RICK NELSON & THE STONE CANYON BAND
Bitter End, New York City
August 22nd – September 1st, 1969

Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band played an eleven-night stand at the famous Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. It was the first stop on a month-long tour of the East. Although the Stone Canyon Band had been together since the Spring of 1969, they had only played one live date–a week-long stand at the Troubadour in April. The subsequent months were spent rehearsing and recording. Among these recordings was Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band’s first single, a cover of Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me,” which was released in August 1969 to coincide with the tour.

Below: watch their performance of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin'” filmed by David Nelson at the Bitter End, August 1969. This was the first song Rick sang on The Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet back in 1957. Notice at 1:44 that Randy is playing a red Gibson bass, a switch from his usual gold Fender Precision from this period.

Although we hear pedal steel, there is no steel player on stage. The Stone Canyon Band was only a foursome at this point (Rick Nelson, Randy Meisner, Allen Kemp and Pat Shanahan). The audio here is from Rick Nelson In Concert, recorded at the Troubadour a couple of months later in October 1969, with Tom Brumley on pedal steel.

_{“I’m Walkin'” – Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band, Bitter End, NYC, August 1969}