My wife usually complains when I receive books as Christmas presents, because I immediately bury my nose in them and don't emerge for a long while.
Nevertheless, she was kind enough to bestow upon me this year a coffee table book about coffee tables ... oops, I've been watching too many "Seinfeld" DVDs. The coffee table book actually is called "Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip," and it pretty much lives up to its billing, minus the trip.
The tome, which weighs in at about 15 pounds, follows the adventures of "America's favorite band" (their words, and who can argue) in the form of a timeline from March 1940, at the birth of bassist Phil Lesh, all the way up to ... well, I've made it as far as '94 to this point.
Throughout the book, the authors single out certain Dead songs, both originals and covers, for brief essays about their origins and relevance to the band and its fans. That got me thinking about my favorites from the long, strange canon, and I've come up with these standouts, which are listed sort of in order:
- "Dark Star." OK, this is a little obvious for the top, but so be it. What distinguished the Grateful Dead from the thousands of other rock 'n' roll bands that emerged in the mid- to late '60s was its willingness to expand the musical form to new horizons, and for several glorious years, "Dark Star" usually served as the launching pad for such excursions. They varied in length, from the two-plus minute, breakneck-speed studio version the band cut in late '67 to a 47-minute marathon in Rotterdam during the Europe '72 tour. The most popular version appears on the band's breakthrough 1969 album "Live/Dead," recorded during the first date of a legendary four-night run at San Francisco's Fillmore West that February. Many enthusiasts consider the 29-minute rendition at New York's Fillmore East the following February as the definitive take. (It appears on "Dick's Picks Vol. 4.") The band pretty much retired "Dark Star," at least in its epic form, after 1974, but to many fans, the song represents what the Grateful Dead was all about, with its lyrics that evoke another level of consciousness: "Shall we go, you and I while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds."
- "Easy Wind." Ron "Pigpen" McKernan has been dead for nearly 33 years, so it's unlikely that too many folks under 50 ever saw him perform in the flesh. And for younger Dead fans, he was kind of a band footnote for many years, with just a small scattering of his live and studio performances available on albums. But in the formative years of the Grateful Dead, Pigpen was the star, grabbing the microphone at key moments to signal an instant transition from the psychedelic to the primal blues and R&B that really got the crowds going. He could rap, long before the term meant something else musically, coming up with lengthy, always entertaining admonitions for members of the audience to, say, "Get your hands out of your pockets!" Getting to the essence of his being was "Easy Wind," a song written for Pigpen by Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and appearing on the classic "Workingman's Dead (1970)." This number picks up so much steam that Wake the Dead is more like it.
- "Ramble On Rose" and "Tennessee Jed." The Grateful Dead album "Europe '72" was somewhat of an anomaly in its time and place. Back then, not too many artists were releasing three-record sets, and those that chose to often received barbs for being long-winded. (Chicago put out a four-record set around the same time and still is being pilloried for it.) Most albums of the time that were recorded live had covers prominently featuring photos of the musicians in concert; "Europe '72" presents an amusing, if somewhat puzzling, illustration of a goofy-looking fellow shoving an ice cream cone into his face. And while most live albums feature versions of songs that already appeared in studio form, "Europe '72" includes several songs making their recorded debuts, and most of those stayed in the Dead's rotation up 'til the end. "Ramble On Rose" and "Tennessee Jed" are my favorites among those. Both sound like stories within songs, and although Robert Hunter's lyrics are rather obtuse, they're a lot of fun: "My dog, he turned to me, and he said, 'You'd better head back to Tennessee, Jed." And "Ramble On Rose" has the added bonus of a litany of colorful characters courtesy of Mr. Hunter, from Jack the Ripper to Wolfman Jack to Jack and Jill. (But not "Jack Straw," who has his own song.) And even though "Ramble On Rose" has a ton of chord changes - or maybe because of it - that's my favorite Dead song to perform.
- "Touch of Grey." By 1983, the thought of the Grateful Dead recording another album was beginning to seem absurd. It had been three years since the band cut "Go to Heaven" in the studio, and a couple of live albums released the following year had the flavor of being what they were: contractual obligation items for Arista Records (although the first of those, the acoustic-based "Reckoning," still serves as a treat for Dead fans, and in fact was the very first compact disc I ever purchased; it's still part of my collection 20 years later). The Dead always had an aversion to visiting the studio, and with some of the members passing age 40, it seemed as if the band might focus all its efforts on touring from then on in. That year, a bunch of friends and I went to see the Grateful Dead at the WVU Coliseum, and the band played a song none of us had yet heard. After the show, my good friend and former roommate (Mr. John Michael O'Neil, now of Wilmington, N.C.), said something along the lines of: "If they released that as a single, it could be a hit!" We laughed at the notion, as the Dead had been around nearly 20 years with nothing approaching a hit single. But by 1987, the Grateful Dead not only had recorded another album, the invigorating "In the Dark," but the song we'd predicted as a hit single actually reached the Top 10. "Touch of Grey" probably was helped along quite a bit by its video being in heavy MTV rotation, but what the heck. We saw it coming.
- "The Other One." This song has kind of a strange history, starting with its appearance as "That's It for the Other One," a suite of songs that kicks off the Grateful Dead's second album, "Anthem of the Sun" (1968). That version starts as a lament sung by Jerry Garcia, subtitled "Cryptical Envelopment," focusing on the key phrase "he had to die" (this marked Jerry's final foray into writing lyrics). Then follows a fast-paced jam in E, featuring the immortal words of Bob Weir: "The heat came 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day." The suite segues back into a reprise of "Cryptical," then devolves into a surreal sound collage with Tom Constanten's prepared piano featured very prominently. (T.C., while never a formal member of the Dead, was highly influential on the early sound of the band, particularly the experimentation, as he in turn was highly influenced by the likes of avant-garde composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.) Live performances followed more or less the same pattern for a while, but eventually began to concentrate more on Weir's middle section. By the early '70s, Jerry dispensed with his portions, and the composition's name was shortened to "The Other One," as it appeared on the 1971 live album "Grateful Dead" (also known as "Skull and Roses"). That version clocked in at just over 18 minutes. During the Europe '72 tour, the band alternated nights for extended jams on either "The Other One" or "Dark Star." A '72 version later released on "Hundred Year Hall" (1995) clocks in at 36-plus minutes, although on that album it's called "Cryptical Envelopment" and credited to Jerry (who died only about five weeks before its release). Whatever it's called, it's one of those songs that sounded different every time the Grateful Dead played it. And in tribute to its importance, after the surviving members regrouped following Jerry's death, they christened themselves the Other Ones.
- "Uncle John's Band." As the '70s dawned, the Grateful Dead had somewhat of a reputation as an idiosyncratic act prone to long, meandering jams that in no way resembled anything that might show up on the radio. The band's meager album sales reflected that image, as albums like "Aoxomoxoa" (1969) might have made for some interesting listening for the more adventurous, but no doubt prompted less open-minded folks to take the needle off the record in mid-song. When the needle dropped on the opening track of "Workingman's Dead," though, a completely different sound greeted the listener: leisurely strummed acoustic guitars leading into three-part vocal harmony reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash (who coached Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in preparation for the fresh approach). This was roots music before it had a name, and "Uncle John's Band" helped open the Grateful Dead to a much wider audience. Jerry's catchy melody meshes perfectly with Robert Hunter's calling-on lyrics ("Come hear Uncle John's band, playing to the tide/Come on along or go alone, he's come to take his children home"). And his musical question "Are you kind?" continues to be a catchphrase among Dead fans to this day. By the way, "Uncle John's Band" was the first song I learned to play on guitar in its entirety.
- "Althea." In the spring of 1980, I was working in a bar/sandwich shop with a couple (Ed and Suzanne, who lived together although they weren't married, which wasn't nearly as common in those days) who helped take me to the next level in appreciating the Grateful Dead. I had to work the night they went to the Merriwether Post Pavilion in Maryland to catch a show. They brought me back a T-shirt, and also brought back a particular fondness for a new tune they'd heard that night. The song was on the band's new album, "Go to Heaven," and Suzanne kept playing that same track over and over through the shop's sound system. Usually when someone does that, I never want to hear it again (as a co-worker did with U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" album in 1985), but I didn't mind what Suzanne was doing. In fact, the leisurely paced ditty about a guy who's hesitant to commit still is one of my favorites.
- "Cream Puff War." The Grateful Dead's first album, recorded in early 1967, sounds very little like what the band would become. This tune, in particuarly, features a speeded-up tempo that contrasts greatly with Jerry Garcia's compositions in later years. He wrote the lyrics, as well, and reportedly stopped playing "Cream Puff War" because he was too embarrassed to sing them. Nevertheless, in the surviving live versions, he plays a lightning-fast guitar on the extended out-jams of the live versions, indicating that he liked the song at one point. And it's been given new life in recent years as a staple of Widespread Panic concerts.
- "Hard to Handle." Pigpen was at his most rabble-rousing on this cover on what was then a relatively obscure Otis Redding (1941-67) song. The Dead's version made its first appearance on "Bear's Choice," which came out after Ron's death at age 27 in 1973. It rocks as hard as anything that band, or most others, was doing at the time.
- "Playing in the Band." This song with an unusual time signature (thanks to percussionist Mickey Hart) is best heard on "Ace" (1972) which is Bob Weir's first solo album, in name only - it actually qualifies as a full-fledged Grateful Dead project, with involvement by all the band members of the time.
- "Deal." Just before Bob embarked on "Ace," Jerry released his first solo outing, "Garcia," and this track starts the proceedings. It made for a great first-set closer at future concerts with its A-based outro offering plenty of room for stretching out. I remember dancing to "Deal" at a show on City Island in Harrisburg with such enthusiasm that my fellow concert-goers moved far away from me, for fear of getting knocked over.
- "All Along the Watchtower." My all-time favorite song, as performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I was glad to hear the Dead add it to the repertoire in the late '80s. I first head the band play the Dylan-penned song in July 1988 on a raceway in Oxford, Maine, still the farthest north I've been on the North American continent.
I'd go into honorable mentions, but there probably are hundreds of those ...
What are your favorites?
Nevertheless, she was kind enough to bestow upon me this year a coffee table book about coffee tables ... oops, I've been watching too many "Seinfeld" DVDs. The coffee table book actually is called "Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip," and it pretty much lives up to its billing, minus the trip.
The tome, which weighs in at about 15 pounds, follows the adventures of "America's favorite band" (their words, and who can argue) in the form of a timeline from March 1940, at the birth of bassist Phil Lesh, all the way up to ... well, I've made it as far as '94 to this point.
Throughout the book, the authors single out certain Dead songs, both originals and covers, for brief essays about their origins and relevance to the band and its fans. That got me thinking about my favorites from the long, strange canon, and I've come up with these standouts, which are listed sort of in order:
- "Dark Star." OK, this is a little obvious for the top, but so be it. What distinguished the Grateful Dead from the thousands of other rock 'n' roll bands that emerged in the mid- to late '60s was its willingness to expand the musical form to new horizons, and for several glorious years, "Dark Star" usually served as the launching pad for such excursions. They varied in length, from the two-plus minute, breakneck-speed studio version the band cut in late '67 to a 47-minute marathon in Rotterdam during the Europe '72 tour. The most popular version appears on the band's breakthrough 1969 album "Live/Dead," recorded during the first date of a legendary four-night run at San Francisco's Fillmore West that February. Many enthusiasts consider the 29-minute rendition at New York's Fillmore East the following February as the definitive take. (It appears on "Dick's Picks Vol. 4.") The band pretty much retired "Dark Star," at least in its epic form, after 1974, but to many fans, the song represents what the Grateful Dead was all about, with its lyrics that evoke another level of consciousness: "Shall we go, you and I while we can? Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds."
- "Easy Wind." Ron "Pigpen" McKernan has been dead for nearly 33 years, so it's unlikely that too many folks under 50 ever saw him perform in the flesh. And for younger Dead fans, he was kind of a band footnote for many years, with just a small scattering of his live and studio performances available on albums. But in the formative years of the Grateful Dead, Pigpen was the star, grabbing the microphone at key moments to signal an instant transition from the psychedelic to the primal blues and R&B that really got the crowds going. He could rap, long before the term meant something else musically, coming up with lengthy, always entertaining admonitions for members of the audience to, say, "Get your hands out of your pockets!" Getting to the essence of his being was "Easy Wind," a song written for Pigpen by Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and appearing on the classic "Workingman's Dead (1970)." This number picks up so much steam that Wake the Dead is more like it.
- "Ramble On Rose" and "Tennessee Jed." The Grateful Dead album "Europe '72" was somewhat of an anomaly in its time and place. Back then, not too many artists were releasing three-record sets, and those that chose to often received barbs for being long-winded. (Chicago put out a four-record set around the same time and still is being pilloried for it.) Most albums of the time that were recorded live had covers prominently featuring photos of the musicians in concert; "Europe '72" presents an amusing, if somewhat puzzling, illustration of a goofy-looking fellow shoving an ice cream cone into his face. And while most live albums feature versions of songs that already appeared in studio form, "Europe '72" includes several songs making their recorded debuts, and most of those stayed in the Dead's rotation up 'til the end. "Ramble On Rose" and "Tennessee Jed" are my favorites among those. Both sound like stories within songs, and although Robert Hunter's lyrics are rather obtuse, they're a lot of fun: "My dog, he turned to me, and he said, 'You'd better head back to Tennessee, Jed." And "Ramble On Rose" has the added bonus of a litany of colorful characters courtesy of Mr. Hunter, from Jack the Ripper to Wolfman Jack to Jack and Jill. (But not "Jack Straw," who has his own song.) And even though "Ramble On Rose" has a ton of chord changes - or maybe because of it - that's my favorite Dead song to perform.
- "Touch of Grey." By 1983, the thought of the Grateful Dead recording another album was beginning to seem absurd. It had been three years since the band cut "Go to Heaven" in the studio, and a couple of live albums released the following year had the flavor of being what they were: contractual obligation items for Arista Records (although the first of those, the acoustic-based "Reckoning," still serves as a treat for Dead fans, and in fact was the very first compact disc I ever purchased; it's still part of my collection 20 years later). The Dead always had an aversion to visiting the studio, and with some of the members passing age 40, it seemed as if the band might focus all its efforts on touring from then on in. That year, a bunch of friends and I went to see the Grateful Dead at the WVU Coliseum, and the band played a song none of us had yet heard. After the show, my good friend and former roommate (Mr. John Michael O'Neil, now of Wilmington, N.C.), said something along the lines of: "If they released that as a single, it could be a hit!" We laughed at the notion, as the Dead had been around nearly 20 years with nothing approaching a hit single. But by 1987, the Grateful Dead not only had recorded another album, the invigorating "In the Dark," but the song we'd predicted as a hit single actually reached the Top 10. "Touch of Grey" probably was helped along quite a bit by its video being in heavy MTV rotation, but what the heck. We saw it coming.
- "The Other One." This song has kind of a strange history, starting with its appearance as "That's It for the Other One," a suite of songs that kicks off the Grateful Dead's second album, "Anthem of the Sun" (1968). That version starts as a lament sung by Jerry Garcia, subtitled "Cryptical Envelopment," focusing on the key phrase "he had to die" (this marked Jerry's final foray into writing lyrics). Then follows a fast-paced jam in E, featuring the immortal words of Bob Weir: "The heat came 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day." The suite segues back into a reprise of "Cryptical," then devolves into a surreal sound collage with Tom Constanten's prepared piano featured very prominently. (T.C., while never a formal member of the Dead, was highly influential on the early sound of the band, particularly the experimentation, as he in turn was highly influenced by the likes of avant-garde composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.) Live performances followed more or less the same pattern for a while, but eventually began to concentrate more on Weir's middle section. By the early '70s, Jerry dispensed with his portions, and the composition's name was shortened to "The Other One," as it appeared on the 1971 live album "Grateful Dead" (also known as "Skull and Roses"). That version clocked in at just over 18 minutes. During the Europe '72 tour, the band alternated nights for extended jams on either "The Other One" or "Dark Star." A '72 version later released on "Hundred Year Hall" (1995) clocks in at 36-plus minutes, although on that album it's called "Cryptical Envelopment" and credited to Jerry (who died only about five weeks before its release). Whatever it's called, it's one of those songs that sounded different every time the Grateful Dead played it. And in tribute to its importance, after the surviving members regrouped following Jerry's death, they christened themselves the Other Ones.
- "Uncle John's Band." As the '70s dawned, the Grateful Dead had somewhat of a reputation as an idiosyncratic act prone to long, meandering jams that in no way resembled anything that might show up on the radio. The band's meager album sales reflected that image, as albums like "Aoxomoxoa" (1969) might have made for some interesting listening for the more adventurous, but no doubt prompted less open-minded folks to take the needle off the record in mid-song. When the needle dropped on the opening track of "Workingman's Dead," though, a completely different sound greeted the listener: leisurely strummed acoustic guitars leading into three-part vocal harmony reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash (who coached Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in preparation for the fresh approach). This was roots music before it had a name, and "Uncle John's Band" helped open the Grateful Dead to a much wider audience. Jerry's catchy melody meshes perfectly with Robert Hunter's calling-on lyrics ("Come hear Uncle John's band, playing to the tide/Come on along or go alone, he's come to take his children home"). And his musical question "Are you kind?" continues to be a catchphrase among Dead fans to this day. By the way, "Uncle John's Band" was the first song I learned to play on guitar in its entirety.
- "Althea." In the spring of 1980, I was working in a bar/sandwich shop with a couple (Ed and Suzanne, who lived together although they weren't married, which wasn't nearly as common in those days) who helped take me to the next level in appreciating the Grateful Dead. I had to work the night they went to the Merriwether Post Pavilion in Maryland to catch a show. They brought me back a T-shirt, and also brought back a particular fondness for a new tune they'd heard that night. The song was on the band's new album, "Go to Heaven," and Suzanne kept playing that same track over and over through the shop's sound system. Usually when someone does that, I never want to hear it again (as a co-worker did with U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" album in 1985), but I didn't mind what Suzanne was doing. In fact, the leisurely paced ditty about a guy who's hesitant to commit still is one of my favorites.
- "Cream Puff War." The Grateful Dead's first album, recorded in early 1967, sounds very little like what the band would become. This tune, in particuarly, features a speeded-up tempo that contrasts greatly with Jerry Garcia's compositions in later years. He wrote the lyrics, as well, and reportedly stopped playing "Cream Puff War" because he was too embarrassed to sing them. Nevertheless, in the surviving live versions, he plays a lightning-fast guitar on the extended out-jams of the live versions, indicating that he liked the song at one point. And it's been given new life in recent years as a staple of Widespread Panic concerts.
- "Hard to Handle." Pigpen was at his most rabble-rousing on this cover on what was then a relatively obscure Otis Redding (1941-67) song. The Dead's version made its first appearance on "Bear's Choice," which came out after Ron's death at age 27 in 1973. It rocks as hard as anything that band, or most others, was doing at the time.
- "Playing in the Band." This song with an unusual time signature (thanks to percussionist Mickey Hart) is best heard on "Ace" (1972) which is Bob Weir's first solo album, in name only - it actually qualifies as a full-fledged Grateful Dead project, with involvement by all the band members of the time.
- "Deal." Just before Bob embarked on "Ace," Jerry released his first solo outing, "Garcia," and this track starts the proceedings. It made for a great first-set closer at future concerts with its A-based outro offering plenty of room for stretching out. I remember dancing to "Deal" at a show on City Island in Harrisburg with such enthusiasm that my fellow concert-goers moved far away from me, for fear of getting knocked over.
- "All Along the Watchtower." My all-time favorite song, as performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I was glad to hear the Dead add it to the repertoire in the late '80s. I first head the band play the Dylan-penned song in July 1988 on a raceway in Oxford, Maine, still the farthest north I've been on the North American continent.
I'd go into honorable mentions, but there probably are hundreds of those ...
What are your favorites?
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