grateful dead, ‘workingman’s dead, 50th anniversary’

this month marks the fiftieth anniversary of what could arguably be considered the grateful dead’s most important and popular studio album, ‘workingman’s dead’. of course, ‘american beauty’, also released later in 1970, was maybe as important and certainly as popular. but after listening to both all the way through back to back like i did yesterday, for the first time in a long time, i will make two points. the first is that you could almost consider them to be a double album that just happened to be released individually, the second being that the argument as to which is better is like asking me which one of my twin daughters is more beautiful. it is a question that does not need an answer.

but there is no question that ‘workingman’s dead’ is a demarcation point for the band both commercially and artistically. i also think that it is one of the albums that was at the forefront of the burgeoning movement to what gram parson’s called ‘cosmic american music’, and would lead to what we would eventually reference as ‘americana’. with neil young and bob dylan integrating country influences in their recordings, and the band going even further than that, the dead were also finding their calling in this regard. bob weir had been a huge student of the bakersfield sound and had been incorporating country classics into the set lists. but more importantly, the songwriting duo of garcia/hunter were becoming obsessively productive in this period and lent their own twist to the country influences.

to say that this is a departure from their previous studio offering, ‘aoxomoxoa’, would be an understatement. the psychedelic underpinnings of that session are now entirely absent, the focus now being on songwriting, craftsmanship, and stacked vocal harmonies. it has often been observed that it is not a coincidence that the detail paid to harmonies was happening at the same time they were doing some session work with david crosby. there is likely some truth to that, but crosby himself, not one who tends to be humble in his opinions, contends that they mostly took it upon themselves to add that element to their new sound. it was very much a mutual admiration thing. i follow crosby on twitter, and someone once asked him ‘of all the people who are gone, who do you miss the most?’. his one word answer was ‘garcia’.

of the eight songs, seven of them were in the set list rotation for the rest of their career, the exception being pigpen’s ‘easy wind’. a great song, but it was distinctively his own and when he left the band two years later, i don’t think they ever tried it again.

so what is special about the 50th anniversary edition? in regards to the original album, nothing substantial, in my opinion. they simply remastered the original tracks but there are no ‘alternate takes’ or unissued material. ‘mason’s children’ was recorded during these sessions, and they played it live quite a bit in this period, but we get nothing here.

what is of substantial interest is that they tacked on a complete show from 2/21/71 at the capitol theatre in port chester ny. as a few friends will know, when i first heard about this i had mixed emotions. i was happy as i wanted to hear more of this rather legendary six night run at this venue, but disappointed because i had been hoping for a few years now that they might release the whole run as a box set. most of the shows had been considered lost until they came back into the band’s archives with the return of the ‘betty boards’ about 4-5 years back. the second night (2/19/71) was released by the band in 2007 as ‘three from the vault’, but the rest of the tapes were missing. this run is significant for a number of reasons, most notably that mickey left the band abruptly after the first show, never to come back for years. you can hear bobby address this fact in his comments in the second set when someone in the crowd asks about his whereabouts. kreutzmann adjusts quite well, and really doesn’t miss a beat (pun partially intended). a great example of this is his work on the aforementioned ‘easy wind’. on the album version, the two drummers turn in quite possibly one of their best dual efforts in the studio, but here billy tackles it all on his own, and nails it.

the other significant aspect is that the show features favorites from both ‘workingman’s’ and ‘american beauty’, as well as new material from bobby and jerry’s new solo records. we also get ‘me and bobby mcgee’, just a few weeks after janis joplin’s cover of kris kristofferson’s classic had hit the airwaves. it was on her album ‘pearl’, which was released posthumously after her untimely death. they were all great friends, and i have always contended that this was one of the best duos that jerry and bobby ever did together (although this might not be the best version), and you can hear the ache in their voices. jerry also turns in a great ‘bird song’, which is robert hunter’s tribute to janis (‘all i know is that she sang a little while and then flew on’).

so, in a nutshell, get this only if you have an interest in the live show. i contend that it is worth the price for that. but you may not. i will likely have more to say on this subject when they do the 50th package for ‘american beauty’, but until then, a little pig:

summertime blues

as we head towards the midpoint of the summer, here are a few things that i have been listening to that may potentially be suitable to sonically adorn any post solstice activities you may be contemplating.

ray lamontagne – ‘monovision

his best release in years, this one takes him back to the strengths that drew me to him in the first place – organic, soulful songs that pay homage to some artists we like in common. ‘misty morning rain’ has an ‘astral weeks’ feel to it, and the opening to ‘rocky mountain healin’ will remind listeners of neil young’s ‘long may you run’. ray produced, engineered, wrote and played everything. at first i felt it might have limited the spontaneity of it, but repeated listenings have changed my mind.

blackberry smoke – ‘live from capricorn studios’

the legendary capricorn studios in macon georgia were recently totally restored to it’s original configuration. at one point in the mid seventies nearly every important southern rock band laid some tracks down there, including a local band that made it big, the allman brothers. here blackberry smoke pays tribute to some of them by covering six tracks with some guests. also comes with a dvd. all proceeds go to a covid fund that benefits musicians and venues. here is a classic from wet willie, with jimmie hall on lead vocals:

corb lund – ‘agricultural tragic’

i first heard of this guy when hayes carll played one of their cowritten songs at the last show i saw of him. outstanding songwriter – clever, authentic, and often quite humorous.

sarah jarosz – ‘world on the ground’

if you follow modern bluegrass at all, you likely know of sarah. she is an extremely talented multi instrumentalist, one of the best clawhammer banjo players on the planet. she also happens to be an extremely good songwriter, and it is the latter that is on display here. legendary producer and musician jon leventhal collaborates with her on this one, and what we get is a ten song cycle of character sketches, most of them slower paced. this goes well with a glass of wine at the end of a quiet evening.

neil young – ‘homegrown’

another one of neil’s ‘lost’ albums, this one was mostly recorded in 1974, and was supposed to follow ‘on the beach’. but much of the material was about his relationship with actress carrie snodgrass, and that was deteriorating at the time. neil reportedly found it too painful to finish the project and released ‘tonight’s the night’ instead. neil fans will recognize ‘love is a rose’ and ‘star of bethlehem’, which were eventually issued on his ‘decades’ greatest hits album. they may also recognize ‘white line’ by the crazy horse version off of ‘ragged glory’. here it is presented as a duet with robbie robertson. there are a couple of clunkers in here, but the serious neil fan will want to check this out.

jerry garcia band – ‘garcialive volume 13’

when the e street band wasn’t touring, clarence clemons would often hang out on the west coast and jam around. he played a few times with the dead, and he and jerry struck up a friendship, not only musically but personally. in 1989 jerry convinced him to tour with his band, and here we have a complete sample of that tour. the unlikely pairing clearly enjoy the format, and they push each other to the limit. i can’t point to a song from this show that approaches mediocrity. the soloing gets a little over the top sometimes as the try to outdo each other. but most of the time there is magic, and the interplay near the end of ‘dear prudence’ is just simply beautiful. a good choice for the saturday afternoon cornhole session.

what are you listening to?

‘a reader writes in’

one of the fringe benefits, and really one of the dynamic aspects of writing this blog, is that people send me stuff all the time. i highly encourage this, and i try to give hat tips whenever i can. here are some things that people have brought to my attention in the last few weeks:

‘searching for sugarman’

my good friend tom m watched some of my music documentaries we covered at the beginning of the lockdowns, and told me i need to see this. it is an amazing story about a dylanesque figure from the slums of detroit who never connected in the states, but by a sheer fluke, became ‘bigger than elvis’ in south africa. i watched it last night, and promptly found his debut album and bought it.

john prine

from one of my musical soul mates, kevin sent this to me the other day. the last recording john prine ever made. ‘i will miss you in the morning light, like roses miss the dew’. god, i miss him so much. what a loss. look how he looks at the camera at the end.

george jones

tracy sends me a find from a bin at the cracker barrel, a rare recording from a session in the early seventies with george jones and roy acuff’s smoky mountain boys doing a bunch of bluegrass standards. you can find it on itunes to download for ten bucks. if you like the nitty gritty dirt band’s ‘will the circle be unbroken’ series, you will love this. same era, many of the same musicians.

‘laurel canyon’

kevin’s brother from the great white north brought this new documentary to my attention last week. what could be called a companion piece to ‘echos in the canyon’ that came out last year, this one covers more artists and doesn’t stop in the late sixties, which was one of my criticisms. this one is in two parts, and the second one covers artists that were completely ignored in ‘echos’ – joni mitchell, gram parsons, little feat, linda ronstandt, etc., and also spends some time on the genesis of the eagles.

american aquarium, ‘lamentations’

greg is one of my live music partners in crime, and told me about this album about a month ago. i saw this band open for turnpike troubadors a few years ago, but for whatever reason never followed up on them. if you want a high energy album to pick you up on your friday drive home, this ain’t it. but if you want an honest and insightful look at the decay of certain areas of rural america, this is very well done. as greg warned me, it keeps drawing you in. and the videos are great. they just cancelled their album tour, and i really would have wanted to see this tour.

keep them coming, friends.

steve earle and the dukes, ‘ghosts of west virginia’

steve’s twentieth studio album is the result of a project he was asked to write some music for that involved a mining disaster ten years ago. in april 2010 a coal dust explosion 1000 feet underground killed 29 miners. the mining company was found to be at fault. the idea was to go to west virginia and interview the survivors and the families of the victims, and turn it into a play. the play went into production early this year, with steve doing the songs here acoustic style on the stage with them. in the meantime, steve gathered his band and the mastersons and created a more fleshed out version of these songs.

‘ghosts of west virginia’ explores the hardships of the coal mining life and does so using a number of musical styles – gospel, folk, bluegrass, celtic, and rock. recorded at new york city’s electric lady studios, it has a gritty and authentic sound to it. the first seven songs are directly from the play, and two of the last three are directly related (‘black lung’ and ‘the mine’), while the third is only tangentially related (‘fastest man alive’, about chuck yeager, who was born in west virginia). many of the songs are dripping with despair and anger, like the centerpiece ‘it’s about blood’, where steve eventually calls out the names of all 29 deceased as the song gets more and more intense. but there are also songs celebrating the good things about their lives, like the infectious ‘union, god and country’.

steve is rather well known for his liberal political views, but in a number of interviews he has mentioned that he ‘decided to make an album that spoke to and for people that didn’t vote the way he did’. another way he explained it was that if we don’t have common beliefs with others, then we need to learn how to communicate better. how appropriate that sounds right about now. steve earle absorbed the material and the people, and has told their story well.

jason isbell and the 400 unit, ‘reunions’

upon hearing that jason and his band were ready to release their next studio album, i was preparing myself to write something i hoped would not be true – that he had hit a plateau in his career and would never live up to the phenomenal ‘southeastern’ album from 2013. even though i had been impressed with his songwriting since his drive by truckers days, ‘southeastern’ was the album that put him on the map nationally, and has since helped cement his reputation as one of the great singer songwriters working today.

his two following albums, ‘something more than free’ and ‘the nashville sound’, were very good, but not consistently great like their predecessor was. i was getting the impression that he might have been resting on his laurels a bit, or maybe distracted by his marriage and raising their daughter. if you follow him on twitter, you will know that he is very active on there, with his substantial wit, his appreciation of other artists, but also his very vocal political opinions.

so as i threw the disc in my car player on the way home from work the other day, i was already jaded and ready to be disappointed once again. by the time i got to about the third or fourth track, though, i knew i was going to be wrong. this is his best work since ‘southeastern’, and it is also substantially different from that album. ‘southeastern’ had him writing material fresh off of getting married and getting sober, and much of the material was personal in nature. the production was more sparse and acoustic, his first partnership with producer dave cobb.

for ‘reunions’ he continues his work with cobb, but his writing is less drawn on personal experience than before. he has been purposefully trending this way for a while now, with a few exceptions (‘it gets easier’ is specifically about the daily struggles of sobriety). the songwriting is about as good as anything he has ever done, which means it is as good as anybody else writing today. the sonic qualities and the production are quite different though, and that is part of the reason why i just can’t get it out of that cd player. isbell wanted a sound more reminiscent of the rock he heard on the radio in the 80’s such as dire straits and squeeze. there is more layering and depth to nearly all the songs, and i don’t think the 400 unit has sounded better musically. typical of this is the opener, ‘what’ve i done to help’, an almost later era motown/marvin gaye groove driven by jimbo hart’s bass line. oh, and that is david crosby on backup vocals. ‘overseas’ is also a standout, with some great anthemic solos from guitarist sadler vaden. on the more reflective side, he gives us ‘st. peter’s autograph’ which he wrote about his wife amanda shire’s grieving over losing one of her close friends, guitarist neal casals, to suicide last year.

jason and amanda have never sung better together, even though they were having marital issues during the recording sessions. a great example of this is the closing song of ‘letting you go’, where they envision the day that their daughter gets married. i can tell you that if one of the redeyegin twins were to become betrothed, this would be a contender for the father/daughter dance.

this one will likely be in a heavy rotation this summer, and rightfully so.