#workingman’s dead

[longliverockback]

Grateful Dead Workingman’s Dead 2014 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab ————————————————— Tracks: 1. Uncle John’s Band 2. High Time 3. Dire Wolf 4. New Speedway Boogie 5. Cumberland Blues 6. Black Peter 7. Easy Wind 8. Casey Jones —————————————————

Jerry García

Mickey Hart

Bill Kreutzmann

Phil Lesh

Ronald Charles McKernan “Pigpen”

Bob Weir

* Long Live Rock Archive

[jt1674]

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Grateful Dead - Workingman’s Dead (2023 Mickey Hart Mix)

Ever the iconoclastic searcher of sound, Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart remixed the band’s 1970 Workingman’s Dead LP for 2023.

Overflowing with Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter standards - plus Pigpen’s “Easy Wind” - the album is a high-water mark.

Hart was wise to not futz too much, but he did reveal nuances in Garcia’s voice and instruments and Phil Lesh’s bass by opening spaces between the vocals and the music. In doing so, he de-emphasized the pedal-steel guitar and organ in “Dire Wolf” and “Black Peter,” respectively, and pushed up the banjo in “Cumberland Blues.”

Most notably, Hart restored some of Pigpen’s ad-libbed vocal asides to “Easy Wind” and found some lost, wordless harmonies in “Dire Wolf,” making for a fresh listen to an album that will never go stale.

Grade card: Grateful Dead - Workingman’s Dead (2023 Mickey Hart Mix) - B+

7/7/23

[agoodsongeveryday]

Day One Thousand and Ninety Nine

It's the same story the crow told me It's the only one he know Like the morning sun you come And like the wind you go

Ain't no time to hate Barely time to wait Woah, oh, what I want to know Where does the time go?

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

... listen to music ...

[murnswhyte]

One of my favourites ✨

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

«There seems to be a general assumption that brilliant people cannot stand routine; that they need a varied, exciting life in order to do their best. It is also assumed that dull people are particularly suited for dull work. We are told that the reason the present-day young protest so loudly against the dullness of factory jobs is that they are better educated and brighter than the young of the past.

Actually, there is no evidence that people who achieve much crave for, let alone live, eventful lives. The opposite is nearer the truth. One thinks of Amos the sheepherder, Socrates the stonemason, Omar the tentmaker. Jesus probably had his first revelations while doing humdrum carpentry work. Einstein worked out his theory of relativity while serving as a clerk in a Swiss patent office. Machiavelli wrote The Prince and the Discourses while immersed in the dull life of a small country town where the only excitement he knew was playing cards with muleteers at the inn. Immanuel Kant’s daily life was an unalterable routine. The housewives of Konigsberg set their clocks when they saw him pass on his way to the university. He took the same walk each morning, rain or shine.. The greatest distance Kant ever traveled was sixty miles from Konigsberg. (Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Christian, German, Italian, German figures)

The outstanding characteristic of man’s creativeness is the ability to transmute trivial impulses into momentous consequences. The greatness of man is in what he can do with petty grievances and joys, and with common physiological pressures and hungers. “When I have a little vexation,” wrote Keats, “it grows in five minutes into a theme for Sophocles.” To a creative individual all experience is seminal --- all events are 9equidistant from new ideas and insights --- and his inordinate humanness shows itself in the ability to make the trivial and common reach an enormous way. (English, Greek figures)

An eventful life exhausts rather than stimulates. Milton, who in 1640 was a poet of great promise, spent twenty sterile years in the eventful atmosphere of the Puritan revolution. He fulfilled his great promise when the revolution was, dead, and he in solitary disgrace. Cellini’s exciting life kept him from becoming the great artist he could have been. It is legitimate to doubt whether Machiavelli would have written his great books had he been allowed to continue in the diplomatic service of Florence and had he gone on interesting missions. It is usually the mediocre poets, writers, etc., who go in search of stimulating events to release their creative flow. (English, Italian figures)

It may be true that work on the assembly line dulls the faculties and empties the mind, the cure only being fewer hours of work at higher pay. But during fifty years as a workingman, I have found dull routine compatible with an active mind. I can still savor the joy I used to derive from the fact that while doing dull, repetitive work on the waterfront, I could talk with my partners and compose sentences: in the back of my mind, all at the same time. Life seemed glorious. Chances are that had my work been of absorbing interest I could not have done any thinking and composing on the company’s time or even on my own time after returning from work.

People who find dull jobs unendurable are often dull people who do not know what to do with themselves when at leisure. Children and mature people thrive on dull routine, while the adolescent, who has lost the child’s capacity for concentration and is without the inner resources of the mature, needs excitement and novelty to save off boredom.»

Eric Hoffer, I Savor the Joy of Dull Work

[louisegluckpdf]

for an album to be really really good it has to have both a song about the highway and a song about trains (source: workingman's dead (1970) and born in the usa (1984))

[gratefulfrog]

ON THIS DATE (53 YEARS AGO)

June 14, 1970 – Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead is released.

Workingman's Dead is the fourth studio album by the Grateful Dead, released on June 14, 1970. It reached #27 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's & Tapes chart. In 2003, the album was ranked number 262 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The title of the album comes from a comment from Jerry Garcia to lyricist Robert Hunter about how "this album was turning into the Workingman's Dead version of the band."

Garcia has said that much of the sound of the album comes both from his pairing with Hunter as well as the band's friendship with Crosby, Stills and Nash. "Hearing those guys sing and how nice they sounded together, we thought, 'We can try that. Let's work on it a little,'" commented Garcia.

Songs such as "Uncle John's Band," "High Time" and "Cumberland Blues" were brought to life with soaring harmonies and layered vocal textures that had not been a part of the band's sound until then. According to the 1992 Dead oral history, Aces Back To Back, in the summer of 1968, Stephen Stills vacationed at Mickey Hart's ranch in Novato. "Stills lived with me for three months around the time of [CSN's] first record," recalls Hart, "and he and David Crosby really turned Jerry and Bobby onto the voice as the holy instrument. You know, 'Hey, is this what a voice can do?' That turned us away from pure improvisation and more toward songs."

The Grateful Dead's first four albums reinforced their stature as a performing group, with a loose improvisational feel rooted in the blues, rock & roll, and modern jazz. But with the 1970 release of Workingman's Dead, Garcia, Weir, Lesh, McKernan, Kreutzmann, and Hart reined in their many spatial musical elements and found their true stylistic niche in the studio with an engaging blend of country, blues, and folk. Where earlier studio releases strove to recreate the kind of freeform group improvisations that won the Dead a fanatical cult following in the Bay area, Workingman's Dead drew upon a rural American vernacular that was in many ways analogous to that of the Band.

The resulting music has a rootsy, timeless quality, with tight instrumental arrangements, concise solo breaks, and a carefully wrought style of vocal harmonizing. The Dead won extensive airplay with tuneful songs like "Uncle John's Band" and "Casey Jones," while expanding their following well beyond San Francisco. Garcia's slithering pedal steel counterpoint and twangy banjo rolls make for a charismatic new style of bluegrass on "Dire Wolf" and "Cumberland Blues," while "New Speedway Boogie," featuring some of Robert Hunter's best lyrics, is a pointed personal metaphor for the tragic chaos at Altamont the summer before. This remains one of the legendary band's most concise and beautifully executed records.

__________

ORIGINAL ROLLING STONES REVIEW

It's so nice to receive a present from good friends.

Workingman's Dead is an excellent album. It's a warming album. And most importantly, the Dead have finally produced a complete studio album. The songs stand up quite nicely right on their own merits, which are considerable.

"Uncle John's Band," which opens the album, is, without question, the best recorded track done by this band. Staunch Dead freaks probably will hate this song. It's done acoustically for a starter. No Garcia leads. No smasho drumming. In fact, it's got a mariachi /calypso type feeling. Finely, warmly-lush tuned guitar work starts it off, with a statement of the beat and feeling. When Garcia comes in with the vocal, joined by a lot of tracks of everyone else's voices, possibly including his, it's really very pretty. The lyrics blend in nicely with the music. "All I want to know/How does the song go?" "Come hear Uncle John's band/playing to the tide/Come with me, or come alone/He's come to take his children home." Near the end of the song there is an a cappella section done by everyone, sounds like about 62 tracks, maybe 63. Just listen to it, and try not to smile.

The years of playing together have shown handsome dividends. "Dire Wolf" points this out. It's a country song, Garcia's steel guitar work is just right, and everyone sings along to the "Don't murder me" chorus.

The country feeling of this album just adds to the warmth of it. "Cumberland Blues" starts off as a straight electric cut, telling the story of trying to make ends meet in bad times. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, a banjo enters the song. By the end, I was back at the old Gold Rush along with everyone else. The banjo brought me there.

Even the cuts that are not directly influenced by country stylings have a country feel to them. I suspect that this is due to, the band's vocals. Living out on their ranch seems to have mellowed them all, or at least given a country tinge to their voices. "Casey Jones" is not the theme song you might remember from television. "Driving that train/High on cocaine/Casey Jones you better watch your speed." Listen closely, especially to the cymbal work. Then listen to Phil Lesh's bass mixing with Weir's guitar. Now listen to the cymbal again. Yep. They did it. I don't know who's train is better, Casey's or the Dead's. Living sound effects. Just fine.

~ Andy Zwerling (July 23, 1970)

[jt1674]

[krispyweiss]

Peter Rowan Leads Phil Lesh & Friends into the Woods on “Clubhouse Sessions”

- Big band includes Stu Allen, John Molo, Barry Sless, Holly Bowling, Elliott Peck, Jason Crosby and Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz

Peter Rowan came to the Terrapin Clubhouse and took Phil Lesh & (a large group of) Friends into the country and bluegrass.

With the octogenarian - but not in the way - Rowan and Lesh at the helm, a stellar band of relative whippersnappers featuring guitarists Stu Allen, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz and Barry Sless (pedal steel); singer Elliott Peck; drummer John Molo; fiddler Jason Crosby; and pianist Holly Bowling added respectful modernity to songs from Old & In the Way, Rowan and the Grateful Dead.

Though this was a one-off band for Episode 4 of Lesh’s “Clubhouse Sessions,” it couldn’t have been more tight but loose on “Dupree’s Diamond Blues,” which peaked as first Bowling, then Crosby and Sless transformed the studio into a dusty, Old West saloon. It’s a magical bit of musical inspiration made possible by players adept at picking their spots, Molo’s agile, light-touch drumming and a sonic approach that left room for Lesh’s bass to gurgle to the surface.

There’s not a wasted second in the 40-minute performance video, bookended as it is with a version of “Midnight Moonlight” that nods slyly to “Throwing Stones” and a “Dire Wolf” that finds Sless recalling Workingman’s Dead-era Jerry Garcia on the sit-down guitar.

Peck sings “Ripple” beautifully with Lesh taking over as the band crosses the bridge and Rowan reminds listeners he can still yodel on “Land of the Navajo.”

Beyond grateful for this magical offering.

Read Sound Bites’ coverage of the previous “Clubhouse Sessions” here.

6/21/24

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Grateful Dead - American Beauty

The second album in a year for the Dead. It's easy to assume that their newfound country sound would have been a one off experimentation or would grow thin quickly, but this album easily tops Workingman's Dead. The Dead are even tighter and more coordinated than ever before. Jerry Garcia leans even harder into the pedal steel guitar and tight harmonies. It also wound up producing Truckin', one of their most long lasting live staples. Basically if you liked Workingman's Dead then American Beauty is just more of that but better.

Tom Petty - Wildflowers

Uh, yeah ok. I mean this isn't bad. It feels like over polished Full Moon Fever b-sides but y'know I like Full Moon Fever. I wish there were a few more energetic tracks like You Wreck Me and A Higher Place. It runs over an hour but I didn't feel the length as bad as I thought I would. It's mid. I like it tho.

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

Yes that is the title of the album. Fiona Apple never misses and this is one of her finest. Dramatic, romantic, moody, and playful. The piano plods confidently but always changes itself up before anything has a chance to get too sappy. Apple's voice is wavering, calm, aggressive sometimes all in one song. The quirkyness is sincere, somehow never grating. It's kind of amazing that Fiona Apple's music doesn't actively annoy me, but even wilder that she's one of my favorite artists.

Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind

Nina Simone has one of the most commanding voices in all of musical history. There's just a shitload of power and conviction behind every song and it feels like she can barely be contained. No one can crescendo like Nina Simone. No one. The buildup on Four Women should be enough to prove that. Simone's voice is always good though, what this album has over other Nina Simone records is definitely the arrangements. The buildup and bombast of Four Women and Lilac Wine are par the course but I Love Your Lovin' Ways has an energetic blues arrangement and Why Keep On Breaking My Heart gets the full doo wop treatment. There's a lot of range here. So much emotional rawness and dramatic flair.

[lobstersinmyhouse]

My backstabbing royal confidant @cowgirlhealslut tagged me to reveal my kingdom's four greatest weaknesses (my best friend tagged me to post four albums I've been listening to)

1) Nebraska. The product of Bruce Springsteen's depressive episode in the early 80s, it's a stark and melancholy look at the effects of growing up in new Jersey. Full of lively bangers like Mr. State Trooper in which a deranged man threatens a cop or the title song Nebraska in which a man commits serial murders alongside his girlfriend and gets the electric chair for it. Great album. My favorite track is Open All Night.

2) Music from the Big Pink. The Band's first and best studio album produced in the titular Big Pink House in Woodstock, New York. Music from the big pink is a masterful album full of slightly trippy folk Americana. My favorite song off the album is Caledonia Mission.

3) Workingman's Dead. A grateful dead studio album with a buncha great folk songs. My favorite track is Dire Wolf.

4) Guts of a Virgin. Painkiller's first and best album. A John Zorn jazz torture experiment in which a saxophone is artfully fucked by a dude with a car battery wired to his nuts. 10/10. My favorite track is the first track on the album, SCUD Attack.

I'm too lazy to add pictures, suckle me from the back.

I tag @deergirlestradiol @angel-tooth @sleeplikeakitten @mythicexplorer @lovedidslowlyfade

[pureamericanism]

Putting on my Ecologist Hat, I once had a friend ask me "how long does it take for an old-growth forest to form? how old is 'old-growth'?" I gave the question a good bit of thought, and I will stand by my answer: for pretty much any temperate forest I'm aware of, after about 100 years after a major disruption (fire, the saw, pest/disease outbreak, volcanic eruption) it will begin to noticeably take on old-growth characteristics*. And after 250 years it will be meaningfully indistinguishable from an undisturbed forest. This is, of course, not including pests and diseases that eliminate an entire species or genus from the ecosystem, or the introduction of new species. But even in those cases, this is about the right timeframe for a new autopoeic old-growth ecosystem to be established.

This is sort of bad news, in that old-growth forests do take a long time to reestablish. But I think it will come as good news to many, who imagine that old-growth forests are necessarily millennia old.

*What are old-growth characteristics? Well, these: trees of a wide variety of ages and size classes forming a complex, multilayered canopy; an abundance of late-successional, shade-tolerant species; a forest floor community featuring herbaceous species adapted to dense forest conditions and a deep organic layer of decomposing leaf litter; animal communities similarly adapted to these conditions; large amounts of dead wood, both standing and on the ground; and the complex forest floor topography associated with repeated uprootings of large trees.

===============

Putting on my Lumberman Hat, once upon a time some coworkers and I found a particularly impressive surviving old-growth redwood on a protected area of a timber company's lands. Now, this tree was impressive by 'surviving a century and a half of intensive logging' standards, but compared to what's out there in the never-logged stands, it was pretty average. We did some quick, back-of-the-envelope geometry to estimate how much recoverable timber would be in that tree, and when we got home we checked out the stumpage prices for old-growth redwood lumber. Conservatively, a sawmill would pay $40,000 for that tree. No, I didn't add a zero there: the wood in that single tree was worth a year's wages for a workingman.

I suddenly became much more sympathetic to the greed of the lumber barons. Yes, they were short-sighted, foolish, and possibly blasphemous in the speed and extent of the destruction they caused. But there have been, and continue to be, people who would sell out things even dearer to them for far, far less money than that.

[hoursofreading]

His bow was deep, his hand salute trembly. He was afraid to look at me until I offered him a chair and a glass of cold tea to drink. I thanked him for all he’d done and told him how happy I was to see him. That loosened his tongue, first a little and then a lot. He gave me news of Lilimar no one else had bothered to pass on. I think because he saw it from a workingman’s point of view. The streets were being cleaned, the rubbish and rubble were being picked up. Hundreds of people who had come to the city to help overthrow Elden’s rotten reign had left for their towns and farms, but hundreds more had replaced them, come to do their duty for Queen Leah before returning to their homes in places like Seafront and Deesk. To me it sounded like the WPA projects I’d read about in school. Windows were being washed, gardens were being replanted, and someone wise in the ways of plumbing had gotten the fountains started, one by one. The dead, no longer restless, had been reburied. Some of the shops had been re-opened. More would follow. Percival’s voice was still slurred and garbled, sometimes hard to understand, but I’ll spare you that.

King, Stephen - Fairy Tale

[mondoradiowmse]

11/06/24 Mondo Radio Playlist

Here's the playlist for this week's edition of Mondo Radio, which you can download or stream here. This episode: "Strange Days and Funny Vibrations", featuring country rock and Cosmic American Music. If you enjoy it, don't forget to also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter!

Artist - Song - Album

The Everly Brothers - Introduction: The Everly Family (1952) - Roots

The Everly Brothers - Mama Tried - Roots

Buffalo Springfield - Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It - Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield - Hot Dusty Roads - Buffalo Springfield

The Beau Brummels - Love Can Fall A Long Way Down - Bradley's Barn

The Beau Brummels - Turn Around - Bradley's Barn

John Hartford - Gentle On My Mind - Dylan, Cash And The Nashville Cats: A New Music City

Ian & Sylvia - This Wheel's On Fire - Dylan, Cash And The Nashville Cats: A New Music City

Sir Douglas Quintet - I Don't Want - Mendocino

Sir Douglas Quintet - Lawd, I'm Just A Country Boy In This Great Big Freaky City - Mendocino

Brewer And Shipley - Pig's Head - Weeds

Brewer And Shipley - Oh, Sweet Lady - Weeds

Bob Dylan With Johnny Cash - Girl From The North Country - Nashville Skyline

Bob Dylan - Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You - Nashville Skyline

The Band - Tears Of Rage - Music From Big Pink

The Band - To Kingdom Come - Music From Big Pink

44 Max - Hole Lotta Nonsense (Max Radio Mix) - Second Without A Pause (Single)

The Byrds - Nothing Was Delivered - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

The International Submarine Band - Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome? - Safe At Home

The Byrds - Hickory Wind - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

Gram Parsons - Streets Of Baltimore - GP

The Flying Burrito Bros. - Wheels - The Gilded Palace Of Sin

Gram Parsons - Hearts On Fire - Grievous Angel

Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels - We'll Sweep Out The Ashes (Live) - Live 1973

Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels - Country Baptizing (Live) - Live 1973

Emmylou Harris - Sin City - Elite Hotel

Emmylou Harris - Ooh Las Vegas - Elite Hotel

New Riders Of The Purple Sage - I Don't Know You - New Riders Of The Purple Sage

New Riders Of The Purple Sage - Whatcha Gonna Do - New Riders Of The Purple Sage

Grateful Dead - Dire Wolf - Workingman's Dead

Poco - Pickin' Up The Pieces - The Ultimate Collection

Poco - Bad Weather - The Ultimate Collection

Eggs Over Easy - Arkansas - Good 'N' Cheap

Eggs Over Easy - Runnin' Down To Memphis - Good 'N' Cheap

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lookin' Out My Back Door - Cosmo's Factory

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Long As I Can See The Light - Cosmo's Factory

Euphoria - I'll Be Home To You - A Gift From Euphoria

Ed Sanders - Pindar's Revenge - Sanders' Truckstop

Sir Robert Charles Griggs - A Sideman Talks To God - The Legend Of Sir Robert Charles Griggs

Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen - Seeds And Stems (Again) - Lost In The Ozone