Taking Sides: Workingman's Dead vs American Beauty

I gotta hear that Cache Valley Drifters album

The Pop-O-Pies did two or three really entertaining versions of "Truckin'," but I don't think they count.

yeah, new riders...but it doesn't get more dead-identified than that. unless it's hot tuna. and they probably did some too. though i can't recall any. but, jeez, i've got a zillion rustic singer/songwriter type records and i can't think of ANY dead songs on any of them. i just think it's weird considering how big their catalog is. and not just garcia/hunter, but there were great lesh/hunter, hart/hunter, weir/hunter tunes too. montgomery gentry would own mexicali blues! they could change the age of the 14 year old girl in the lyrics if they needed to. though they are badass so maybe they would leave it. see, i'm even stretching into john perry barlow territory to make my point.

i think a) they weren't exclusively singer/songwriter-identified, of course, and b) anyone who got the songs also got enough of the mystique that they might have figured leave well enough alone.

i like Lyle's FOTD a bunch

we are talking about infinitely singable hummable memorable tunes here. is it a conspiracy? or do people see these songs as so identified with the dead that they don't want to mess with them? i can't believe that. people mess with everything. these are songs that were made to be reinterpreted. cuz jerry and hunter were all about the mythic blues/folk tradition and all that. reinventing and reinvigorating the old stuff. i think on some level they wanted those songs to be in that bigger than life mythic tradition.

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This isn't exactly a Dead cover but the Seldom Scene do a version of "Rider" (aka "I know You Rider") that sounds as if it was filtered through the Dead. Maybe the Dead's take gave the Seldom Scene an idea on how to cover it.

I've been listening to a lot of early 70s bluegrass and the influence of AB and WD can be heard in the Seldom Scene, Norman Blake, John Hartford, etc.

okay, well then if the songs are too tied up in the tie-dye mythos, maybe after enough time has passed people will forget those associations and just see them as good songs. i love singing along to dead songs! they are fun to sing. and i'm not much for singing along.

WR's on Skull and Roses, not '72. Great song though.

Yes! Brain fart. Thanks. Man, do I love "Wharf Rat."

when did that old & in the way album come out? cuz i'll bet that influenced a lot of nu-pickers. the way they do a song like wild horses reminds me of a lot of the newer bluegrass interpretations of pop songs.

Here's a start, Scott:

http://www.deaddisc.com/GDFD_GDcovers.htm

Bluegrass was already responding to California hippie country by the time Old and In the Way released its first record in, I think, '74 or '75. (Maybe it was even '73?) Nevertheless, it did have a huge influence on bluegrass.

I think the issue is that if you cover a Dead song you're not just covering a song - you're either allying yourself with the mythos in some way or you're taking the piss (the Pop-o-Pies). The Dead have always been one of those bands whose name alone is enough to put some people off for good. Those people are wrong-headed for a bunch of reasons in my opinion, but at the same time, I used to be one of 'em: if I'd heard somebody was covering a Dead song, that would have served as bio for that person in part, and that part of the bio would read "burned out hippie." Not that I'm defending this sort of thing, I've since grown out of it! (Though I'm still not likely to cover any Dead songs, even though there are plenty of them that I really enjoy singing.) But I also know tons of people haven't & won't.

calling Toby Keith:

"I come in from Memphis
where I learned to talk the jive
When I get back to Memphis
be one less man alive
Good Mornin Mr. Benson
I see you're doin well
If I had me a shotgun
I'd blow you straight to Hell"

Chris Hillman covering "Ripple"!

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kjfoxqq5ldae

i get the dead myth/associations thang, but if dolly parton did a bluegrass cover of "Bird Song" how many of her fans would even know it was a dead song? (i would LOVE to hear that by the way) actual deadheads are more well-known to most people than the actual music of the dead. you know? other than truckin'.

chris hillman has all kinds of good songs on that album. he knows what's up.

hahaha, on that discography list there are like TWO albums/artists that aren't either the dead or dead-related in the 70's. i have that chris smither album. i never play it. i should find it. i don't remember the cover.

i get the dead myth/associations thang, but if dolly parton did a bluegrass cover of "Bird Song" how many of her fans would even know it was a dead song? (i would LOVE to hear that by the way) actual deadheads are more well-known to most people than the actual music of the dead. you know? other than truckin'.

Internet age, my friend. You can cover a song that you know for sure nobody in your audience has ever heard by an artist you know they'd shun if they knew him, and thirty seconds later they've all hit Google and are frontin' like they knew all along. Two minutes later they've downloaded the entire catalog and are no longer frontin' because now they do know, kinda.

turning more people onto the greatness of the dead is not a bad thing.

i totally want to cover friend of the devil.

tales of the great rum runners is a great album by the way. robert hunter's album from 1974.

i've never heard the meat puppets cover of franklin's tower. apparently it came out on the rykodisc reissue of their first album as a bonus track.

Damn, I'd like to hear that.

i'd like to state for the record that i started listening to the dead in 1984 at the height of my new wave and hardcore and punkdom and i've never looked back since. my favorite bands in 1984 were probably crass, husker du, and the dead. they all fit together somehow in my mind at the time. but then acid makes a lot of things seem normal. anarchy peace & freedom!

Scott don't wear regular shoes.

I just don't think the suggested artists are really into the Dead, much as one might wish otherwise.

If you look at the volume by date on that list, it does seem that Deadicated threw the floodgates open.

I think a lot of artists simply didn't know the Dead had good tunes! I don't think they were anti-Dead or anything; I just think a lot of folks think of jamming and acid when thinking of the Dead, not awesome tunes that could become pop/Americana standards. Of course, AB and WD were damn good sellers, but impressions are hard to change.

The Dead had great songs-they had three excellent songwriters in the band, plus a great lyricist on retainer. I much prefer that aspect of the Dead to the jam stuff.

i totally want to cover friend of the devil.

-- ian, Monday, April 7, 2008 4:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

my dad's bluegrass band used to!

AB for me just cause WD doesnt have box of rain

but recently aoxomoxoa uber alles for studio dead

the Henry Kaiser Band do a lot of sweet Dead covers, inc. a great Dark Star that morphs into Love Supreme

Yep, I was just about to mention that Kaiser band which featured Tom Constanten and my hero Bruce Anderson. They did "Dark Star", "Mason's Children" and other stuff I'm forgetting.

On topic, it wasn't until January that I finally heard AB and WD in full, but I've always been in a weird position, Dead-wise: Resenting folks who put them down simply for being hippies, while simultaneously finding them a little bland and wishing they were genuinely psychedelic and less rootsy - which may not have even been their strong point. Of course, that's just a matter of personal bias.

Whatever. I like 'em both fine, but Workingman's is shorter and therefore more suited to my attention span. Really, though, I think I'd rather hear Blows Against The Empire.

The Dead had great songs-they had three excellent songwriters in the band, plus a great lyricist on retainer. I much prefer that aspect of the Dead to the jam stuff.

I'm going to be the "I like both aspects" dude. If the Dead were one or the other -- jam-a-rific or sweet songwriters -- they wouldn't mean as much to me. Sure, they might not be the best in either category but few bands can be pretty damn good at both. In a single concert, the Dead can take me from primo Americana folk music full of great lyrics, snappy compositions and sing-along choruses to full-blown neo-Miles fusion madness. I love it that about them.

I agree that the Dead without the jamming simply isn't the Dead. But they get tagged with the "jam-band" moniker when that wasn't the whole story at all.

blame not the tree for the rotten apples scattered beneath its boughs.

Found my notes for the mythical 'lost' Dead album:

- Bertha (100 YEAR HALL)
- Playing in the Band (ACE - tho my preference is for one of the long jammy versions, really - the one from the last Lyceum show in 72 is pretty special)
- Wharf Rat (ROCKIN' THE RHEIN)
- Deal (GARCIA)
- Bird Song (LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...THE GRATEFUL DEAD)
- Sugaree (DICK'S PICKS 3)
- Greatest Story Ever Told (ACE)
- Mexicali Blues (STEPPIN' OUT WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD)
- Loser (GARCIA)
- To Lay Me Down (GARCIA)
- The Wheel (GARCIA - man, Jer's first solo rec is just full of great songs AND some well wiggy 'experimental' stuff)
- He's Gone (EUROPE '72)
- Jack Straw (EUROPE '72)
- Brown-Eyed Women (EUROPE '72)
- Ramble On Rose (EUROPE '72)
- Tennessee Jed (EUROPE '72)
- Comes a Time (STEPPIN' OUT - the Garcia solo version from a few years later really doesn't do the song justice)

Wow. That's basically the record Hunter wanted the band to make. If they could've extended the studio magic of AB and WD to this batch, it would've been a monster record.

The Playing in the Band on the March '74 Dick's Picks from the Cow Palace is great too.

I can't imagine a greatest anything that doesn't have something from AB or WD, or a DS>SS, CC>IKYR, H>S>F or S>F, but that's just me. I'd keep

- Wharf Rat
- Deal
- Bird Song
- The Wheel (maybe)
- He's Gone
- Jack Straw

and lose the rest

the Dead aren't the only 'jam band' to write good songs, btw, tho they get more style and authenticity points

wishing they were genuinely psychedelic

I always have to lol at stuff like this

Workingman's is shorter and therefore more suited to my attention span

I was gonna say, WD is the album for r0ck fans who might not be otherwise inclined. AB is for folkies.

aoxomoxoa uber alles for studio dead

otm

Right now I prefer American Beauty, and it's "Box of Rain" that tips the scales, because otherwise they're both just full of great songs, but "Box of Rain" is more than just great.

On other Dead material of the time: I've said it before on ILM, but the 8/27/72 show at the Veneta Fairgrounds in Oregon is killer. Firstly, it totally has that arc from folk to space back to folk...and in the comedown from "Dark Star" it segues into a goofy "El Paso", back into "Dark Star", and then into a cathartic "Sing Me Back Home" (which you can here on the So Many Roads box set, but trust me, it's better in context). It's simply incredible.

I can't imagine a greatest anything that doesn't have something from AB or WD

It's not suppose to be a greatest hits album; it's basically the track list for the studio album Hunter always wanted the Dead to make after AB.

someone YSI that shit, i don't have time to sift through boots and odds n ends.

xp - ok, i can read. isn't there supposed to be great stuff on ACE?

apologies, if you thought i was getting uppity. I wasn't. I was just pointing that out.

i totally want to cover friend of the devil.

-- ian, Monday, April 7, 2008 4:05 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

haha i totally have a grateful dead tabs book from 9th grade if you need those chord progressions dude

xp - no, dude, i was being self-deprecating

yes lindsay please!!!!! i would love a grateful dead tabs book.

i have 2. unless my mom has thrown them out by now.

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gotcha!

love those seasick chord changes in "high time"

Freaks and Geeks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRHZr3VlpgE

(Ends with the two lead female characters setting out for a summer--or a lifetime--as Deadheads.)

Agreed that I prefer Workingman's Dead, not just because Cumberland Blues is my fav Dead song. Beauty has some transcendent classics sitting beside mediocrities (Ripple is incredible, Candyman not so much), but Workingman's Dead stays at a fairly high level throughout.

candyman is so good! that pedal steel solo!

i think as much as i associate both albums with each other they have very distinct moods for me, american beauty is kinda this shining shimmering thing and workingman's is pretty ghostly and introverted throughout. at the moment i think i prefer the second mood but i also feel like it could easily switch back in the next 5-10 years

Back to the cover, I guess bill is on the stairs, Mickey is talking to pigpen, and hunter’s on the far left. Those were the three I wasn’t sure about

Here is more info about that cover than you ever wanted to know:

http://www.popspotsnyc.com/workingmans_dead/