Part One features:
Vintage Dead - 1966 * The Grateful Dead - 1967 * Anthem of the Sun - 1968 * Aoxomoxoa - 1969 * Live/Dead - 1970 * Workingman's Dead - 1970.
VINTAGE DEAD - 1966 (Live)
Vintage Dead is an artifact representing the band in early 1966, about a year before the release of their first studio album. Recorded live at San Francisco's legendary Avalon Ballroom, it's a good representation of what the band had going at this early date. The flowering San Francisco scene can be sensed in the adventurous abandon displayed in the music here.
Recommended for Deadheads and historians of a peculiar sort only, Vintage Dead reveals some interesting facts. For instance, Cream has largely been given credit for impressing the USA with long, improvisatory, blues-rock musicianship, but Vintage Dead shows the Dead letting loose with some long, exploratory soloing well before Clapton and company made It to these shores. Phil Lesh was already displaying a truly unique approach to bass playing, an unprecedented style on an unheard of frequency. Lesh's fat bass boom, in conjunction with the Dead's dense ensemble sound, had already established the whirlpool of motion that the late, great music critic Ralph Gleason would dub "Rolling Thunder." The Rolling Thunder sound, best represented here on "I Know You Rider," is a warmer, more personable style than Cream's hyper-driven frenzy. Cream would often run through the skeleton of a song, then leave it behind, dead in the dust, while embarking on an orgy of overplaying that was low on melody, thematic development and structure. The Dead were a musical bridge that could get you there and back again.
There are five songs on Vintage Dead. "I Know You Rider" isn't quite ruined by off-key harmonies and a mix that seems to be shifting with the wind. It's a hell-on-wheels excursion into the Deadian frontier. Garcia plays it wild and loose with the bass following close behind. Kreutzmann plays furiously, and the song is pushed a bit too hard. The whole thing is frantic, but a sense of conviction guides the song. There's no reason to believe the Dead were any less interested in traditional music than Bloomfield, Clapton and other snotty purists. (It may be lost on many younger music fans, but there was much sniping by musicians at other musicians at this early stage, though the Dead never seemed to notice, or return fire.) Garcia at this time was not primarily a blues player. The solo on "I Know You Rider" seems to spring from bluegrass playing and contains long extended lines much different from the staccato, broken-up screams, and swift runs of blues guitar players. This is an archetypal example of Garcia's lost-in-the-woodwork quality. Not enough credit was given to Garcia for maintaining a style decidedly different than that of the blues stylists. "I Know You Rider" is hardly the work of hard-ass professionals, but the song is lively.
"It Hurts Me, Too" is sung by Pigpen. This song holds its own against much of the white blues playing and singing popular at the time. Pigpen gives a creditable performance: like so many of these kids (he was 20), he could cross over into the hypnotic sphere. Garcia's solo is fluid with a little more flow than soul, but the guitar lines are quite original. Lesh's bass is melodic even within this strict blues format.
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is horrible. The vocal oscillates to the worst extremes of Garcia's tonality: his low end is forced and feeble; his high is shrill and grating. Garcia's guitar is pointlessly melodic and there's nothing to recommend this Dylan cover.
"Dancing in the Streets" is just as bad. What was considered dance music in 1966 in San Francisco isn't exactly what we'd call dance music nowadays. This version of the great Martha and the Vandellas' hit goes out of its way to be impossible to dance to, even considering the time and place. Bobby, lip-lazy, smears the vocals and manages to demolish both the melody and the groove. The band helps in the demolition, particularly Kreutzmann 's sloppy rim-shots.
After the disaster of "Dancing in the Streets," one looks with a leery eye at eighteen minutes of Kid-Dead doing "Midnight Hour." And there's not a lot of "Midnight Hour " in this version. It quickly becomes a Pigpen rap. Pigpen had a knack for pulling something from nothing: what he and the band do here has obvious reference points: the Stones' "Goin' Home," John Lee Hooker's moanin' blues incantations; it's what Van Morrison did on "T.B. Sheets," and later on "Listen to the Lion." The song is, by turns, truly funny, and embarrassingly laughable (those Pig-shrieks). Nobody sings 'em like this anymore: that's the phenomenon of Pigpen. Garcia, on the other hand, scatters bad notes all over the place, runs up several blind alleys, chokes and sputters. He also gets into some nice, simple counterpoint with Lesh, Weir and Kreutzmann. There's a crunchy rhythm section at work here as well as an intense, interested concentration that keeps the thing pumped up. A few of Garcia's repeated patterns are inspired and at one point Pigpen and Garcia get into a nice vocal/guitar, call-and-response. But overall, this song was probably doing more of a service to the clientele at the Avalon than it can possibly do for us at this late date.
Vintage Dead has an obvious interest for extreme Dead lovers even if "Baby Blue" and "Dancing in the Street" are contenders as the worst Dead on an official release.
THE GRATEFUL DEAD - 1967
It's a year that gave us After Bathing at Baxter's, The Velvet Underground with Nico, Flowers and Between the Buttons, Moby Grape, Procol Harum, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield Again, The Who Sell Out, Face to Face, Are You Experienced, Them Again, and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is just a partial list of the good and great albums inspired by the sixties Zeitgeist. It would be unwise to make extravagant claims for the Dead's debut album amongst this unprecedented output. The Grateful Dead is touched by the wild spirit of '67, on the hippie mini-anthem "The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)," in the epic feel of "Cold Rain and Snow," and in the demented modal changes of "Viola Lee Blues." On these songs there are hints of things to come, but most of the record is made up of modestly arranged folk and blues tunes - "Morning Dew," "New, New Minglewood Blues," "Beat it on Down the Line," "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl" and "Sittin' on Top of the World."\
"The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)" is a fancy name for a party song about barefoot girls and having fun every day. Robert Hunter is not in the mix. Lesh turns in an incredible bass performance. This is the Dead's first original tune on record and it moves like an acid-headed Young Rascals. The Dead sound is here: thick and loopy. It's easy to imagine what any number of sixties bands would have done to this song: cleaned it up, controlled the funk, harnessed the drums, bass and keyboard; they would have destroyed the joyous, chaotic thrills. The guitar solo is directionless though, and the lyrics are a rather generic celebration of San Francisco good times. The song is a pretty basic conceit (for the Dead).
"Beat it on Down the Line" was a good choice to cover. "This job I have is a little too hard... , I'm gonna wake up in the mornin' / I'm gonna pack my bags / I'm gonna beat it on down the line." Bob Weir's boyish enthusiasm is contagious and Kreutzmann is hot. Garcia's country solo is perfect. They make the song's conventions work for them and it's a solid, almost purist, rendition.
"Good Mornin', Little Schoolgirl," sticks close to format. The rhythm section is pretty inspired, especially the escalating meter at the end. This is purist in concept, but (speaking strictly of white blues), some may prefer the more aggressive version by Johnny Winter or the dirtier one ("I want to ball you all night long") by Ten Years After. Pigpen's vocal is playfully perfect, and I'm particularly fond of his "I wanna put a tiger, baby, in your sweet little tank. "
The highlight of the album is, perhaps, "Cold Rain and Snow." This folk song is given a grand, stoical treatment. There's devastation here, but there's also a steely fortitude. The vocal is great. The chord-changes under the words "show" and "away " give the tune a sense of high drama. The Dead serve the song well, but expand It in a wonderful direction. The Weir/Garcia rhythm interplay at the end is tasty and moving. The Dead's influences from music other than the blues had quickly become an asset - extending their options into a colorful musical firmament.
"Sittin ' on Top of the World," on this album, is different than the version most people have heard. This is a happier rendition Garcia picked up in his days as a novice folk musician. It's sped up to a rollicking beat, but Garcia's solos are a bit too fancy for the simple subject at hand (in fact, some of the lines sound the same as the lines on "Viola Lee Blues," on side two). This is another good example of the guitar style Garcia was developing from having played bluegrass, but by this time the bluegrass influence was getting kind of strange.
Cream Puff War" sounds like an attempt to mimic Quicksilver Messenger Service complete with icy/trebly, John Cipollina-like guitar chords and "Pride of Man" harmonies. It's not a bad song; it's short length actually helps. But the lyrics are undistinguished and the structure pretty dull.
"Morning Dew" is another old folk song. There's high drama on this one, too. Weir and Garcia work each other rhythmically, and the guitar solo at the end is well arranged and crystal clear. Written about the devastation caused by the first world war, "Morning Dew" was of obvious interest to the generation growing up under the nuclear threat. The song is pretty good, but there's a better version on the Dead's Europe '72 album (and elsewhere).
"New, New Minglewood Blues," although a Dead original, seems undistinguished and irrelevant to the Dead, as performed here (but they would grow into the tune on future recordings).
"Viola Lee Blues" is an excuse for a freaky jam and, for my money, it's the best jam recorded in 1967 in a quasi-rock format (although I hate using categories, I also hate slighting jazz artists operating circa '67 by calling "Viola Lee Blues" a jazz song; but it's just a step away from jazz, if not the actual thing itself. This song is every bit as noisy as the Velvet Underground, and some of the bass /keyboard intensity sounds like the Cale/Morrison/Tucker rhythm section, although Lesh and Kreutzmann are more dexterous at keeping the music swinging while varying the beat/pulse. In an interview with Ralph Gleason (The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound), Jerry Garcia explained that when the Dead went into the studio to work on this album, they laid down a different version of "Viola Lee Blues" every night. The one that ended up on the record is the one they liked best at the end of the week. "Viola Lee Blues" is more than its most obvious ideas; it moves in a slippery sort of way, and it goes through quite a few slow, melodic changes before it turns into the dense black hole that starts pulling you into the record head first. The highlight may be when Phil goes into that stunted, walking -bass pattern about halfway through the song. "Viola Lee Blues" contains Jerry Garcia 's first great guitar solo.
The Grateful Dead was the debut of an out-of the-ordinary ensemble band. It doesn't have quite the polished form of many of the best albums from 1967; but it definite y shares an honored place among the year 's overabundance of brilliance.
ANTHEM OF THE SUN - 1968
Anthem of the Sun is the Grateful Dead's most unconventional album. It remains more decidedly experimental than most psychedelic music released in 1968. The Hollies, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Animals - many artists under the influence of the Summer of Love and Sgt. Pepper's were turning out various degrees of psychedelic music, but they were keeping one foot firmly planted in the "pop" world. This wasn't true of the Grateful Dead. There isn't anything on Anthem of the Sun that sounds, even remotely, like a good single. (This is a compliment.)
The old-fashioned wildness of Anthem of the Sun makes it irreplaceable. This is a type of music you won't hear anymore, and, like much great music from the past, its retrospective uniqueness is part of what gives it relevance among new music. Anthem sounds great turned up loud. Its multi-tracked roar took wall-of-sound production techniques to an extreme. There is innovative music here: the controlled feedback on "Caution: Don't Step on the Tracks;" the live performances spliced onto the studio performances; the prepared piano and the out-of-sync vocal lines on "Alligator;" the guitar and bass solos performed exclusively by manipulating volume knobs. And there's the style of the music: "Rolling Thunder." There are no rock and roll, big-beat sounds (purists ran, and will run, for cover), but there's a hell of a lot of sound, and it moves. Mickey Hart had joined the Dead and they had become a swinging octopus of motion.
Neal Cassady, the legendary figure from Jack Kerouac's On the Road and later a bus driver for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, is the subject of the opening tune on Anthem of the Sun. The lyrics of "That's it for the Other One" depict a funeral where leaves and rainbows are personified in a flowery hippie fashion. The music shifts gears for a flashback as Bob Weir recites his remembrance of Cassady at the wheel of "a bus to Never Ever Land." The Dead and Neal Cassady are forever entwined here and on Bob Weir's later song "Cassidy." The Grateful dead were bus drivers themselves, with like-minded destinations and time-warp excursions abounding. At this early date, the song is fragmented with a vitality that ebbs and flows. The spooky/spiritual undercurrents were soon exploited in live performances but the band doesn't find much room to move around on this version. Based on the quality of the lyrics on this album, it's scary to consider where the Dead might have went without Robert Hunter.
If "That's it for the Other One" sounds pasted together, a few of the pasted parts are impressive. As Garcia sings the last lines of the song an Instrumental explosion erupts that feels pretty damn good regardless of its lack of context (it's a little too horrific). The eruption degenerates into noise, then dissolves into some organic sound effects which are spookily atmospheric. I like the train-gate clanging, which may or may not have been intended as a reference to Cassady's unfortunate demise.
This blends itself into "New Potato Caboose," which is more cohesive than the preceding song, but less interesting. Split into two parts, the song offers some sententious nature-worshipping lyrics before it turns into a jam. The jam is great; it's quirky and unpredictable. Garcia pulls rabbits out of his hat all along the way with surging guitar lines and funky vamping. This is the pleasure of improvised Dead. Good feelings ooze from the instruments. Hart's and Kreutzmann's traps sound like a tidal wave of conga players.
No improvisation comes along to save "Born Cross-eyed." Reincarnation is again the theme, but it's not too serious. The lyrics are kind of goofy. The harmonies are odd without capturing any sense of mystical transcendence. The song may, or may not, be badly recorded.
Side two of Anthem of the Sun works better. "Alligator" starts it all, Lesh and Pigpen singing over that Grateful Dead soulfulness. Psychedelic soul. The song is about an alligator. Lesh sings along with himself (or else is being sloppily mimicked by Pigpen) and the two voices add to the lunacy. Tim Constanten's prepared piano gives an off center "pop" sound to "Alligator" but, of course, the boys do everything they can to sabotage this catchiness. When the first splice comes in and takes the track from studio to live performance, Hart and Kreutzmann do a short drum duet; their cross communication one-ups the average drum soloist; and when the full band comes in, it's the heaviest, densest rhythm and blues you're likely to hear anywhere. The Dead eventually meander into Donovan's "There is a Mountain" and they go out wailing. It's fun stuff.
"Caution: Do Not Step on the Tracks" is in a genre without a name. We'll call it a voodoo classic, right up there with "I Put a Spell On You" and "I've Got My Mojo Workin'." Pigpen raps about having gone down to meet the gypsy woman. He's having some love problems. The Dead describe what happens to him when he gets there. A strange experience. The lyrics fit right in with the improvisation and feedback; the words give the music an uneasy anchor in reality. The violin/cello-like effects Lesh and Garcia get by volume "swelling" are nice in this context. The song wanders briefly towards a dissonant climax, then shifts into waves of feedback that create flat , moving, vertical walls of sound in each speaker. Conservative critics didn't "get" this song, although it's respectably musical. "Caution" has an atmosphere drenched and dripping with dark moodiness. It's great music, regardless of the problem in categorization.
The band's first album, except at its most extreme, was grounded in tradition. As a follow up album, Anthem of the Sun is the opposite: It dwells on the band's extreme elements. Many psychedelic albums from the era now seem opportunistic and trendy, but Anthem is the real thing. An initial reviewer, writing in Rolling Stone, was almost tongue-tied in his high regard for this album, and tongue-tied is a much better response than the apathy and disregard that would often great the Grateful Dead in the pop music press.
AOXOMOXOA - 1969
This may be the worst Grateful Dead album ever (many Dead fans do not agree)."Rosemary" and "What's Become of the Baby" remain boring despite countless replays. After hearing the remix of " Rosemary" on What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, and after closely inspecting "Baby" on headphones, "nothing is revealed" (as another indecipherable song goes). The psychedelia of "What's Become of the Baby" is inspired, but contrived, although it is obviously an experimental song, rather than mere filler. Unfortunately, the phasing effects on "What's Become of the Baby" enhance the grainy, ugly side of Garcia's vocal tonality. Of all the experimental music the Dead have recorded, "Baby" seems the most forgettable.
"Doin' That Rag" has another annoying vocal. The music stops and starts a few times too many. A cleaner mix on Long Strange Trip adds little to the overall effect; and the lyrics, which aren't bad, seem turgid beneath the disjointed, dense sound.
Everything the Dead were criticized for was present on this recording. Contributing to the mess were bad vocals, meandering songs, murky production and mannered lyrics. The Dead may have been trying to constrain themselves from improvisation in order to record some real songs. It didn't work and Aoxomoxoa might have been partially responsible for the myth that the Dead couldn't get it down on vinyl (although a year later the Dead would get it down - three times).
Aoxomoxoa proved that the Dead needed a lyricist. The future might have been impossible without one. Up until Aoxomoxoa they had managed to skate by on a peculiar musical dexterity. The music and the experimentation saved Anthem of the Sun from its pseudo -poetic conceits and the Dead's debut album drew upon older, copy material. But even with Robert Hunter on board, Aoxomoxoa begged the question: where were the Dead going?
"St. Stephen" ranks way too high in the Dead canon, though it does offer a Dead/Hunter character archetype. The bridge seems perennially obtrusive and the lyrics on the bridge sound like leftovers from Anthem of the Sun: "Lady finger/dipped in moonlight/writing "What for?" across the morning sky." The structure is disjointed, which makes the bridge even more of a distraction. The well-regarded "falling stones," drumming doesn't give the song the emotional push it needs. But the words hint at things to come. Hunter recognizes Stephen as a relevant, recurring force of human nature despite and beyond all deficiencies, and the song suggests a sense of passionate and cyclical immersion:
St. Stephen
will remain
All he lost he shall regain
Seashore washed in the suds and foam
Been there so long he's got to callin' it home
One interesting aspect of Hunter's portraits of outsiders is his general disinterest in artists and bohemians as subjects. "Dupree's Diamond Blues" is a well-told story about an incompetent crook. Amiable syncopation drives the tune along. A harpsichord comes in and brightens it up. There's a jug band feel to the song, and a banjo adds flavor. Dupree is a goofy sort of criminal, barely a threat. Criminality appeals to Hunter as a theme, but here the story is all prose and almost too well-told for its own good. The Dead don't free up the storyline or add much emotional relish. This lack of dimension hurts "Dupree" as a Dead song, though it's pleasant enough on its own terms.
"Mountains of the Moon" is almost fairy tale music - an odd style for Hunter, and one not much repeated:
Cold mountain
water
The jade merchant's daughter
Mountains of the moon, Electra
Bow and bend to me
Atmosphere is important on "Mountains of the Moon": celestial female voices soar over tingling keyboards. The Dead capture a sense of timeless pastoral serenity and mystery. Garcia's voice almost achieves sonority. Still, it lacks certain Dead elements; it's not loose enough: it succeeds as a song, but with none of the fun the Dead can impart to looser structures.
Gravity on Aoxomoxoa comes from "Cosmic Charlie," and "China Cat Sunflower." "Cosmic Charlie" is an experiment in Dead dynamics, going from a loud blues to a very low rumble before kicking back up into high gear. The dynamic doesn't translate perfectly, but "Cosmic Charlie" is a Dead epiphany. Charlie seems to be a friendly fellow and the ability of the Dead rhythm section to color a character and a mood is one of their overlooked virtues. Garcia's on slide, which is unusual. Lesh supplies a slow, lilting bass line: one of his loping specialties. The Dead take on Charlie with open arms:
Say you'll
come back when you can
Whenever your airplane happens to land
Good vibes emanate from Charlie and emanate from the Dead. Charlie is cosmically hip and the Dead recognize it. Every time I hear this song, those old R. Crumb characters run through my mind.
"China Cat Sunflower" is a polyphonic classic. The playfulness of the peeking piano , the grinning organ and Garcia's sweet, silly guitar is inspired ensemble madness. Looseness adds to the mood. The fuzzy weirdness at the end isn't just "trippy," it's great playing following easily from everything that precedes It. Hunter' s lyrics glitter with imagery: cats, fiddles, lace bandannas, diamond-eyed jacks, silver kimonos - the paraphernalia of an imaginative writer.
By any criteria we are using, Aoxomoxoa is a low point for the Dead, and exposed some potential problems for future Dead outings. But it is "Cosmic Charlie" and "China Cat Sunflower" which reveal a workable style for the Dead and the formidable combination of moody looseness and flexible, but sturdy, structures would soon become the norm.
Live/Dead - 1970
Dark Star" is an improvised classic. Due to a number of factors, the Dead's competition seldom matched the skill present on "Dark Star." The Byrds on Untitled, Jimi Hendrix on Band of Gypsys, Frank Zappa on Chunga's Revenge and Hot Rats, the "Apple" jams of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Cream's jams (and, later, Derek and the Dominoes' In Concert), largely relied on the idea of the guitarist as a rock god to pull them through extended improvisation. Ensemble playing seldom reached interesting levels. Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, in backing Hendrix, were subservient and undistinguished. The Apple jams were about as bad as these things get, everybody standing around waiting for somebody to do something. On Zappa's Chunga's Revenge, the title track approaches the success of "Dark Star," partially because it's higher in concept in its King Kong fury. "Transylvania Boogie," from the same album, also has some good guitar work thanks to Zappa's variety of attack ( wah, raunch, speed and snatches of melody), and his odd way of making his guitar "talk." Even so, it is interesting to compare the rhythm section of Zappa's band and the Dead's rhythm section: Zappa's band quickly gets bogged down in the mud of repetition and fails to get out no matter how hard they flail around. Likewise , despite a few good passages on the Byrd's live version of "Eight Miles High" on Untitled the band suffers from stylistic braggadocio. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the "Eight Miles High" jam fails to establish the mood of what "Eight Miles High" is all about. The "ensemble" work is the equivalent of a drum solo: time for the guys to show off. Gene Parson's walking-bass patterns are of the variety Phil Lesh has tended to avoid. Compared to these works, "Dark Star" has the feel of a jazz composition. It strays from, but returns to, its beginning motif and creates a compelling, contemplative mood as it moves along. Garcia's guitar is quietly beautiful. The drums are alternately aggressive, and casually determined - at one point they seem to disappear completely (and the effect is beautiful).
There are more funky riffs on "Dark Star" than on any single side of Band of Gypsys or Creedence Clearwater Revival's Live at Albert Hall. Once Hendrix or Fogerty establish their riffing, everything else becomes dependent on the riff, starts supporting the groove. Only Hendrix's overpowering effusion of talent redeems a few of his Gypsys' songs, but it's basically him up there alone on the high wire. Lesh, Kreutzmann, Hart and company support the grooves on "Dark Star," but they are much more resourceful: they can pop into polyrhythmic interplay on a moments notice, or color the riffing by playing away from it, an effect Lesh is particularly good at and which enables him to "smear" a background giving the foreground a depth and color it wouldn't have if groove was the only prerogative.
A good example of well-intentioned criticism hurting the Dead can be found in Rolling Stones' initial review of Live/Dead. As Lenny Kaye accurately pointed out, the Dead's music covers territory other bands don't even know exist. But Kaye wasn't too good at describing what was happening. He said the Dead were like the early Cream (a comparison as apt as equating Miles Davis to Herb Alpert). Kaye added, "what is happening bears as little resemblance to "Dark Star" as all that rollin' and tumblin' stuff did to "Spoonful."
But the instrumentation on "Dark Star" is thematically and musically coherent. Robert Hunter's opening lines are drawn from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Although there is a crucial difference between Eliot's meditation on time and the Dead's adventurous exploration of thought, both song and poem express a sense of man's smallness in a huge universe.
I think, more than anything, the Dead's good taste allows" Dark Star" to stand beside good instrumental music in any category. Miles Davis once played a gig at a concert in England and one of his improvised pieces was to be included on an album of the event. When asked what the song should be called, Davis said, "Call it anything ." The song wasn't first-rate Miles, but it did end up on record under the title "Call It Anything." Compared to the Davis jam, the Dead's song is less tentative: call it "Dark Star. "
"Dark Star" cruises into "St. Stephen." This version of "St. Stephen" is better than the original on Aoxomoxoa, but only marginally so. They still don't get rid of the structural problems. The drum section is a little more fun here, but not much. The playing at the end does give it more power than the original, but when all's said and done, the Dead sound only half interested in "Stephen."
"St. Stephen" segue ways into a pleasant and very short song full of nice harmony singing; but it's merely an interlude before another improvisation ("The Eleven "). This jam shows a less preconceived side of the Dead's improvisational style; they are winging it and the legitimacy of the piece is determined by the many interesting situations into which they stumble. The jam starts with a nicely toned and melodic bass leading the band into a more pyrotechnical display than on "Dark Star." This whisper-to-a-scream playing relies largely on the band's full-bodied sound which refuses to let the beat become dominant until it matters. The result is almost rapturous. The ability of the rhythm section to keep boosting the excitement level gives a drunken intensity to Garcia's soaring guitar lines. The improvisational pleasures are more obvious than on "Dark Star." This is the kind of wild playing Garcia and the band would soon avoid in order to maintain a more thoughtful, multi -faceted approach to ensemble work.
As far as Pigpen goes: Pigpen = Soul. "Turn on Your Lovelight" is a fifteen minute masterpiece of arcane weirdness, tight playing, white presumptuousness, good-natured lechery and esoteric madness. I like this as much as I like "One Nation Under a Groove." Funkadelicism was, after all, a combination of odd elements. This is free-form funk, and it's not tired: it goes out even more ferociously than it comes in. Pigpen's blues jive was as convincing as any white boy's jive this side of Eric Burdon, and the Dead's fortitude in enlivening the proceedings had no limits. There's a couple of take it or leave it guitar solos, but the Dead have always relied less on gargantuan solos than on infectious, though sometimes bizarre, grooves. If the Dead proved on Live/Dead that they were the best jamming band operating amongst their peers, it is as much because of the skill they display on this streamlined song as on "Dark Star. "
On the other hand, the blues can be a harsh mistress. There are a few good, lengthy guitar runs on "Death Don't Have No Mercy," but the Dead fail to transcend the formula. Garcia's vocal doesn't come off as particularly poignant, and for once, the drums seem irrelevant. Early on, the Dead didn't seem to pull off the blues as well as their peers (though our current examination of Dick's Picks material may show otherwise). Reference points abound: Doug Sahm's "T - Bone Shuffle," Zappa's "Road Ladies," Layla and The Doors "Roadhouse Blues" are just a few of the good, white blues songs lying around circa 1970.
"Feedback" is another matter entirely. There weren't many of these lying around at the time, and they are getting rarer every day. Lately, I've become convinced you could lock the members of the Dead in a room with pots, pans, bottles, rubber bands and a tape recorder and end up with an interesting work of art. The interlude Lesh plays towards the end is a beautiful section of pure music. The stabbing guitar squeals sound other worldly and anguished; the volume swell attacks are melodic, supplying an oasis of sanity in the midst of instrumental madness. In many ways this may be the most esoteric of mood music, but it represents a distinctive singular beauty few bands can achieve.
Live/Dead is irreplaceable. It's the sound of a band serving a personal muse in a big way. The Allman Brothers were close on the Dead's trail in 1970, ldlewild South was the only album they released that year; it's a lively studio album bursting with blues power. But Live/Dead, in many ways, stands head and shoulders above other live albums released in this time period. The inclinations of the musicians involved showed the strength of high ambition. Constrained by their studio albums, Live/Dead shows the potential of unfettered Grateful Dead. The flip side of the coin would follow.
WORKINGMAN'S DEAD - 1970
On Workingman's Dead the band finally proved they could write a conventional set of songs without the clumsiness displayed on Aoxomoxoa. Unified and distinguished, its arrival may have been a surprise to many who had been following the band's career. As sharp and inventive as any other album released in 1970, Workingman's Dead showed the band growing in unexpected ways . Individually, the vocals were better. Their newfound interest in vocal harmony paid off on "Uncle John's Band," "Casey Jones" and Cumberland Blues." The arrangements were tight, but not formulaic. The Dead ensemble was ready when big musical ideas suggested themselves on "Easy Wind," "Uncle John's Band, " and "Cumberland Blues." Nothing seems forced or shallow.
Robert Hunter and Leonard Cohen may be the only true poets working in the rock genre. The Hunter/Garcia classics have begun. "Black Peter" is a precocious and serious meditation on death. The writing is full of deathbed details and the bridge is a great one:
See here how
everything
lead up to this day
and it's just like any other day
that's ever been
Sun going up
and then the
sun it going down
Workingman's Dead is the first of many albums that should have laid to rest the myth that the band was incompetent writing for records, at getting it down on vinyl. The album is free of loose ends, disjointed and ungainly structures, pointless solos and filler. The Dead turned a corner on this album, but Deadheads, spoiled by the potential of the Dead's live performances, and lazy critics disinterested in giving the Dead a fresh chance, would continue to perpetuate a fallacy that should have ended in 1970. For instance, Eric Clapton's first solo album (released the same year) and 461 Ocean Blvd, released in 1974, compare unfavorably to Workingman 's Dead and From the Mars Hotel, yet nobody claims that Clapton couldn't get it down on vinyl despite his uneven track record. And, of course, Clapton's live albums don't hold a candle to the Dead's live albums. Comparisons to artists besides Clapton are just as apt in puncturing misconceptions of the Dead's musical world.
The Dead had some things to talk about on Workingman's Dead. There's sweat and blood on this album. It's about busting your ass to get to work, breaking up highways . It's about the strength in friendship; trying to keep the wolf from your door; getting drunk; getting old and dying. Also included: a state-of-the-union message, a benevolent warning about cocaine and a friendly invitation to "think this through with me; let me know your mind."
The harmonies on "Uncle John's Band" are as moving as any of the harmonies on the Beach Boys' Sunflower l.p. What the vocals lack in perfection is more than made up for by the lush backup, the overall rich musical sound and unusual, compelling themes.
On "Uncle John's Band," the playing is full, but delicate: they approach the song softly, yet Hart and Kreutzmann pull off some extraordinary drum fills. The percussion break in the middle of the song, and the differing approaches to the acappella chorus, is the type of musicianship that can take your breath away.
Elsewhere: I'll take "New Speedway Boogie" over any boogie riffing on Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmos Factory. This is dense boogie, wiry and agile. The groove is propelled by handclaps, then gets heavier. It's a dark groove, more threatening than Fogerty's vague "Who'll Stop the Rain " and equally vague "Bad Moon Rising." Robert Hunter wrote about things getting out of hand and "I guess they always will." Fogerty wrote of a bad moon risin' and trouble on the way. Both writers were responding to the same social climate, but Fogerty's catalogue of doom lacked the barbed edges, harsh asides and various insights of "New Speedway Boogie":
You can't
overlook the lack, Jack
of any other highway to ride....
I don't know but I been told
if the horse don't pull
you got to carry the load...
One way or another
this darkness has got to give
"Easy Wind" is my favorite song on Workingman's Dead. Hart and Kreutzmann come up with an original drum pattern that rivals Bo Diddley's famous back-beat. There 's fire in Garcia's guitar runs. Hunter's road worker has big problems, but he's a big enough man to handle them. There's a break here that's audacious and mesmerizing. At times, the Dead's characters are as well-drawn as Lou Reed's, but the Dead draw on musical strengths Reed doesn't possess. The Velvet Underground released their last record, Loaded, in 1970. It's a good record, full of sharp portraits and good rock & roll. If the Dead, on Workingman's Dead, had anything over on the Velvets, it is in how fresh and original the music sounds: it is quintessentially Dead, while much of Reed's music is driven by recycled ideas.
Both "High Time" and" Dire Wolf" showcase Garcia's pedal-steel playing. "High Time " has some strained vocals running through heavy studio compression effects; but this is a marginal problem, more than compensated for by the wailing guitar and the heartbreakingly perfect bridge.
"Cumberland Blues" runs through a multitude of ideas. It's one of those songs that rambles so much it's hard to get a firm grasp of the tune, even after several listens. There's six or seven changes in tone and direction, but it sticks together easily and is thoroughly entertaining.
I've pointed out various comparisons and contrasts of Workingman's Dead with other artists isn't merely because I think it stands among the best albums of 1970. As part of a Dead trilogy that includes Live/Dead and American Beauty - all released in a one year span - the Dead pulled off a coup of both quality and quantity. In the process, they extended their range from loose improvisation to tight song formats. Both styles have since served to strengthen each other. I don't know which way your listening pleasure tends, but Workingman's Dead and Live/Dead are essential listening in a year that gave us Let It Be, Volunteers and Blows Against the Empire, Sunflower, Shady Grove and Just for Love, Moondance, Little Feat, Loaded, Funhouse, Live at Leeds, Pearl, Stagefright, Morrison Hotel, etc. It may be lost on modern readers, but some of the artists cited above had bad things to say about "the San Francisco Sound" and "psychedelic" music in general. Lou Reed, Robbie Robertson, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton and John Fogerty were part of a group of snobs, purists and assholes who dismissed the music in a number of ways, not just in the sixties, but in the seventies and eighties as well. Yet the Dead's rare muse would rage on. And prevail.
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