With the passing of Bob Weir, one of the main songwriters and players of the Grateful Dead, it is safe to say that their era of nice and easy rock n’ roll for the medicated crowd of hippies and friends (‘high on cocaine’ or weed or various other narcotics) is officially come and gone. When they first got going in the 60s, I had a hard time understanding the attraction– they were definitely not great singers, even on a good day they were average, and their playing with the exception of Jerry Garcia (of blessed memory now over 30 years ago) was nothing special. Their songs were pleasant enough, bordering on folk, or folk rock, or easy blues, and perhaps that was the point. If you wanted to go to an easy going concert and just enjoy hanging out and the ‘atmosphere’ (cough cough) created by America’s most famous garage band, then this was the gig for you.
There are indeed some really enjoyable songs, and for my money their best lps were Working Man’s Dead, and American Beauty. With songs like Uncle John’s Band and Casey Jones, they veered in the direction of the sort of Americana songs we would associate with Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and early Bob Dylan.
This band was not afraid to parody themselves, and a much more recent ‘hit’ if you can call it that was ‘Touch of Grey’
This is a classic from 1987. One has to say that over the years their song writing, especially that of Weir improved. While undoubtedly there are still many Dead Heads out their=fans of the Dead, if you want to sample their gentle music I would recommend the 2 CD compilation The Best of the Grateful Dead that Rhino records put out. It gives you a good survey of their ouevre, bearing in mind they never intended to offer up the syrupy top 40 hits of their day. They stayed in their lane, and had an enormous following. From 1965-95 they performed some 2,318 live shows averaging 77 shows a year, often with the attendance being 50,000 devoted followers. They were definitely a jam band, and to really understand their appeal you needed to hear them live, with the crowds singing along to many of their songs. Sadly, when they played at Woodstock in 1969 there were a lot of technical issues, and I would say listen to some of their other live sets on CDs. On a smaller scale I would compare the much more recent Dave Matthews Band to them both in terms of audience, and the tendency to jam at live shows, but the Dave Matthews band definitely involves some better musicians, even some jazz musicians, and some of their songs have indeed been hits.
English (US) · 