1970 brought about one of the biggest changes for The Grateful
\nDead, partially spurred by the chilling events at Altamont.
\nWorkingman’s Dead<\/i> was the first of two albums which placed
\nJerry Garcia in a whole new scene. Gone (but not forgotten) were
\nthe drawn-out, spacey jams which the band had become known for on
\nrecord. Also cast aside – at least for a while, anyway – was the
\ndependence on the electric guitar.<\/p>\n
\nWorkingman’s Dead<\/i> presented The Grateful Dead in a
\ncountry-rock, semi-acoustic atmosphere, but it did not diminish
\ntheir power. If anything, this shift in direction won the band more
\nfans than they could have ever imagined, spurred on in no small
\npart by “Casey Jones” and “Uncle John’s Band”. While this disc
\nshowed the Dead were still getting comfortable in this new musical
\nsuit, there were moments of sheer brilliance.<\/p>\n
Let’s stick with the two best-known songs for a minute. “Uncle
\nJohn’s Band” remains one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever
\nheard the Dead perform. The band was still working out the smooth
\nedges of true harmony vocalization, but this was a damned
\nimpressive effort sealed by the acoustic guitar work from Garcia.
\n“Casey Jones” proved the band hadn’t abandoned their electric
\nroots, turning in a powerful performance that, while overplayed
\nthese days, still remains a high point in the band’s career.<\/p>\n
Yet there are other songs on
\nWorkingman’s Dead<\/i> which seemed to define the Dead better at
\nthis stage in their career. “New Speedway Boogie,” another one of
\nthe electric numbers, was a direct response to the violence the
\nband witnessed at Altamont, and was a wake-up call to the Age of
\nAquarius. “One way or another, the darkness got to give,” Garcia
\nsings on this song – and he couldn’t have been more correct,
\nespecially seeing that the times in early ’70s America would get
\nonly more turbulent.<\/p>\n
“Dire Wolf” is one of the underrated classics in the Dead’s
\ncatalog, and is a fun country-fied track to listen to at top
\nvolume. Likewise, “Black Peter” is highly underrated, despite being
\na very popular number among the Deadheads in the early ’70s. The
\ngentle performance of this track, combined with Garcia’s quiet yet
\npleading vocal style, instantly marks this track as a classic. And
\nif you don’t get the urge to dance around to “Cumberland Blues,”
\nget your pulse checked. (Admittedly, I do like the drawn-out
\nversion on
\nEurope ’72<\/i> a bit more.)<\/p>\n
All of this said, there are a couple of moments on
\nWorkingman’s Dead<\/i> where things just don’t work out as the
\nband might have planned them. “High Time” has never been one of my
\nfavorite songs by the Dead, just because it feels like it’s a
\nfuneral march tempo-wise. “Easy Wind,” featuring Ron “Pigpen”
\nMcKernan on vocals, doesn’t feel like it belongs with this
\ncollection of tunes, and might have been a better fit on
\nAmerican Beauty<\/i>. It’s not that I didn’t like or appreciate
\nPigpen’s contributions to the Dead, but this one doesn’t have the
\nsame kind of vibe that the rest of the album shares.<\/p>\n
\nWorkingman’s Dead<\/i> marked a major change for the Dead,
\nsomething they would become known for over the next 25 years of
\ntheir career. Even with the occasional weak moment, this album
\nstill holds up well, and remains one of the few “must-own” albums
\nin the Dead’s catalog for the non-Deadheads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5668],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39476","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grateful-dead","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39476"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}