Fungus channels Grateful Dead for Mt. Lebanon show
Beyond bobbleheads and fireworks, the Pittsburgh Pirates last season presented Grateful Dead Night.
The promotion may have seemed like kind of a reach, considering that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band effectively called it a day with lead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
But thousands of Deadheads, as fans have called themselves for half a century, turned out for the festivities at PNC Park, many of whom hadn’t been born yet when the group still was active.
With a new generation on board, the enduring popularity of the Grateful Dead shows no signs of slowing.
“No question, it’s the quality of the craftsmanship of the songs,” musician Dave Gasbarro said. “The songs were engineered from the very beginning to have a long trajectory.”
Since 1991, he and fellow guitarist Terry Callahan have focused on performing Grateful Dead songs with their band Fungus, which returns to Uptown Mt. Lebanon for the season’s initial First Friday event, from 7 to 10 p.m. June 1.
“They interject multiple genres, so you can hook onto whatever you like,” Callahan said about the Dead’s repertoire, which varies from the blues, folk tunes, country-flavored ballads and R&B to harder rock and free-form experiments. Heck, the band even dabbled in disco back in the leisure-suit days.
And while Garcia and company often took flak for stretching out songs – for example, they performed a 38-minute version of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Turn On Your Lovelight” at Woodstock – that’s one of the more endearing qualities for many Deadheads.
“When I first started seeing Jerry, normally a guitarist will take a solo, maybe two rounds,” Callahan recalled. “But Jerry would go three and four. He would just continue to jam. That was really unusual and cool.”
On the MCA Records debut album by Callahan’s band the Zippers, the songs he wrote mostly are presented in the more average-listener-friendly three or four minutes, tops. But as is the case with the Dead, the tunes on 1990’s “The Zippers” display a variety of styles that make it distinctive for a release of its era.
In the meantime, Callahan had been giving Gasbarro guitar lessons, and they combined for an act that must have been a sight to see.
“Back then, I used to juggle, and Terry would play Led Zeppelin tunes behind me while I juggled,” Gasbarro reported. “That was years ago.”
Eventually, their common interest in the Grateful Dead led them to start Fungus in 1991, with like-minded musicians including drummer Matt Montgomery, who has been along for the ride since. Filling out Fungus’ lineup these days are Ray Vasco on bass and Kip Leiber on keyboards.
Along with Dead songs, Fungus will intersperse its shows with original compositions – Gasbarro has one called “Jerry Garcia’s Neckties” – and classic-rock covers.
“We have a song called ‘The Rugged Tree of Living’ that we wrote on the way to a Dead show,” Callahan said. “We kind of each took a lyric and passed it around, and before we knew it, we had a song.”
Fungus has shared the stage with quite a few artists associated with the Grateful Dead, including David Grisman, Peter Rowan and the late Vassar Clements, all of whom were part of Garcia’s highly regarded early ’70s bluegrass band Old & In the Way, and the David Nelson Band, the leader of which played with Garcia in the New Riders of the Purple Sage.
If you’re on the Grateful Dead bus or are curious as to what it’s all about, Fungus can give you a pretty good idea.
First Friday events are presented by the Mt. Lebanon Partnership, a nonprofit organization that promotes and supports local business districts.
For more information, visit mtlebopartnership.org.