Bobby & The Midnites - Bobby & The Midnites (1981)

Bobby and the Midnites was a rock group led by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. The band was Weir’s main side project during the first half of the 1980s.
 Besides Weir himself, two members of the Bob Weir Band were in Bobby and the Midnites. One was guitarist and singer Bobby Cochran, formerly of Steppenwolf. The other was keyboardist and singer Brent Mydland, who in the interim had joined the Grateful Dead. Matthew Kelly was another “Midnite” who had already played in a band with Weir Kingfish, which Kelly and Dave Torbert had founded in 1973, and which Weir had played in full time from 1974 to 1976. Kelly played guitar, harmonica, and congas. Tim Bogert, who had previously been in Vanilla Fudge and Beck, Bogert & Appice, was recruited to play bass guitar. With a rhythm section that included jazz veterans Billy Cobham and, for a time, Alphonso Johnson, Bobby and the Midnites played rock music that was influenced by jazz-rock fusion. They released two albums, but were better known for their live concerts than for their work in the recording studio. The first Bobby and the Midnites concert was at the Golden Bear, in Huntington Beach, California, on June 30, 1980. The band played a number of live dates from mid-1980 to early 1981. Then Alphonso Johnson replaced Bogert on bass. Johnson had been in Weather Report, and had played with Cobham in the CBS All-Stars. This slightly revised configuration of Bobby and the Midnites recorded the band’s self-titled first album “Bobby and the Midnites” in 1981. Though not a huge commercial success, the album did chart in the Billboard 200. The song “Festival” became a live concert favorite for the band.
With the exception of a couple of reggae numbers, the Midnites’ debut album found Weir playing straight-ahead guitar rock songs with mostly lovelorn lyrics, the only real ringer in the bunch being jazz drummer Billy Cobham, who seemed capable of hitting as many drums per bar as Keith Moon, and with far more control. But Weir’s earnest, husky voice and off-center guitar playing did not make for a slick pop approach, and the album came off as a collection of half-baked wannabe-hits from someone who had spent his career finding success by avoiding just such a style.


01.  “Haze”  (Brent Mydland, Daoud Shaw, Bob Weir, Bobby Cochran, Matthew Kelly)  - 5:08
02.  “Too Many Losers”  (Cochran, Weir)  - 3:50
03.  “Far Away”  (Weir, Cochran, Kelly)  - 3:34
04.  “Book of Rules”  (Alphonso Johnson, Barry Llewellyn)  - 3:31
05.  “Me, Without You”  (John Perry Barlow, Alphonso Johnson)  - 3:12
06.  “Josephine”  (Weir)  - 6:11
07.  “(I Want to) Fly Away”  (Barlow, Weir)  - 3:55
08.  ”Carry Me”  (Weir)  - 4:27
09.  ”Festival”  (Weir)  - 4:59

Credits
Billy Cobham – drums, vocals
Bobby Cochran – guitar, vocals
Alphonso Johnson – bass guitar, vocals

Notes
Producer – Gary Lyons
Engineers – Gary Lyons, Gregg Mann, Pete Thea and John Cutler
Mastering – George Marino
Lyric supervision – John Barlow
Art direction – Victor Moscoso
Photography – Elizabeth Fenimore
Genre:  Rock, Country
Length:  38:47
Producer:  Gary Lyons
© 1979 Arista Records