14 June : Workingman’s Dead

Goddamn, well I declare! 14 June 1970 was the release date for one of the great albums of 1970, indeed the greatest of the year according to Rolling Stone: The Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead.

This is another album I own, and play often, and find it impossible to be neutral about.

At the time, this was a huge shift for the Dead. Phil Lesh wrote in his autobiography that there came a point where

it became increasingly clear that we had to turn away from balls-against-the-wall psychedelia towards a different kind of expression. It seems that music needs to periodically return to basics and build itself up again… The stage was set for a new version of our music: Acoustic sets were introduced, and a decidedly country flavour pervaded many of of the new songs.

Workingman’s Dead consisted of only eight songs, but every one is a Dead classic. The instrumentation included Jerry Garcia’s newly purchased pedal steel guitar and the reappearance of his bluegrass banjo. The lyrics evoke what Lesh called a weird America that never was. Several of the songs were shaped by their friendship with Crosby, Stills and Nash who encouraged them to focus on harmonies. The years of jamming, their technical ability as musicians, and the development of their near telepathic ability for group improvisation put them in the perfect position to play what sound on the surface to be stripped back songs, until you try to play them yourself.

Perhaps the greatest joys, for Deadheads at least, are the clarity and confidence of Jerry’s voice, something that became less certain in his later years, and Pigpen’s performance of Easy Wind, a song retired from their sets after Pigpen’s death, until it was revived in recent years by Dead and Company.

The album won them new fans and began the process of addressing their dire financial state. It was recorded cheaply and quickly. And when they took the songs on the road, magic happened, particularly with the opportunities that Uncle John’s Band gave for extended improvisation from 3’30 onwards.

Naturally, I listened to the cd, soon to be supplemented by the 50th anniversary special edition. No doubt you have a copy too, but on the off chance that you’ve mislaid it, the album is on Spotify and YouTube.