The year 1973 marked a series of major changes for The Grateful Dead. Founding member Ron \u201cPigpen\u201d McKernan \u2013 who had been playing a limited role in the band \u2013 died, and new keyboardist Keith Godchaux (along with his vocalist wife Donna) were now part of the group. The Dead had split from Warner Brothers to start their own label, and their musical style was again shifting.<\/p>\n
Wake Of The Flood<\/i>, the first studio release in three years from The Dead (and the first studio album with the Godchauxs) was a definite shift in style, from blues, psychedelia, and country to jazz and slow, plodding ballads. The end result was The Dead\u2019s most disjointed work to date, and one of the worst in their catalog.<\/p>\n
I can hear the calls of \u201cblasphemy\u201d from the Deadheads. How, after all, could I call an album that gave us \u201cEyes Of The World,\u201d \u201cWeather Report Suite,\u201d and \u201cStella Blue\u201d be anything but a masterpiece? Simple: too many guests spoiling the delicate balance of The Dead\u2019s chemistry (which was already in flux with the keyboardist change), too great a reliance on lugubrious ballads, and an overall muddy sound.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: of the seven songs that make up the initial release of this disc (we\u2019ll get to the bonus tracks in a minute), two of them save this disc from complete worthlessness. \u201cEyes Of The World\u201d is an absolute tour-de-force that suggests that the jazzy roots of Godchaux \u2013 while always somewhat present in Garcia\u2019s playing prior to this \u2013 helped to push the group into completely new and exciting territories, which would be further explored in the other two albums that made up \u201cGrateful Dead Mk III.\u201d Likewise, \u201cWeather Report Suite\u201d might not be a track that immediately grabs the listener and makes them realize this is something special, but the way the song develops from a gentle introduction into the wondrous finale of \u201cLet It Grow\u201d continues to push the envelope for the band in excellent ways.<\/p>\n
Problem number one comes in with the opening track, \u201cMississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo,\u201d a number that already was suffering from muddied production work. But while Garcia and crew had slowly been letting friends and musical acquaintances join the sessions \u2013 David Grisman\u2019s work on \u201cRipple\u201d and \u201cFriend Of The Devil\u201d comes to mind, albeit in a positive way \u2013 it feels like they threw the doors open and invited anyone to come in on this one. I\u2019m sorry, Vassar Clements\u2019s role in Old & In The Way was important, but the violin just does not fit in with the overall sound of the Dead. I counted a total of ten guest musicians who contributed to the music on Wake Of The Flood<\/i> (and I\u2019m perfectly willing to concede that I could have not heard similar contributions on \u201cEyes Of The World\u201d and \u201cWeather Report Suite\u201d), but it just feels like The Dead had become a hootenanny, especially one that didn\u2019t have the greatest songs at its core.<\/p>\n
Problem number two was Garcia\u2019s obsession with slow, plodding ballads. This would be a bane of Deadhead\u2019s existences throughout the history of the band, and while including one might have been okay on this disc, hitting the listener with a one-two punch of \u201cRow Jimmy\u201d and \u201cStella Blue\u201d is the musical equivalent of sleeping pills. Mistake number three: letting Keith Godchaux sing or actively write songs. There\u2019s a reason he only was the lead vocalist on one song in The Dead\u2019s career, \u201cLet Me Sing Your Blues Away\u201d\u2026 the less said about this goose-egg, the better.<\/p>\n Ironically, the 2004 reissue (originally part of the Beyond Description<\/i> box set) is what saves this disc for me today. Okay, the live version of \u201cEyes Of The World\u201d might not be the best version out there, but I found it very interesting to hear what I thought were the birth cries of \u201cHelp On The Way \/ Slipknot!\u201d in one of the instrumental breaks. Once again, anyone who thought The Dead moving to a more jazz-oriented feel was a mistake should give this a good, hard listen and realize that, in a way, this is merely an extension of the free-form psychedelia that made up the late \u201860s era of The Dead.<\/p>\n Then, the listener is presented with an acoustic version of \u201cWeather Report Suite,\u201d which gives a whole new insight to the pure musical talent that members of The Dead had (and still do). Hearing this one still in its growing pains (and apparently having no lyrics for the first part of the song) is absolutely fascinating, and this track is simply amazing.<\/p>\n Closing out the reissue is a surprise inclusion \u2013 a studio outtake of \u201cChina Doll.\u201d Oh, great, I should be thinking \u2013 another<\/i> meandering ballad from Garcia. But seeing this one didn\u2019t come out until the Mars Hotel<\/i> the next year, its inclusion here is curious, but not out of place. In fact, coming off the pure energy of the acoustic \u201cWeather Report Suite,\u201d it almost feels like the perfect way to close the disc.<\/p>\n While The Dead had added and lost members in their history to this point, they had never completely replaced anyone until Keith Godchaux took over for McKernan, and some growing pains were to be expected in the studio work. Wake Of The Flood<\/i> is filled with plenty of those growing pains moments, but it also has some powerful flashes of brilliance. If you can sort the two out, it is still worth checking out this particular set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5668],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-41998","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grateful-dead","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41998","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=41998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41998"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}