Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead 1971 (l to r): Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron McKernan, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir – photo: Bob Seideman, Skull & Roses album inner gatefold (1971)

Dead playlist

Contributors: Rob Millis & Merric Davidson

Grateful Dead (Part 1: The “Pigpen” years, 1967-72)

“Not big, not clever and no-one is laughing” is an oft-uttered phrase. Not true of the Grateful Dead who were HUGE … had improvisional skills that many a jazz band would have killed for and always delivered with good humour (that the same jazz band really should have killed for, but wouldn’t dream of it …).

I look back at some of the earlier articles I have written for this site and they are a blow-by-blow account of the band. With such a history and legacy as the Dead, I’ll skip that. Were this a search engine, the keywords “San Francisco” “Haight Ashbury” “LSD” “Ken Kesey” would suffice to set the scene. Let’s go as far as saying that, by and large, the Dead were a group of people present very early on in the Acid Rock scene and via an ability to adapt, by far and away the longest lasting, if you separate Jefferson Airplane from Starship (and we owe them that).

The late, great Jerry Garcia was a bluegrass banjo hotshot turned lead guitarist, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was a blues singer/collector who also played organ and harmonica. Along the way they met young guitarist Bob Weir and added Garcia’s pal Phil Lesh – a classically trained electronic composer – who had all the theory but no chosen instrument until Garcia got him a bass and ran through the basics of it with him. And Bill Kreutzmann; summed up by that sentence on their first LP: Bill The Drummer. They had a band first called The Warlocks, but a name change followed to suit the far-out times. And after a couple of local singles so did a proper record deal – with Warner Brothers.

The 1967 eponymous first LP has often been criticized for being too “speed freak” frantic compared to the dope’n’acid sophistication of their increasingly free-form gigs. Maybe, but it is endearing with hindsight and I have to say that for any faults I love that record. So much so, I’ll take the opener The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion). Were we not limited to the Topper Ten, I’d have Beat It On Down The Line – a Jesse Fuller song turned rocker with Garcia’s bluegrass touch well to the fore in the guitar break – and Viola Lee Blues too – a lengthier workout that saw the archaic Noah Lewis jug blues stomp re-invented as acid rock. Bassist Lesh (I think it was) said it was the one moment of the LP that still sounded like the band, given the development of the act while awaiting release of the platter.

As the band evolved into the jamming juggernaut that the concert style of Haight Ashbury-ites demanded, it was decided that Pigpen’s little Vox organ and spirited (but no foil for Garcia, musically) comping on it was a bit rinky-dink and for the next three albums (eventually live work too), Lesh’s old music college buddy Tom Constanten was drafted in to augment the band on keyboards and free Pigpen to concentrate on his stronger talents of blues harp and vocals. They also added Mickey Hart as a second drummer. See, the Allmans didn’t think of it.

Maybe it was the avant-garde background of Lesh allied to the acid era of rock and roll that ushered in Anthem Of The Sun in 1968. To combat the lack of “what the band is actually like when you see them” gripes they had felt about the debut, the Dead set about taping lots of late 1967 shows and skillfully weaved chunks of these tapes together along with studio parts to help knit it all together (it wasn’t a live album in conception). This cost a fortune, took months and saw engineers walk out exasperated as well as earning the band a terrible reputation at Warner Brothers! The “Classic Albums” TV series episode “Anthem To Beauty” dealing with the Dead from 1968-70 is worth tracking down almost just for the portion of it that recounts their relationship with the record company during Anthem Of The Sun. The tracks are arranged in suite style and I was tempted by That’s It For The Other One for my ten, but the album is such a “whole” that I reasoned there was no place for it in ten selections for the novice. A later purchase!

Ah, Aoxomoxoa. That album. That sleeve. Another huge studio bill for what Garcia wanted as his masterpiece. You can read this album two ways: either the last “psychedelic” release by the band before the country rock period or (as I prefer) the first signs of country rock creeping in as the acid scene dwindled. True, What’s Become Of The Baby is by far and away their most difficult and inaccessible composition (basically Garcia’s chanting, through what sounds like a Leslie cabinet and with turbulent sound effects) but this contrasts with Dupree’s Diamond Blues, a folksy jug-band ditty. This song, along with the electric and endearingly shambolic (not an easy song to play and delivered as if about to fall to pieces any moment) Doin’ That Rag were on my shortlist for the Topper Ten, but China Cat Sunflower was also there, became a live staple forever more, and we cannot ignore it. Opener St Stephen also appeared on the next release: the classic Live/Dead from 1969, oft remembered for the definitive version of Dark Star, an in-concert favourite that had never graced an album as a studio recording. It was actually tried as a single but the truth is it needed an album side to stretch out over. Before the “What! No Dark Star?” cries go up, remember I have only five choices from 1967-72 in my half of the Topper Ten and – blasphemy or no – I’m not sure Dark Star is a great choice for a novice wanting to explore the band for the first time, as I said of Anthem Of The Sun before.

The eternal dilemma for any iconic sixties band would be what the seventies would hold for them and this applied twofold for the San Francisco bands – so steeped in acid culture that with the death of that scene, it was debatable whether they’d have a place at all; The Band (albums) and Creedence Clearwater Revival (singles) were ruling the roost with their return to rootsy songs, free of the long-winded jamming and drug scene excess of the music they were displacing with every turn (even in the UK this was felt: Cream themselves split up after hearing Music From Big Pink and declaring themselves “old hat” and The Rolling Stones delivered the back-to-basics Beggars Banquet – a return to form after unsatisfactory experiments with psychedelia). Bands like Country Joe and The Fish would falter; Jefferson Airplane started to fragment and the country blues of splinter group Hot Tuna became more relevant. And the Grateful Dead (sans Mickey Hart and Tom Constanten) came out of it smiling.

Like Rubber Soul and Revolver, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty (both 1970) are often seen as one body of work and so we will treat them here. Short songs (of course, the band were lucky to have lyricist Robert Hunter who could write for any style you could throw at him), vocal harmonies, good “ensemble” playing instead of long jams were the order of the day and Garcia’s newfound love of the pedal steel (for a while he did double duty in both the Dead and the New Riders of the Purple Sage on steel) added to the colour of the LPs, along with mandolin from his pal David Grisman and keyboards from Howard Wales who’d recorded an LP, Hooteroll, with Garcia around this time. Uncle John’s Band opened Workingman’s Dead and Casey Jones closed it. Both are classics, as is Sugar Magnolia from American Beauty, widely thought of as the first evidence of Bob Weir maturing and stepping up with Garcia as a featured writer and singer. The bluesy style of Pigpen started to make more sense once again with acid rock gone; his Operator was a highlight. Even bassist Lesh took a rare lead vocal on Box Of Rain. In truth, any Topper Ten for the Dead cannot displace one sure-fire tip: if you are wondering where to start on your journey through the back catalogue of the band, you can never go wrong with American Beauty as a first purchase. Robert Hunter shone on these releases; up against the standards of storytelling that Robbie Robertson had recently set, Hunter produced some of his finest work.

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.
(from “Ripple”)

No studio LP followed in 1971 but a live double – actually called Grateful Dead but to avoid confusion with the debut generally referred to as Skull and Roses after the cover and, of course, the two key elements of the band’s various logos and assorted pieces of artwork over the years. If we had more than ten choices I’d suggest Bertha and Wharf Rat from here – and Merric has graciously allowed the latter among his five choices of the Topper Ten. Also notable from the same year was the band appearing on “Fillmore: The Last Days” movie and 3-LP set, playing Casey Jones and a rollicking Johnny B. Goode.

Nor did 1972 herald a studio LP, but Garcia, Weir, lyricist Hunter and Mickey Hart (though no longer a member of the Dead) all had good solo releases out and the main act toured Europe in that same year, documented in the seminal triple live LP Europe ’72, from which I’ll go for Ramble On Rose and Brown Eyed Woman. Pianist Keith Godchaux had been drafted in to play piano and for that brief period, like The Band, we could enjoy the magic of organ and piano within the Grateful Dead. But the truth was somewhat sadder: Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was not in good shape – his chubby Hells Angel look gone; now painfully thin in a straw hat – and Godchaux was effectively there in case Pigpen had to bail out at any point. He stopped gigging shortly after the band returned home and sadly died in 1973. A live LP entitled Bear’s Choice was released in 1973 consisting of 1971 material, airing Pigpen’s in-concert favourite of a run through Otis Redding’s Hard To Handle. But there now – with the passing of their founder member, nominal frontman, harmonica player, organist and singer, my account of the Dead ends, and the baton now passes to your host and webmaster.

Footnote: The Dead are notorious for taping almost every concert they ever did, allowing others to do so and the sheer quantity of retrospective concert releases is actually quite daunting. I have kept my purchases to 1969/70 and Europe 1972 and would recommend the Steppin’ Out 4CD set taken from the British dates of the ’72 jaunt. If you become an incurable addict, fret not, there is enough material on the Grateful Dead Live Music Archive to fuel a lifetime of happy listening. Or there is another all-inclusive option, which Merric speaks of below and I wish now I had purchased!

Rob Millis

Grateful Dead (Part 2: The “post-Pigpen” years, 1973 onwards)

It’s the 8th of April 1972 and I’m on my way to the Empire Pool Wembley to see the Grateful Dead for the first time. A bit of a late starter when it came to the Dead; bought the first album for a friend but was way more into Airplane, Spirit, Love, Country Joe. That concert changed everything. Over the next forty years, the Dead would become the constant west coast music of choice – old friends. As Rob has written above, GD concerts were documented and taped so it’s easy and fun to check back on the setlists. My first live encounter apparently featured, among others, Bertha, Me & My Uncle, Deal, Cumberland Blues, Brown Eyed Woman, Beat It On Down The Line, Playin’ In The Band, Looks Like Rain, Casey Jones, Truckin’, Dark Star, Sugar Magnolia, Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks), One More Saturday Night. This was the second night of the Europe ’72 tour that Rob refers to. It was a good long night. It was a fucking fantastic night and my priceless ticket cost £1. You can now buy the whole of that European tour on 72 CDs for several hundred pounds if you can still find a set.

The sixth Grateful Dead studio album, the first on their own label, Wake Of The Flood, with its evocative sleeve by the great Rick Griffin (see also Aoxomoxoa and Without A Net), was released in 1973 and is the first post-Pigpen, and it’s a great favourite. Opening with the goodtime jollity of the Garcia/Hunter penned, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, a concert staple with a classic Robert Hunter mysterioso lyric: “On the day when I was born Daddy sat down and cried, I had the mark just as plain as day could not be denied” but with optimistic finale, “Farewell to you old Southern skies, I’m on my way, on my way … across the Rio Grandeeo, across the lazy river.” It’s Hunter in microcosm, and what a blessing he was to the band. Then, there’s the magnificence of the closer, Bob Weir’s epic Weather Report Suite, and this wonderful, massively underrated LP is bolstered by two more brilliant Garcia/Hunter songs that close side one, Row Jimmy and Stella Blue, and two more that open side two.

The plaintive Row Jimmy is a plateau of sorts for the Dead, a grower with Garcia guitar that just groans and moans, “That’s the way it’s been in town, ever since they tore the jukebox down, two bit piece don’t buy no more, not so much as it done before.” And Stella Blue which follows, and ends side one, its natural companion. Garcia with his beautiful fragile eggshell voice matched with aching guitar, “All the years combine, they melt into a dream, a broken angel sings from a guitar, in the end there’s just a song comes cryin’ up the night, thru all the broken dreams and vanished years, Stella blue”, and helped along no end by the harmonies of Donna Godchaux with her fella Keith on piano, this is a sensitive, slightly soporific love song but then it starts to soar and just keeps going, “It all rolls into one and nothing comes for free, there’s nothing you can hold, for very long, and when you hear that song come crying like the wind, it seems like all this life was just a dream.”

And after the two other Garcia/Hunter compositions on side two, we arrive at Bob’s magnum opus, Weather Report Suite, which, as they say, is worth the price of admission alone. And the Weir/Garcia counterpoint on this, and throughout the album, and the ones that precede and follow, is why Dead fans, Deadheads, are so loyal and in love with this force of nature, the forever axis of Bob and Jerry, and Phil and Bill, that carried the band through. From its first few notes, Weather Report Suite, holds and grips and I can’t recommend these twelve minutes highly enough, and it’s going into the toppermost at the expense of Jimmy and Stella!

Another jaunty, rollicking, witty track from Garcia/Hunter opens From The Mars Hotel, the next album which is half fantastic and half okay; a patchwork quilt, but when it’s good it’s very, very fine. U.S. Blues rolls along with a boogie piano:

Red and white, blue suede shoes, I’m Uncle Sam, how do you do?
Gimme five, I’m still alive, ain’t no luck, I learned to duck.
Check my pulse, it don’t change. Stay seventy-two come shine or rain.
Wave the flag, pop the bag, rock the boat, skin the goat.

I’m Uncle Sam, that’s who I am; been hidin’ out in a rock and roll band.
Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan.
Shine your shoes, light your fuse, can you use them ol’ U.S. Blues?
I’ll drink your health, share your wealth, run your life, steal your wife.

A fine starter to get you in the mood. Then it’s a seismic shift to track two, the enigmatic China Doll, and it’s just one of three more Garcia/Hunter tracks on this album (Scarlet Begonias and Ship Of Fools, the others) that are jostling for the number two slot on my topper five. “She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes, and I knew without asking she was into the blues, she wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls, I knew right away she was not like other girls…” They played both this, and Ship Of Fools, when I saw them at the Alexandra Palace in September 1974. In fact, to look at that setlist today and to see they finished with three personal favourites: Truckin’, Wharf Rat, Uncle John’s Band, before encoring with U.S. Blues – heavens to Betsy, hello Scarlet Begonias, I dig you the most.

The Grateful Dead’s eighth studio album, Blues For Allah (with superb cover art from Philip Garris), had Mickey Hart returning to drum duty alongside Bill Kreutzmann and with Donna Godchaux in a more outfront role on some of the vocals. Sweet voice. The album was made at a time in 1975 when the band were on a short “sabbatical” from touring, indeed at one stage it seemed it might be the last of it, but thankfully no, no, no. All this makes the appearance of the Bob Weir/John Barlow number, The Music Never Stopped, somewhat ironic. It’s a tussle between that one and the first two tracks, Help On The Way/Slipknot and Franklin’s Tower, but in the end none got in because there’s just not enough room!

Ah, Terrapin Station (1977). What can you say about Terrapin Part 1. Enthusiasts will agree with me that it’s a top ten Dead track (or one side of an LP in fact) and it’s one that I’ll put on whenever I’ve got a spare 16 minutes to prepare for something like going out or staying in. I just like to play it – a lot. Parts of Terrapin Station became concert favourites but I don’t think there was ever a Terrapin Part 2. Someone’ll tell me. It is though a Robert Hunter masterwork, try this:

While the story teller speaks, a door within the fire creaks
Suddenly flies open, and a girl is standing there.
Eyes alight, with glowing hair, all that fancy paints as fair,
She takes her fan and throws it, in the lions den.

And this:

Counting stars by candlelight, all are dim but one is bright;
The spiral light of venus, rising first and shining best,
On, from the northwest corner, of a brand new crescent moon,
While crickets and cicadas sing, a rare and different tune.

I also love Bob Weir’s brilliant Estimated Prophet from this one, and his Samson & Delilah, a version of Blind Willie Johnson’s If I Had My Way, I Would Tear This Building Down (see Topperpost #121). Donna Godchaux’ own song, Sunrise, is stunning and a gorgeous end to side one. Terrapin Station carries a thread through it which makes it a complete tapestry and it’s one of the very best Grateful Dead albums.

The last album with Mr & Mrs Godchaux was the band’s second for Arista, Shakedown Street (1978). Produced by Lowell George, it has its moments but no too many: the foot-tapping music of the title track, Shakedown Street, and Bob’s rockin’ I Need A Miracle will stand out.

Brent Mydland replaced Keith Godchaux on keyboards and, ahem, occasional vocals for album number eleven. Go To Heaven (1980) wasn’t well received and some of it is far, far away from the Dead in their prime but it does contain the gentle, much-performed Garcia/Hunter classic, Althea.

From the final two albums, In The Dark (1987) and Built To Last (1989) comes my fourth selection of the five I’ve been allotted. Touch Of Grey from In The Dark was the band’s first (and last) top ten record complete with incredibly impactful video bringing the Dead a whole new young fan base. “We will get by. We will survive.” Honourable mention must also go to the Weir/Barlow/Mydland track two, Hell In A Bucket, from In The Dark. “I may be going to hell in a bucket babe, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.”

And for my last trick, I need to have one from Rob’s 67-72 period, and that’s Wharf Rat and the best-known version is on Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses) from 1971 and mentioned by Rob above. Try it for size: “Half of my life, I spent doin’ time for some other fucker’s crime, the other half found me stumbling round drunk on Burgundy wine.” I’m having it in my five, can’t do without it, and that’s it.

If you’re investigating the Dead of this period, and you want to check some of the multitudinous live albums out there, two of the best are Dead Set and Reckoning (both 1981) – companion albums as they take recordings from the same concerts in the previous year – and the spectacular triple album, Without A Net (1990). Also, the visual experience that is The Grateful Dead Movie (1976) is essential, filmed at San Francisco’s Winterland during the Steal Your Face tour: “In 50 years when people want to know what a rock concert was like, they’ll refer to this movie.” The Village Voice

The Dead played the last of over 2,300 concerts in Chicago in 1995. Jerry’s been gone eighteen years. Bob and Phil are still playing … Mickey and Bill too.

It’s a cold, windy day in December in England in 2013 and I’m listening yet again to American Beauty. I saw the Grateful Dead four times in London in ’72, ’74, ’76, ’90 and I wish it had been many more. But we’ve still got the music – we’ll always have the music – and what a long strange trip it still is.

Merric Davidson

Official Site of the Grateful Dead

Jerry Garcia official site

Bob Weir official site

Phil Lesh official site

Philzone – the phan site

Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (Wikipedia)

Mickey Hart official site

Bill Kreutzmann official site

Robert Hunter Archive

The Donna Jean Godchaux Band website

Grateful Dead Live Music Archive

Grateful Dead Family Discography

Grateful Dead Archive Online

A Grateful Dead Bookshelf

Grateful Dead Guide – articles on songs & performances

Grateful Dead Listening Guide

Grateful Dead biography (Apple Music)

Amongst all the excitement and fervour and touring, the members of the Grateful Dead made several “solo” albums and many of them are on a par with the best of the Dead, the “solo” songs regularly featuring in concert. So, if you’d like to give us a Jerry toppermost, or Bob “Ace” Weir in any of his band guises, or the great Robert Hunter’s songs away from the Dead (try Tales Of The Great Rum Runners, 1974), or Mickey Hart with a plethora of albums, or … we’d love to hear from you.

TopperPost #142