#264 - Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead (1970)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

BACKGROUND – GRATEFUL DEAD

The Grateful Dead were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, reggae, and psychedelia. Their live performances are legendary and lengthy, compiling long instrumental jams. These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world" The band came to be amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). 

The Grateful Dead began their career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of another band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. After finding out there was another band called the Warlocks, they changed to the Grateful Dead, and performed under that name for the first time in San Jose in December 1965. They formed during the era when bands such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones were dominating the airwaves. "The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band", said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing." Former folk-scene star Bob Dylan had recently put out a couple of records featuring electric instrumentation. Grateful Dead members have said that it was after attending a concert by the Lovin' Spoonful that they decided to "go electric" and look for a "dirtier" sound. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (both of whom had been immersed in the American folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s), were open-minded about the use of electric guitars. The Grateful Dead's early music (in the mid-1960s) was part of the process of establishing what "psychedelic music" was. They developed their "psychedelic" playing as a result of meeting Ken Kesey, and subsequently becoming the house band for the Acid Tests he staged. The 1969 live album Live/Dead did capture the band in-form, but commercial success did not come until today's album.

Their follow up album released later in the year, American Beauty, continued the folk and country music stle of today's album. Their 5th album peaked at #30. After that, Mickey Hart took time off from the Grateful Dead beginning in February 1971, but rejoined the Grateful Dead for good in October 1974. Following the Grateful Dead's "Europe '72" tour, Pigpen's health had deteriorated to the point that he could no longer tour with the band. His final concert appearance was in 1972, at the Hollywood Bowl, and died a few months later due to complications from liver damage. The death of Pigpen did not slow the band down, and it continued with its new members. They soon formed their own record label, Grateful Dead Records. Later that year, they released their next studio album, the jazz-influenced Wake of the Flood. In 1974, they released From the Mars Hotel, but took a hiatus from touring not long after that album's release. Before taking a break from the road, the band performed a series of five concerts that were filmed, and Garcia compiled the footage into The Grateful Dead Movie, a feature-length concert film that would be released in 1977. In September 1975, the Dead released their eighth studio album, Blues for Allah, and resumed touring in June 1976. The tour supporting their next release, Terrapin Station is held in high regard by their fans, and their concert at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York tis often considered to be one of the best performances of their career. In the early 1980s, Garcia's health began to decline. His drug habits caused him to lose his liveliness on stage. After beginning to curtail his opiate usage in 1985 gradually, Garcia slipped into a diabetic coma for several days in July 1986. After he recovered, the band released In the Dark in July 1987, which became their best selling studio album and produced their only top-40 single, "Touch of Grey". Also that year, the group toured with Bob Dylan, as heard on the album Dylan & the Dead. 

Jerry Garcia passed away about a month after their final show with him in the Summer of 1995. Since that year, the former members of the Grateful Dead have also pursued solo music careers. Both Bob Weir & RatDog, and Phil Lesh and Friends have performed many concerts and released several albums. Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann have also each released a few albums. In 2015, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Hart reunited for five concerts called "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead". The shows were performed on June 27 and 28 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and on July 3, 4 and 5 at Soldier Field in Chicago. The band stated that this would be the final time that Weir, Lesh, Hart, and Kreutzmann would perform together. They were joined by Trey Anastasio of Phish on guitar, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards, and Bruce Hornsby on piano. Demand for tickets was very high. The Chicago shows have been released as a box set of CDs and DVDs. 

The Grateful Dead have sold over 16 million albums in their career. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Grateful Dead No. 57 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2007, they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, a recording of the Grateful Dead's May 8, 1977 concert at Cornell University's Barton Hall was selected for induction into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Twelve members of the Grateful Dead (the eleven official performing members plus Robert Hunter) were inducted into the RnR HOF in 1994, and Bruce Hornsby was their presenter.

Bands associated with the expansion of the "jam scene" include Phish, The String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, and the Disco Biscuits. Many of these groups began to look past the American roots music that the Grateful Dead drew inspiration from, and incorporated elements of progressive rock, hard rock, and electronica.

ALBUM BACKGROUND – WORKINGMAN’S DEAD

As the '60s drew to a close, it was a heavy time for the quickly crumbling hippie movement that had reached its apex just a few years earlier in 1967’s Summer of Love. Death and violence were pervasive in the form of the Manson murders, fatalities at the Altamont concert, and the ongoing loss of young lives in Vietnam. Difficult times were also upon the Grateful Dead, unofficial house band of San Francisco’s Summer of Love festivities and outspoken advocates of psychedelic experimentation both musical and chemical. The excessive studio experimentation that resulted in their trippy but disorienting third album, Aoxomoxoa, had left the band in considerable debt to their record label, and their stress wasn't helped at all by a drug bust that had members of the band facing jail time. The rough road the Dead were traveling down were parallel with the hard changes faced by the youth counterculture that birthed them. Their fourth studio album, Workingman's Dead, reflects both the looming darkness of its time, and the endless hope and openness to possibility that would become emblematic of the Dead as their legacy grew. For a group already established as exploratory free-form rockers, Workingman’s Dead's eight tunes threw off almost all improvisatory tendencies in favor of thoughtful looks at folk, country, and American roots music with more subdued sounds than the band had managed up until then.