WORKINGMAN'S DEAD (Original Recording Reissued)

by

Grateful Dead

Edit

We came into the Dead concert and knew something was up when Jerry Garcia sat down behind a peddle-steel guitar. Instead of the rambling, hit or miss, acid-soaked freeform type of Dead concert we were accustomed to, we heard tightly structured songs, played tightly with economy and clarity. Instead of pyschedelia we were getting blues and country-tinged folk music, albeit played electric with double drummers. It was a new incarnation of the Dead which was to become the Workingman's Dead & American Beauty. It was a surprise.

It still is surprising to listen to this album, especially for those who only know the aura & reputation of the Haight-Ashbury hippie Grateful Dead. Erase that image, and you realize you are listening to quintessential American music, with roots ranging from Appalachian folk to Cajun Bayou to the Oakie dirt farm and the fieldhand's campfire. And it rocks.

This is simply a fine and Classic album. There isn't a wasted song in the bunch, with great music matching Robert Hunter's terrific lyrics. The guitar leads trade with each other over Phil Lesh's restless bass and the rhythms laid down by Kreutzman and Hart, complex and syncopated and kick-ay. And I love Pig Pen on Easy Wind, wailing, hoppin, bluesy and ballsy. It's one of those albums solid from start to finish.

This is great American music played by an American band. It's feet are planted firmly where its title indicates, in the life and music of the workingman. It is timeless.

'Workingman's Dead' shows what masterful musicians and interpreters/'augmentors' of old American music [like country & western, rockabilly, and old style rock and roll] the Grateful Dead were. It's very earthy and grounded: you can hear musicianship like that professed by Jimmie Rodgers', Hank Williams' and Elvis' back-up bands, and also new wrinkles more akin to the Youngbloods, the Byrds, and similar folks. All the tunes are rock solid, and outdoorsy to boot. Back in '69/'70, one might not know this was from a psychedelic hippie band unless you checked carefully.

While all the tunes are all right, and well written and played, the only one that I really favor a lot is "Uncle John's Band".

This was [and still is] a good background music type of album, at least for me. On the other hand, it prepared the ground for their following album, 'American Beauty', kind of like za-zen for satori, or John the Baptist for Jesus Christ. 'American Beauty' is likely one of the greatest poetic/spiritual documents to grow out of the late 60's, and easily transcends the era from which it originated. It simultaneously warms the gut and blows the mind. 'Workingman's Dead' does only the former.

Then again, I'm not a bona fide DeadHead.