Category: Music

By 1970, The Grateful Dead were beginning to eschew their prior association with the wild psychedelia of San Francisco. The group had moved out of Haight-Ashbury and into Marin and Novato. The group spent time at Mickey Hart’s ranch hanging out with the group Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Their 1970 release, Workingman’s Dead would echo these experiences. The group fully embraced a new sound blending Country, Folk, Bluegrass, and Rock influences. The band’s return to roots, in conjunction with Robert Hunter’s Americana lyricism, would build a record that would come to define the Grateful Dead sound. 

Side One of the record kicks off with the highly recognizable tune, “Uncle John’s Band.” The acoustic twanging that builds into vocal harmony is such a surprise after listening to their prior record. In such a short time, since the previous album, this song is the perfect jumping-off point to show their new harmonizing chops. The vocals on this song are truly where it shines, being able to make out both Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in the back. The percussion, though muted, is rhythmically complex and moving. At this point, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart play together seamlessly.

The next track, “High Time,” once again shines with vocal harmonies that were clearly picked up from Crosby, Stills, and Nash. However, this track also includes beautifully soft pedal steel guitar. This subtle introduction to a new sound transitions perfectly into “Dire Wolf.” As with the other songs on the album, it echoes lyrics that invoke Western-Americana and is lyrically more accessible for listeners. The pedal steel-led melody has moments that sound exactly like Garcia’s playing on Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Teach Your Children.” (Note: Though “Dire Wolf” did pre-date the CSNY tune, Garcia didn’t add the pedal steel guitar to the track until after he had already recorded his part in “Teach Your Children.”) Side one finishes on the country-rock track “New Speedway Boogie.” The Garcia-led vocals are twinged with Western-Americana lyrics, though the song serves as an ode to the tragic murder at Altamont music festival. 

Side two kicks off with Phil Lesh’s clean bassline on the song, “Cumberland Blues.” The bluegrass inspired track sputters along, feeling like taking a train across the middle of America. Spitting lyrics that invoke the albums title, Weir and Garcia trade off singing about the life of the blue collar working man over the harmonies. Garcia’s subtle banjo never steals the show, but when it comes in after the guitar solo, it’s a welcomed sound into the greater Dead catalogue. The next track, “Black Peter,” is a somber acoustic folk song, with a subpar Garcia vocal performance that doesn’t really shine until the bridge when the organs come to the forefront and the rest of the group comes in at perfect harmony. Afterward, Pigpen expertly fades in with a run of lines on harmonica that add the perfect punctuation to the song. “Easy Wind” comes in as a refreshing transition to the end of the album. Pigpen’s gruff vocal performance is like a shot a whiskey after a long day’s work. It’s a great blues-rock track that is wonderfully unique in its instrumentation, breaking down into a harmonica and percussion lead melody. Garcia’s excellent soloing bursts through the track, as well as Weir’s perfect rhythm playing which only furthers Garcia’s sound. Fittingly, “Casey Jones” begins the end of the record with the sound of someone snorting a line of cocaine. It is one of the most recognizable tracks in the Grateful Dead discography and for good reason. The lyrics tell the story of Casey Jones, a railroad engineer high on cocaine. Ironically, the whole song is a warning about the dangers of getting too involved in coke which the group itself would not heed in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The song is perfect to sing along to, has a solo just long enough to rock out, not too long to get bored, and a melody that kicks into gear right when the song begins to feel repetitive. It all builds up to that penultimate lyric, “and you know that notion just crossed my mind,” which crescendos the record to end in perfect harmony.

Workingman’s Dead is an important album that does a great job of fully stripping off psychedelia and embracing Americana. Hunter’s lyricism became fully realized and his travels across America with the band are reflected in his writing. Whereas his lyrics used to feel complex and like poetry, they are now simpler and easier to sing along to, while still telling the stories and invoke the times that Hunter wishes to share. The musicianship across the board is impressive, with Garcia standing out on banjo and pedal steel guitar. The eight tracks are all near perfect and reflect well of a band that carved out their niche in popular music. The CSN-influenced focus on harmonies are impressive, however they still were in need of more practice, sounding rough at moments.

With all this, the Grateful Dead managed to release their best album to date in 1970. This record was the first to stand out and really show the world how great the Grateful Dead were as musicians, lyricists, and producers. However, this monumental release wouldn’t be the only one for the band in the year 1970.

1969 would prove itself to be an interesting year in music. Most notably, American culture would remember the music festivals at Woodstock and Altamont. However within the music recorded in late ’68/early ’69 and released throughout that year, there is a stripping down of psychedelia. The Beatles would learn from their prior experimentations and release interesting rock/pop records The Beatles (1968) and Abbey Road (1969). The Rolling Stones ripped off their psychedelic facade and returned to their blues and rock roots on Beggars Banquet (1968) and Let It Bleed (1969). Few artists would continue to experiment with psychedelic music and new genres of music would be explored in pop culture. Newly formed groups like Crosby, Stills, and Nash, The Band, and Creedence Clearwater Revival would release their first albums and foray into Folk-Rock and Americana. Once again though, the Grateful Dead would be just behind everyone else with their 1969 album, Aoxomoxoa.

The Grateful Dead entered the studio in September of 1968 and would spend the next eight months working on Aoxomoxoa before its release in July of 1969. Those eight months produced an album that comes in around 40 minutes in length across only eight tracks. Aoxomoxoa would prove to be an interesting release in the overall discography, it ditches the prior approach the band had to recording in favor of shorter length, radio-friendly songs. The eight tracks were all written by Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter with the exception of the first track, “St. Stephen” which was co-authored by the duo and bassist Phil Lesh. The album also comes off as bizarre due to the band’s new recording process. The group had access to a new 16-track recording system which gave them greater freedom and ability to experiment. However, that would force the band to stay in the studio for much longer and accrue a greater studio bill for Warner Bros. Records.

Despite all this, the album works as a reflection of what the band was going through at the time. As they continued to delve deeper into looking for their sound and define who they were, each track in this album feels like a distinct recording. The album kicks off with “St. Stephen” which is a fairly straight up psychedelic rock song. The 16 track recording becomes noticeable as more of the instruments, like the piano on this track, don’t disappear into the mix like they had on prior Dead records. The way the melody breaks down into the guitar and chime driven bridge, portray how the Dead learned how to incorporate the odd sounds they explored on their previous album into a more palatable track. Though Garcia leads the vocals, the entire song is kicked up a notch when Weir breaks in with his vocal harmony. Despite the strong start, the song collapses near the end, as if they were going to improvise on the track but weren’t all the same page, Instead the track fades out leaving the feeling that something was missing.

The next two tracks on Side One, “Dupree’s Diamond Blues” and “Rosemary” are interesting blends of psychedelia and folk. “Dupree’s Diamond Blues” is an organ-lead tune that drums up the feeling of being at a Carnival. “Rosemary” is a short acoustic track with lute-like guitar playing and a whirring effect on Garcia’s vocals. This track serves as a good transition into “Doing that Rag”. The track is quite literally a ragtime song done in a rock style. The song is lead by the organ and drums while the guitars take a backseat until the chorus. Jerry’s vocals again become the focal point where he really pushes himself to hit high notes, then crooning at others. It proves to be a fascinating song overall with so many changes in pace and pitch, making it a technically difficult song to play but easy to sing along. “Mountains of the Moon” returns the band to the acoustic guitars. The melody is lead by Tom Constanten’s harpsichord playing which give the track a baroque style. What separates this track from tracks by other musicians like The Beach Boys, who were incorporating the Baroque style of music into their own a few years prior, is that Hunter’s lyrics echo those of an old time folk tune, placing the listener in a near forgotten era of music.

Side two begins with “China Cat Sunflower” which would become a staple for the band’s live performances and still is today. Again Jerry’s vocal effects have a psychedelic whirring. The lyrics are generic hippy fare. The rest of the group harmonizes behind Garcia, pushing his vocals to the forefront. The star of this song, however, is his guitar which plays an intricate melody that so seamlessly transitions into soloing. The next track however is absolutely jarring and is certainly the most experimental release the Dead had up to this point. “What’s Become of the Baby” is eight minutes of pulling teeth. The track contains no music or melody of any kind. It sounds as though Garcia spent eight minutes high on whippets, spinning in circles, whining nonsensical lyrics through a megaphone, all the while the rest of band stood 100 yards away with a boom microphone. This track is near unlistenable today and even Yoko Ono wouldn’t have found this track to be artsy enough to be avant garde. Despite this absolute dip in the album, “Cosmic Charlie” picks up the pieces and brings everything back in. The twanging country style guitars and Americana-inspired lyrics serve as a hint to where the Dead would be heading in their next iteration.

Aoxomoxoa ends giving listeners much insight into the Grateful Dead. The album is that of a psychedelic rock band, stripping away their sound, and finding their new direction. It’s a transition album that works as a bridge to the band that the Grateful Dead would be throughout the Seventies. The track “Cosmic Charlie” would best sum up what was next for the Grateful Dead when Hunter finished the song with, “Go on home, your Momma’s calling you…” Soon after, the Dead would “go on home” and find their biggest success to date.

The summer of 1967 would go down in history as the Summer of Love after the counterculture in San Francisco was thrust into the spotlight. During that summer and until the end of 1967, some of the most experimental albums in Pop music would be released. Bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, and Big Brother and The Holding Company would become household names. Established groups like The Byrds and The Rolling Stones would reflect their own experiences with psychedelics in releases that year. Amongst the groups that would capitalize on pop culture that year, the Grateful Dead would not have a major release during that time. Having not entered the studio to begin recording their follow up until September of 1967, The Grateful Dead’s second studio album, Anthem of the Sun, wouldn’t be released until July of 1968. However, the Dead’s new approach to their sophomore follow-up would prove to be their most innovative during the psychedelic era.

In 1967 after the release of their self-titled debut, one major change that occurs within the Grateful Dead was a lineup change. Mickey Hart, a drummer and percussionist, joins the group after meeting Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann at the Fillmore. With the addition of another drummer, the Dead’s ability to jam had grown and it shows on their approach to Anthem of the Sun.

When entering the studio, the Dead had a more clear vision and determination for the album. In order to share with listeners what the experience of seeing the Grateful Dead was like, they devised a plan to blend both studio and live recording into each of their tracks. This vision produced five tracks, all written by members of the Dead which blend the sounds of studio and stage. This mixture proves to be exactly the kind of record the band needed to release. Anthem of the Sun clocks in at over 30 minutes long, despite containing only 5 tracks.

Side one on Anthem begins with “That’s It for the Other One”, which at the time was the band’s most ambitious foray into writing. The song begins structured, with Garcia singing softly over the melody, with a tone that invites listeners to come aboard. As the song breaks into the improvisation and back to structure, Weir comes in, singing lyrics that visualize a dream-like acid trip where he harkens back to Neil Cassidy and the Merry Pranksters. He narrates his own journey that led him to singing for the listener when he describes hopping on the bus Furthur that would eventually lead the band to playing at Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests. The song invites the listener to hop on that same bus as it careens through the four part track and ends in overwhelming, bizarro studio sounds.

The song then transitions near seamlessly into “New Potato Caboose”. The track feels more like an extension to the previous song pulling the listener back into reality. The clean and tactile sounds of guitar and bells are inviting, but then the song makes multiple odd tempo changes both in the “blood red” section and when they break into harmony, before returning the the tactile sounds again. When the track finally breaks into the jam after the third chorus, it’s a muffled start before Garcia’s guitar breaks through like a light in the dark and begins to guide the band through the improvisation. This section is really where the interplay between Hart and Kreutzmann is first prominent. The track ends abruptly with Pigpen’s organ and the final track on side one busts in. “Born Cross-eyed” is the shortest track on the album and the only “radio-friendly” tune. However, the experimentation on the track in both structure and instrumentation make it incredibly un-”radio-friendly”. The dark toned chorus is near impossible to hum. The rest of the group’s back-up singing and harmonies float in and around Weir’s voice making it difficult to tell who is the lead on the song. It breaks down into this wild organ-lead carnival tune that crescendos with spanish-style horns. The track oozes of influence from other bands at the time, sounding like The Byrds at some moments and the Jefferson Airplane at other times.

Side two begins with “Alligator” the first time Pigpen sings lead on this album. The melody is lead by the interplay between guitar and Phil Lesh on the kazoo. When the track breaks into the chorus, underneath layers of guitar, kazoo, and percussion, there is a melodic clarity by the piano. A third of the way into the song, it breaks down into an incredible drum jam with Hart and Kreutzmann and contains a great moment where Weir tells the audience, “Come on everybody, get up and dance”. “Alligator” really gets going once Garcia finds his groove amongst the drums and then prompts Lesh’s bass to kick the rest of the band in. By this point the song barely feels at all like the song it started as, but it works as being the best representation of who the band was in late ‘67 and early ‘68. Unlike “That’s It for the Other One” it doesn’t feel like a semi-planned studio track, it gives off the feeling of pure improv played at its finest. As a note, “Alligator” is the first track where Robert Hunter receives writing credit, which would be the first of many in his long career as the Dead’s lyricist. The track also leads right into the final track “Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)” which feels like a blues jam right when it starts. The live sound of Pigpen’s microphone, mixed with the call and response of Garcia’s guitar or Weir’s voice put the listener right into the club there with them. The drums continue to push forward at a lightning pace as the listener can hear the tape speed up and whirl out of control. Returning, the jam feels lost and like no one is on the same page. However when everything feels erratic and lost, Garcia once again punches through the noise and brings them all careening towards a crescendo of feedback. Out of the rubble, is a mess of feedback akin to Jimi Hendrix humping a speaker at Monterey Pop Festival. Though upon first listen it sounds like noise, it becomes clear that the Dead were truly experimenting here. They produce sounds that belong in a distant future, a reality where humans live amongst the stars. The end of “Caution” acts as the transcendent crescendo of the album, sounding like it would fit it into the climax of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unlike Kubrick, the Dead don’t let Bowman wake up in a room. They leave the listener out in sonic emptiness as if they’ve reached the end of the universe and nothing was there.

Overall, this album really feels like a learning process for the Grateful Dead. They begin to experiment in studio recording, much like The Beatles did in Revolver. However instead of building up slowly in odd sounds and instrumentations like The Beatles, they stuff a full semester course into a four-week summer program. The band tests out their ability to blend bizarre sounds into their already pastiche style by featuring such instruments as the kazoo, glockenspiel, chimes, and finally by using their own pre-recorded live performances as an instrument. The album is a strong release for the band that had been so heavily shoehorned in their prior album. It’s an absolute breakout for the young Bob Weir as a singer and songwriter. It’s a first-of-its-kind experiment that proves successful at blending studio and live recordings. Anthem of the Sun is the Grateful Dead pushing the sonic limits of eight track tape recording. The album reflects the groups misfortunes however. The Grateful Dead released their debut album too early to cash-in on the promotion of the San Francisco sound in the Summer of 1967. Anthem of the Sun would come out too late as most established Rock & Roll groups had already released their most experimental works and began to ditch the psychedelic sound by July of 1968. As the year rolled on and the post-Summer of Love counterculture clutched its hold tighter on American Pop music, the Grateful Dead would continue to search for their sound once more before the end of the 1960s.