I have never seen the Grateful Dead live. I had a number of opportunities, dating as far back as 1977. But I spent my teens and most of my twenties resisting the Grateful Dead. As a teenager, I knew everything. The Dead, and their fans, sucked. I knew it. By the time I was 25, I had learned just enough to realize I didn't know everything. Over 30 years later, with help from some of my most cherished friends in music, I know now that I love the Dead. Mind you, it's not unconditional. (More on that at a more appropriate time.)
I now recognize the soft, soulful sadness in Jerry's voice. He's a terrific singer. I love his gift to pick his way through "Cumberland Blues," while impossibly being both light as a feather and fierce as fuck. I appreciate the fact that it takes balls...not to mention some true magic...to take the stage in front of thousands every night, and spend half of that time working out what will ultimately be the result, the other half, the reason you showed up in the first place. And I recognize that underneath it all, there were songs. Real songs. Poetry, that the impatient just didn't have the time for because a harmony was off, or a drummer was behind the beat...way behind the beat. That's okay. It happens.
We lost Robert Hunter today, and he wrote stuff like this:
When the last rose of summer pricks my fingers
And the hot sun chills me to the bone
When I can't hear the song for the singer
And I can't tell my pillow from a stone
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
Sing me a song of my own
When the last bolt of sunshine hits the mountain
And the stars seem to splatter in the sky
When the moon splits the south west horizon
And scream of an eagle on the fly
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And listen to the ripples as they moan
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
Sing me a song of my own
Black muddy river
Roll on forever
I don't care how deep and wide
If you got another side
Roll muddy river
Roll muddy river
Black muddy river, roll
When it seems like the night will last forever
And there's nothing left to do but count the years
When the strings of my heart start to sever
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And dream me a dream of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
Sing me a song of my own
And sing me a song of my own
Thank you Robert E., Harry G. and Charlie C.
7 comments:
Sal -- like you I resisted the Dead throughout my teens and 20s. As a college radio DJ in the 80s, I was happily plugging The Clash, Furs, Echo, REM, etc while sneering at what we called "those dirty hippies."
About 10 years later, I was killing time at a HMV and they were playing "Deal" from the Nightfall of Diamonds album. It sounded so good! Whatever CD I was looking at was forgotten and I wandered over to the Dead section and bought that album.
I now have hundreds of Dead songs in my iTunes library and I'm sure I'll be adding more. I firmly believe they are an American institution and I spend many a Sunday morning listening to their music while enjoying my coffee and reading.
RIP to Mr Hunter. He is an important part of the Dead legacy.
"Resisted" is too strong a word to describe why I have never become a fan of the Dead. For me, their brand of music (as is the case with most great music) requires focused attention and repeated listenings to fully appreciate and for whatever reason, I have yet to do that.
Sal, maybe a weekend mix or six-pack would help me wake up to the Dead.
Randy
Randy,
I don't think a 6-pack or a mix would do it. I think a lot of the appeal for me, and I guess the whole Dead and Head thing, is how it all unfolds. Did you listen to the video I posted? "Black Muddy River" is as perfect as it gets. If you like that, then I think you should listen to "American Beauty" and start from there.
Randy,
I'd definitely endorse Sal's recommendation of American Beauty, along with Workingman's Dead, as a great introduction to the Grateful Dead. To get a flavour of the performing band in its youthful pomp give Live/Dead a spin - I still think the St Stephen/The Eleven segment of that album is one of the most flat out exhilerating things I've ever listened to. If you really want to take the leap down the rabbit hole there are more shows than a sensible person would wish to sample available for streaming on the Internet Archive.
Good luck!
I hung out with a lot of Deadheads in college, and like Sal, I resisted them at the time. Eventually that resistance wore down and I saw my first show in 89. Saw them several more times between then and Soldier Field 95. Don't get me started on the version of 'Deal' at the old Rosemont Horizon...oh, Lord.
I still listen to a fair amount of Dead music these days. I just picked up the vinyl of the acoustic shows at the Warfield in San Francisco in 1980. Really lovely and a unique period for the band. Robert Hunter's lyrics are pure poetry. There just aren't songs like that anywhere else.
Thanks for sharing Black Muddy River, Sal. A tremendous composition. As perfect as it gets, yep.
I pretty much came to The Dead in the very same as you Sal. I denounced them, made fun of them and then slowly but surely fell in love with their music.
When I stopped putting them down and listened to them with attention, I realized what a tremendous lyricist Hunter was, one of my all time favorites.
There was a very good obituary in The NY Times today on him. Robert Hunter will be missed.
Sometimes I feel there are only two types of people in this world, "Dead Heads" and people who don't realize they are "Dead Heads" yet!
Captain Al
I grew up in the Bay Area, making it awkward as a music fan in the 1980s and 1990s to have, somehow, missed the Dead. Especially when, in later years, I discovered that Brent Mydland went to the high school I attended (and now teach at). That said, I discovered the Dead upon graduating college and, ironically, picking up Aoxomoxoa three weeks before Jerry's death. When he died, I felt like a family member had passed, as I felt like the entire Bay Area music scene mourned his death. From there, I quickly scooped up the band's music, as if each spin was a eulogy. The week after Jerry's death, I tripped over Workingman's. Those G chords were all I needed. At the time, however, I was in a deeply evangelical phase and always believed I should avoid "Friend of the Devil." Upon collecting most of the band's catalogue, this was about the last holdout and when I put it on, I realized I knew half of the songs. It was in 1996, in a small vacation resort village in the Sierra Nevadas that I heard a classic rock covers band perform "Ripple," what has gone on to be my favorite song by the band. The chorus is a haiku; I sang this song every night to each of my three children in their infancies; my wife knows I wish to have this played at my funeral. Its influence comes from, at least, Whitman's Leaves of Grass and this may have been the song that, for me, separated simply great song lyrics from poetry. As Jerry and Bob and the boys were amazing in their playing, Hunter was equally amazing in being a wordsmith. He will be missed though I believe many of the Dead's songs will be sung a century from now.
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