Drums along the Mississippi

Grateful Dead's Kreutzmann taps the spirit of the Crescent City

Ask Bill Kreutzmann how he feels about his new band and the ex-Grateful Dead drummer is emphatic. "It's a dream come true," he says, during a phone interview from Boulder, Colo., where he's playing with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart and the Rhythm Devils. "I mean, I've always wanted to play New Orleans music."

Kreutzmann, a Bay Area native and former-longtime Marin resident, is most identified with the premier band of the 1960s San Francisco scene. But his roots are in the Crescent City: Kreutzmann's mother, a former dance instructor at Stanford University, was a New Orleans native. "I guess I have New Orleans in the blood," he says. "I've always wanted to play New Orleans music. I especially loved the Meters [the seminal New Orleans funk band]. I remember hearing their first album [in 1969], the one with [bassist] George Porter on it, and thinking, wouldn't it be great to be able to play that music someday.

"And now I'm playing New Orleans music with George Porter.

"How great is that?"

That new band is 7 Walkers. It formed last year around Kreutzmann and guitarist Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne, of Shreveport, Louisiana. In 2008, Kreutzmann met the gifted guitarist at the Oregon Country Fair. "We just got along so well," Kreutzmann recalls, "but he gets along with everyone—he's a really sweet guy with a big, big heart.

"That last night at the country fair, we played until 4 in the morning—we just couldn't stop."

The pair performed a series of gigs that culminated last year at a recording session in Austin, Texas. Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter sent a batch of songs for the recording project. The band found its name in one of Hunter's songs.

"This band has a New Orleans flavor—it has a gumbo feeling," Kreutzmann muses. "It isn't the Meters and it isn't the Neville Brothers—it's our version of that."

The band returns to the Bay Area next week for a pair of shows. The first—with Moonalice—is a masquerade party in celebration of the late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. The second—with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and the Mardi Gras Indians—benefits relief efforts on the Gulf Coast.

"You can't do enough for those folks who have been devastated by the oil spill," Kreutzmann says. "I'm really saddened by all of this—I have so many friends in New Orleans...this just hurts."

After Garcia's death in 1995, Kreutzmann took a few years off from the music scene. He returned to the stage in 1998 with Backbone, a trio that also featured guitarist Rick Barnett and bassist Edd Cook.

In 2000, he joined former bandmates Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart in the Other Ones. He continued that association after the band changed its name to the Dead.

Kreutzmann makes no bones about the post-Garcia bands he's formed with his former Dead bandmates. "The Grateful Dead was at its best when Jerry was alive, of course—that was the real Grateful Dead. The Other Ones and the Dead were really fine bands, but without Jerry, it's not the same."

Still, in 7 Walkers, Kreutzmann has found an unexpected connection to Garcia.

"Papa Mali has a lot in common with Jerry—he's really charismatic and he holds a lot of love for people," Kreutzmann says. "He has a giant heart—he never has a bad word for anybody, well, unless it's a flight attendant who won't let him put his guitar in the plane's overhead luggage compartment," he adds with a laugh.

"But Papa has such a great voice and his slide playing...is miraculous."

—by Greg Cahill

Bang the drum slowly for Greg at gcahill51@gmail.com.