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Key to my introduction to the Grateful Dead has been the intro point provided by Beat It on Down the Line and Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad, two boogies fronted by, respectively, Weir and Garcia as lead vocalists. The 1971 Gaelic Park show features both tunes, and the songs appear to me as bookmarks in that their provenance (Jesse Fuller and a traditional, respectively), similar lonely laments and general musical attitude are similar but with different vocalists.
Both performances feature sprightly rhythm guitar from Weir, and nice lead work by Jerry in a clear two-guitar configuration of the time. The appearance of one or both of these tunes in a show provide me with a benchmark or baseline against which to measure the likely energy and inventiveness of the rest of the performance around them. Both songs also provide a showcase for the Dead Sound in a very traditional context. Whether an outsider will like the Dead or not might well come down to the enjoyment they get from these songs, before venturing into more proprietary creations of the band further afield musically.
The way the performance of these songs mutated from 1971 to 1973 mirrors the changes happening during those years. It’s easy to forget just how much happened in the music world in that three year span.
I came across a brilliant piece of video of the band performing Beat It on Down the Line on European TV. While I might already be able to point to a couple of even better versions in my small but growing collection, it would be difficult to find clearer video or sound from 1972. Check out Pigpen and Keith Godchaux both tinkling the keys. I love Jerry’s facial expressiveness from behind all the hair, even when it’s a stone cold poker face. I’ve watched it seven times already.
And if that doesn’t rock you, try One More Saturday Night, from the same TV broadcast. Another song in the same boogie vein, which could be a traditional or a cover of an old tune atmospherically, but which Bob Weir wrote solo. Although there is an interesting story that Robert Hunter actually started the song, and disavowed it after Weir rewrote his lyrics. Hunter cost himself some royalties there.
Finally I can talk about the music. While I was reading the McNally book mentioned earlier, I decided I needed some Dead music to listen to.
The two shows I downloaded ended up serving as my exclusive Grateful Dead music for over two years. The multiple CDs I burned for each show never left my car.
Knowing I wanted to relive the days of hearing Europe ‘72 with my friend, I selected largely at random the Berkeley Community Theater show of August 21, 1972 and the Gaelic Park show from NY of August 26, 1971.
My reaction to these shows was to be stunned. Perhaps my decade-plus enjoying Americana (Alt-Country) had softened me up, but I was shocked at the breadth of the song selections, the rocking element, the clarity of the soundboards and the fact that the performances did not sound dated in any way.
A relatively obscure (to me) Chuck Berry number Promised Land smokes. The lyrics exalt the trip to California from the American South, and I raced to learn about who was playing that amazing Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano. I learned quickly that Keith Godchaux joined and overlapped with the late Pigpen, who died in late 1973.
Pigpen, I soon figured out, was the guy singing the emotional and earthy blues numbers prevalent on the Gaelic Park CDs. One of my first “revelations” was that Pigpen’s illness/death deprived the Dead of a rougher blues element that would have made them more attractive to me in the 70s as a blues-rock fan.
His Empty Pages on Gaelic Park is stunning, especially the emoting at the ending. The Dead sound like Big Brother and the Holding Company on the tune, it’s completely San Francisco psychedelic blues a la Janis Joplin.
Back to Berkeley, I fell in love with almost every song. He’s Gone tied into the story about Mickey Hart’s father, and the song’s languid and mournful pace made a lot more sense after I knew the story.
Jack Straw sounds almost like a Broadway show tune in its complex multiple parts and lyrical wordiness, and has great playing by Jerry. It also always gets a rise from the crowd with the “we can share the women we can share the wine” line, which gave me a sense of how the lyrics are taken to heart by the fans.
I also got a kick out of the following line that shows a concern for “sharing” one’s own with others when maybe they haven’t shared theirs yet. The cheer after that line indicates that the 60s ethos clearly didn’t wholly eradicate normal human behavior as far as selfishness goes.
Me and My Uncle turns out to be written by John Phillips and is a staple of these shows from that time. The storytelling is fun and fits well with the Dead’s themes of western cowboys, poker games, theft and treachery. Bob Weir seems to enjoy portraying the evil nephew in a way that makes each version a unique performance.
I could go on and on and am just scratching the surface. I can’t think of a better era than 1971-72 for a newbie to digest. The bands’ classics/staples, such as Uncle John’s Band, Sugar Magnolia and Playing in the Band are all there and sound fresh and inspired.
The shows are so long that digesting them can take weeks of casual listening.
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo was a revelation for me in the Berkeley show. The multiple voices repeating the “across the Rio Grand-eo” line are ragged and sometimes off key (Donna Jean) but majestic nonetheless, then Jerry resolves the tension with a great solo dancing simply around the same melody line.
It makes you want to sit around a campfire and sing, regardless of whether you can sing or not. Well, some people. In my car, two of my family members who can sing were sort of appalled at the harmonies. Meanwhile, I had a lump of joy in my throat from the feeling of the entirety.
At that point, I realized that I would be going this path largely alone, and that I was indeed falling into Deadhead-hood. Better late than never.
I also suddenly understood that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of these multi-hour shows over decades. How would I ever penetrate the catalog?
I punted for a while on the project and simply enjoyed MY two shows. These two will always be the standard I use for evaluating new shows I obtain — do they make it into the circle of that Berkeley date and the Gaelic Park show “on the whole”?
A normal person might be satisfied with two great shows from an era. The obsessive in me has very recently gone back to the archives to experience a slew of other shows from that time. It will be some time before I can compare the other shows against the others, but what I am realizing is that I can sit and enjoy 3 hours of any show without getting restless to hear my old standbys.
The sheer volume may in fact be a curse of sorts. We’ll see. But the human desire the find the best show, the best performance of each song, begins to snake around me and interfere with what I have, an embarrassment of riches in terms of free, fantastic quality Grateful Dead.
Time to start thinking about other eras to explore as well.
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