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Merl Saunders
Merl Saunders (February 14, 1934 – October 24, 2008) was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ.
Born in San Mateo, California, United States, Saunders attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. In his first band in high school was singer Johnny Mathis. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.'s off-Broadway show, Big Time Buck White.
He gained notice in the 1970s when he began collaborating with Jerry Garcia, with whom he had begun playing in 1971 at a small Fillmore Street nightclub called The Matrix. He sat in with the Grateful Dead and co-founded the Saunders/Garcia Band which produced three albums and would become the band Legion of Mary, with the addition of Martin Fierro (saxophone), in 1974. It disbanded the following year, however he and Garcia continued to collaborate in the band Reconstruction in 1979, with Ed Neumeister (trombone), Gaylord Birch (drums), and John Kahn (bass).[citation needed]
He led his own band as Merl Saunders and Friends, playing live dates with Garcia, as well as with Mike Bloomfield, David Grisman, Michael Hinton, Tom Fogerty, Vassar Clements, Kenneth Nash, John Kahn, and Sheila E. He also collaborated with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart in the band High Noon.[citation needed]
Saunders took the lead in reintroducing Jerry Garcia to his guitar, after Garcia suffered a diabetic coma in the summer of 1986.
In 1990, he released the world music and New Age classic album Blues From the Rainforest, a collaboration with Garcia and Muruga Booker. This led to the release of a video which chronicled Saunders' journey to the Amazon rainforest and the subsequent albums Fiesta Amazonica, It's in the Air, and Save the Planet so We'll have Someplace to Boogie. One of the songs from Blues from the Rainforest was used as part of the soundtrack for the TV series Baywatch. Saunders continued to perform with the Rainforest Band for the next ten years.
Saunders worked with musicians Paul Pena, Bonnie Raitt, Phish, Widespread Panic, Miles Davis, and B. B. King. He also recorded with the Dinosaurs, a "supergroup" of first-generation Bay Area rock musicians.
He had his own record label, Sumertone Records[citation needed] (named for his children Susan, Merl Jr., and Tony), and had also recorded on Fantasy Records, Galaxy Records, and Relix Records, as well as the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia labels. He worked with the Grateful Dead on the theme music for the 1985 TV show The Twilight Zone. As musical director he completed two-and-a-half seasons of the show. He also worked on the TV series Nash Bridges and on several soundtracks for movies, including Fritz the Cat and Steelyard Blues. He was production coordinator for the Grammy Awards for two years and for the Grammy's Greatest Moments TV special. He also supplied the music for the computer animation video Headcandy: Sidney's Psychedelic Adventure.
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Merl Saunders
Merl Saunders (February 14, 1934 – October 24, 2008) was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ.
Born in San Mateo, California, United States, Saunders attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. In his first band in high school was singer Johnny Mathis. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.'s off-Broadway show, Big Time Buck White.
He gained notice in the 1970s when he began collaborating with Jerry Garcia, with whom he had begun playing in 1971 at a small Fillmore Street nightclub called The Matrix. He sat in with the Grateful Dead and co-founded the Saunders/Garcia Band which produced three albums and would become the band Legion of Mary, with the addition of Martin Fierro (saxophone), in 1974. It disbanded the following year, however he and Garcia continued to collaborate in the band Reconstruction in 1979, with Ed Neumeister (trombone), Gaylord Birch (drums), and John Kahn (bass).[citation needed]
He led his own band as Merl Saunders and Friends, playing live dates with Garcia, as well as with Mike Bloomfield, David Grisman, Michael Hinton, Tom Fogerty, Vassar Clements, Kenneth Nash, John Kahn, and Sheila E. He also collaborated with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart in the band High Noon.[citation needed]
Saunders took the lead in reintroducing Jerry Garcia to his guitar, after Garcia suffered a diabetic coma in the summer of 1986.
In 1990, he released the world music and New Age classic album Blues From the Rainforest, a collaboration with Garcia and Muruga Booker. This led to the release of a video which chronicled Saunders' journey to the Amazon rainforest and the subsequent albums Fiesta Amazonica, It's in the Air, and Save the Planet so We'll have Someplace to Boogie. One of the songs from Blues from the Rainforest was used as part of the soundtrack for the TV series Baywatch. Saunders continued to perform with the Rainforest Band for the next ten years.
Saunders worked with musicians Paul Pena, Bonnie Raitt, Phish, Widespread Panic, Miles Davis, and B. B. King. He also recorded with the Dinosaurs, a "supergroup" of first-generation Bay Area rock musicians.
He had his own record label, Sumertone Records[citation needed] (named for his children Susan, Merl Jr., and Tony), and had also recorded on Fantasy Records, Galaxy Records, and Relix Records, as well as the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia labels. He worked with the Grateful Dead on the theme music for the 1985 TV show The Twilight Zone. As musical director he completed two-and-a-half seasons of the show. He also worked on the TV series Nash Bridges and on several soundtracks for movies, including Fritz the Cat and Steelyard Blues. He was production coordinator for the Grammy Awards for two years and for the Grammy's Greatest Moments TV special. He also supplied the music for the computer animation video Headcandy: Sidney's Psychedelic Adventure.