Paul Pena

Here is another mostly unknown album with Jerry guesting on pedal steel. New Train, cut in 1973, due to label hassles it took about twenty seven more years before it was released to the public!

Paul Pena (1950-2005) was a blind, singer songwriting guitar player who opened shows at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia for Zappa and the Dead in 1969. Later he moved to San Francisco and opened a number of shows for JGB. He also wrote the hit Jet Airliner, later made popular by Steve Miller. 

Pena's family was from Cape Verde, a poor island republic located off of West Africa.

He had a varied career, playing with T-Bone Walker and somehow becoming a master of Tuvan throat singing along the way.

He got into a spat with Bearsville Records owner Albert Grossman, who screwed him to the wall and delayed the release of New Train for almost three decades.

A documentary about his throat singing adventure won an award at Sundance in 1999, Genghis Blues.