Howard Wales, RIP

Unless you're a fairly serious Deadhead, you probably don't know who Howard Wales is. The keyboardist died on Monday, December 7. He played with Jerry Garcia and members of the Grateful Dead in the 1970s and recorded several albums with them, the best of which is probably Hooteroll?, an album that I had in my collection since it was originally released. You can also find him playing with Garcia on several live albums. 

Relix published a profile of Wales in 2017. 

Wales has maintained a long and fascinating career, following his own muse while maintaining a particular commitment to improvisation in the live setting. He cites Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff as two of his early inspirations on the Hammond B3. In the mid-1960s, Wales’ prowess on the instrument led him to perform and record with such artists as: Freddie King, Lonnie Mack, The Four Tops, The Coasters and Little Anthony and the Imperials.

Wales even put in a brief stint with James Brown. However, given Brown’s controlling nature and Wales’ free spirit, this collaboration was not destined to last and the keyboard player remained with him for only four dates.

On the more adventurous side, during the same era, Wales was among the musicians who appeared on the soundtrack to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s time capsule of a film, the absurdist acid western El Topo. Wales recalls that Martin Fierro, whom he first met in Texas during the mid-1960s, invited him to join these sessions (and also helped find him a job in a tortilla factory when Wales moved to California around this same time).

Jerry Garcia once stated that “Howard did more for my ears than anybody I ever played with because he was so extended and so different.”

He made some wonderful music and I highly recommend it.