seemed to me, had the potential to be the group I had wanted Quicksilver to become before they were derailed by Dino Valente.

Alas, ultimately it wasn’t in the cards for Copperhead. They put out a fine album that got lost in a shuffle of personnel changes at their record company. Cipollina always seemed to land on his feet—he was in a succession of club bands in the Bay Area over the next decade-plus, some of which I liked (Raven, The Dinosaurs) and others I didn’t (Terry & the Pirates).

As for Jim McPherson, well, he was one talented cat—adept at keys, bass, guitar, singing. He and Cipollina both appeared on Kathi McDonald’s hugely underrated mid-’70s album Insane Asylum, and a few years later a song he co-wrote with David Freiberg, “Jane,” became a Top 20 hit for Jefferson Starship. In 1981, McPherson turned up in a band with Mickey Hart, who was among his closest friends—let’s see a show of hands from folks who remember the excellent group High Noon! That eclectic outfit was formed by Mickey and McPherson in part to showcase songs that Jim had been writing (and recording from time to time at Mickey’s famous Novato recording studio, The Barn), and they had quite a cast to perform those (and other) songs, including guitarist Mike Hinton, the dynamic Bobby Vega on bass, Merl Saunders on keys, Vicki Randle on lead vocals and some guitar, and the late, great Norton Buffalo on harmonica and vocals. Jim played keys, rhythm guitar and sang. High Noon played around the Bay Area a bit during the second half of 1981—opening several shows for the Jerry Garcia Band, as well as headlining places like the Keystone Berkeley, The Stone (in SF) and the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. They also did some recording at Prairie Sun studios in Cotati, Sonoma County.

Jim McPherson died in 1985 after a long illness—another one taken far too young. But now, more than two decades later, thanks to the diligence of his widow, Evy, we now have a stirring audio document of Jim McPherson’s broad musical talent. A Promise Kept is a fine collection of eleven tunes written or co-written by McPherson and recorded in a number of different studios between 1974 and 1985 using a slew of great Bay Area players: Mickey played on or produced several of the cuts, and that all-star High Noon band is represented on two exciting numbers, “Left Out in the Cold” and “Cross the Bridge.” The great multi-instrumentalist John McFee (Clover, the Doobies, et al) appears on several tracks, as does bassist Mario Cipollina (John’s bro, of course, later in Huey Lewis & the News). Flutist Steve Schuster and saxophonist Snooky Flowers turn up on a song, as does organist Pete Sears (who was an original member of Copperhead, trading off with McPherson on both bass and keys), and Kathi McDonald adds her soulful voice to another. (And former Grateful Dead sound wizard Dan Healy engineered the sessions in The Barn.)

Mostly, though the album is a showcase for McPherson’s formidable skills. He shows great versatility as both a singer and songwriter by tackling a wide variety of styles, including the Little Feat-ish “Chicagotown” (a salute to the city where McPherson grew up); the country-flavored romps “Cell Block Numero 8-0” (with McFee on pedal steel) and “Joaquin Murieta”; the funky rocker “The Real Deal” (co-written by Bobby Vega, who lays down a great bass line); and the ballads “Keeper of the Flame” and “Don’t Leave Me Now”—the latter is particularly heartbreaking given the fact that it was a home recording made near the end of Jim’s life.    
 
In the liner notes to the CD, Evy writes that putting together an album of Jim’s music was a pledge she made to him before he died, so that he wouldn’t be forgotten. It might have taken a while to actually come to fruition, but now Evy can smile with the satisfaction of knowing that, indeed, this is A Promise Kept.

You can find out more about Jim McPherson and order the album by going to jimmcpherson.net