Merl Saunders Biography
14 February 1934, San Mateo, California, USA. Merl Saunders is best known for his keyboard playing in a 70s band with Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead. Saunders began playing keyboards professionally at the age of 13 in San Francisco, concentrating on the organ after hearing jazz organist Jimmy Smith in 1957. Saunders worked in jazz outfits with vibes player Lionel Hampton and vocalist Billy Williams in the early 60s and put together his own trio with Eddie Moore and Jimmy Daniels at the end of that decade. He recorded his first album with Moore and Daniels and the Ray Shanklin Big Band for Galaxy Records in 1968. That same year he served as musical director for a Broadway musical in New York City, Big Time Buck White, with jazz vocalist Oscar Brown Jnr. Following that he stayed on Broadway as musical director for a show starring boxer Muhammad Ali, providing drummer Billy Cobham with one of his first professional gigs.
After recording with Harry Belafonte, Saunders returned to San Francisco and associated with the local rock and blues musicians such as Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites. Introduced to Garcia in 1971, Saunders sat in with the Grateful Dead leader at small club dates and added keyboard parts to the band's 1971 live album. Following a brief spell with the Paul Butterfield blues band in New York, Saunders returned to San Francisco and formed a more steady liaison with Garcia. A band including second guitarist Tom Fogerty, formerly of Creedence Clearwater Revival, drummer Bill Vitt from Sons Of Champlin and bass player John Kahn performed regular club dates whenever Garcia was free. They recorded two studio albums and one live for Fantasy Records in 1972-73, with former Elvis Presley drummer Ron Tutt replacing Vitt and Fogerty leaving the band during the latter stages of its career. Saunders and Garcia parted company in the mid-70s and the keyboardist continued to record and perform live with various bands of his own. He also wrote music for the revitalized Twilight Zone television programme, bringing in Garcia and other Grateful Dead members. In 1984 he joined the Dinosaurs, a unit comprising former members of 60s San Francisco bands. His solo work for the Sumertone label includes 1990's Blues From The Rainforest, an album which reunited him with Garcia and reached the Top 5 of the US New Age charts, and the live sets Save The Planet So We'll Have Someplace To Boogie and Still Having Fun. Saunders' environmental work earned him a lifetime activist award in 2000.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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