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Bob Weir "Heaven Help The Fool"
(Arista, January 1978)
Bombs
Away/Easy To Slip/Salt Lake City/Shades Of Grey//Heaven Help The Fool/This Time
Forever/I'll Be Doggone/Wrong Way Feelin'
"There's trouble on your painted lips"
After truckin' along generally without incident
or accident, the Dead's bus started to come off its wheels in the Autumn
of 1977. The first casualty was Mickey, who badly injured his arm in a car
crash and was left unable to play for quite a few months at the end of the
year. Most of the band greeted the enforced rest with a sigh of relief (they'd
been touring heavily for eighteen months by this time) but Bob had been
especially fired up after the band's return in 1976 and was on something of a
creative roll. As Garcia slowed down, he found his own creative muse flowing
stronger, but he had a problem - the band were never going to re-model
themselves round him the way they had around Jerry and he simply had too many
songs that weren't really suitable to the Dead stage. Instead of taking a break
like the others, Bob entered the studio to record his latest crop of songs
(most of them written with old friend John Barlow) and recorded this album
quickly, without any other input from the Dead, only his second solo album and
his first in six years. In many ways it's a surprise there wasn't more -
especially during the 'gap' of 1975/76 - as Bob has always enjoyed working with
other musicians just as much as Jerry ('Kingfish' was the closest he came to a
second record of course but there are really only two Weir songs on that
album).
The results, though, surprised many who hadn't
quite realised that the overt commercial sheen of the late 70s hadn't come
entirely from the new producers Arista were making the band work with (this
album, like 'Terrapin', was produced by Keith Olsen). Slick, crafted, well made
yet ever so slightly forgettable, there's nothing as lasting here as on 'Ace'
and the album is generally regarded even by Bobby's biggest fans as something of
a mistake. Not that the album is bad - it just doesn't make much of an impact,
Bob styling himself as a casual country-rock singer in an era when danger was
the big thing and sweet but empty albums like this were becoming rather old
hat. However in many ways it's the album Weir needed to make, a sort of
busman's holiday that proved to him that he could make music outside the Dead.
he spoke in interviews at the time about how exciting it was to have songs come
out the way he's planned with the aid of session musicians (including future
members of Toto, then preparing to release their first album), comparing the
usual Dead way of working to 'going fishing' and hoping everyone else would
'bite' on an idea. However after so many years of getting used to hearing that
voice and guitar work in the middle of an edgy, restless, endlessly inventive
sound it's rather off to suddenly here it with the rough edges smoothed out
surrounded by backing singers, slick guitar work and simple but loud drumming.
The songs too don't really lodge in the memory: there's only one song here that
really lodged in the Dead's setlists - the title track (although the Dead did
occasionally sing 'Salt Lake City' when putting on a show there) and two cover
versions of old 50s song updated in a way that would make a 50s rocker spin
round in their grave at 45 revolutions a minute. Ultimately 'Heaven Help The
Fool' is one of those records that's offensive in it's very inoffensiveness, in
its desire to cater so hard for the casual pop market that Deadheads don't get
a look in. Still, there are worse solo albums around - certainly Garcia got
away with far worse in this period - so Bob can be forgiven for thinking the
album should have done a bit better. Fans too often laugh at the slick Richard
Avedon posh photograph of Weir on the front but actually that's about the best
thing about it, capturing Bob on his knees with a guitar, desperately trying to
look serious but with a flicker of laughter about to appear on his lips: it's
very Weir in fact, much more than the LP itself.
'Bombs Away' is a back-in-love song where the
narrator feels the power to do again ('I guess I'll change the world!') that's
one of the better on the album, thanks to a nice catchy synth riff (not unlike
the sort Brent will add in a few years time) and a nice strident lead vocal
from Bob. Lowell George cover 'Easy To Slip' pre-dates the 'Shakedown Street'
sessions by a few months but is an equally unlikeable clash of styles and
rather ugly and synthetic after years of listening to The Dead. 'Salt Lake City' is better, a wordy piece
about a place that 'don't sound much but what the hell's in a name?' alongside
surreal lyrics that dangles lizards and Tabernacle Choirs the same way Hunter
dangled Terrapins and Stations (without quite coalescing as well). 'Shades Of
Grey' is just another twee pop love song, although weirdly based around the
narrator's love's grey eyes, full of ambiguity rather than the usual
brightness. Title track 'Heaven Help The Fool' is an ok-ish story about 'rags
to riches' that has some nice self-deprecating jokes and a life 'when you can
trade your soul for an electric guitar'. 'This Time Forever' is my favourite
song on the album, a slow and smoky ballad that suits the artificial backing
for once and a nice twist where we find out most of the relationship has been
in the narrator's head where his love is 'timeless' - in reality it passed all
too fast. A curio cover of 50s song 'I'll Be Doggone' follows (see our
forthcoming book on The Searchers for the definitive version!) and doesn't
really suit Bob's voice or this album, the song's distinctive spooky hook
sounding very odd when played on a synth. Finally, original 'Wrong Way Feelin'
is an anonymous sounding goodbye, albeit with some fun lyrics from Barlow about
feeling unworthy to a great woman ('Honey, you're comin' on like the pharaoh's
daughter!') Overall, then, 'Heaven Help The Fool' is far from a travesty - but
it's even further away from being a long lost classic sadly.
Jerry
Garcia Band "Cats Under The Stars"
(Arista, April 1978)
Rubin And
Cherise/Love In The Afternoon/Palm Sunday/Cats Under The Stars//Rhapsody In
Red/Rain/Down Home/Gomorrah
"Breezes blow by me in the afternoon, she
sings sweetly to an organ grinder's tune"
Or
'Cats Under The Stairs' as my internet information checker has mistakenly
redubbed it! (That's a whole different album!) While Jerry's involvement with
the Dead waned he turned more towards making the Jerry Garcia Band more than
just a side-project. Hiring Keith and Donna and old pal Merle Saunders in his
band alongside regulars John Kahn and Ron Tutt seems like a concerted effort by
Jerry to surround himself with players who could really play and a kick-ass
touring group in their own right rather than just his back-up band. Jerry spent
a lot of time on the songs too, which while hardly ever seen in the band's
setlist (though 'Rubin and Cherise' was played occasionally) were generally
agreed to be a cut above his recent average. Donna too provided one of her
loveliest moments in 'Rain', while Bob Hunter came up trumps with 'Love In The
Afternoon', a one-off collaboration with John Kahn. Jerry even spent a long
time working on the striking album logo with artist Stanley Mouse (who tends to
be brought in for projects the band consider of the highest importance), an
Egyptian cat in front of a sunset and an inverted pyramid (clearly inspired by
the Dead's adventures in Egypt). This is clearly a more elegant record than
either the earlier scrappier solo albums or the recent over-slick Deads albums.
However despite all that care and attention this album bombed big time, being
all but unobtainable until Rhino finally re-issued the whole of Jerry's solo
studio catalogue in 2004. As Jerry put it at the time 'Cats Under The Stars was
my most successful record - as well as being my least successful record'.
The
result is a likeable record, especially for fans who enjoy the 'gospel' side of
Garcia's nature, and has deservedly come to be seen as something of a jewel in
his canon (as well as Keith and Donna's). When Garcia or indeed Donna are on it
the record really soars: 'Rubins and Cherise' is a powerful turbulent
story-song that sounds more like something Bobby would write, Jerry's take on
both 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' and 'Estimated Prophet' with the same
awkward angular tempos and cast of characters. A medieval love story at a
carnival, where Cherise thinks she's over a boy but falls in love with him all
over again when he serenades her in a mask, this is a clever poppy song that's
an updated twist on the 'Orpheous' setting (a theme also heard on the last
track of Jerry's previous album 'Reflections' and clearly on his mind - the
tale of a Greek musician who gets so carried away with his own fame he thinks
he can charm the dead and is eventually killed by those who don't understand
it; yep actually I can see why Garcia would relate to that story in this era
when the Dead were at their least hip). 'Love In The Afternoon' is also Jerry's
most successful attempt at writing a proper reggae song, singing what ought to
be a ballad with the upbeat drumming of Ron Tutt with some gorgeous Godchaux
vocals soaring over the top. Donna's 'Rain' too is a nice counterpart to her
recent 'Sunrise', a lovely floaty gospel song which is actually upbeat and
hopeful where that song was downcast and melancholy. John Kahn's wordless two
minute linking piece is also rather lovely, as if the Dead have just turned
into the King's Singers for the day and decided to film some sleepy film music
(even though it's a shame this is the full song and not just a lovely prelude
to something bigger). Hearing all this
you can tell why the few fans who heard it were so excited for the next Dead LP
and why the artistically inferior 'Shakedown Street' was a double
disappointment.
However
let's not get carries away. Undoubtedly 'Cats Under The Stars' is a mega
improvement in terms of songs, performances and even album sleeve, but it's
still not quite the Jerry of old. The four great songs listed above (one of
them more of a wordless chant and two not even featuring Jerry at all) still
leaves half an album to fill and at a mere 35 minutes long this album can
ill-afford to have quite so much filler on it. I'd got so suckered into fans'
talk of this being the greatest thing Jerry had made ever that, along with the
proximity to the genius that was the title track of 'Terrapin Station' I'd got
rather excited and desperate to track this album down. I was rather
disappointed on hearing it for the first time - not because it was bad but
because, heard back to back with 'Garcia', Jerry's lack of creativity sounds
quite alarming. There are only seven years between the two, but the almost
casual brilliance sprinkled over that set is only here in parts and even then
it sounds like hard work (the much anticipated CD release features some truly
dismal extras too, apart from a nice rehearsal of the traditional 'Palm Sunday'
that being sparser works better than the finished one and a quite lovely
traditional gospel cover of 'I'll Be With Thee' with lots of Donnas, ruined
only by a perfunctory Garcia guitar solo). Yes Jerry is back, but he's not
taking chances like he did in the past or even close to reaching his best and
the greatest of these songs would still have sounded better saved for
'Shakedown Street' (instead of the hopeless 'Stagger-Lee' and ne-note 'If I Had
The World To Give') performed by a band with real chemistry, rather than the
talented but unrehearsed band on this album. Cats is a lovely album, true and
is undisputedly reaching towards greatness, but remember this cat is still very
much earthbound reaching for greatness as achieving it. That said, how great is
Donna Godchaux here, finally getting a chance to show off just how well she can
sing and supporting both Jerry and Keith ably with her classy free-flowing
vocals on a series of songs so much closer to her own preferences. Had the
'Keith and Donna' album been more like this it might have been a masterpiece!
Mickey
Bill and Phil "The Apocalypse Now Sessions: The Rhythm Devils Play River Music"
(Passport, May 1980)
Compound/Trenches/Street
Gang/The Beast//Steps/Tar/Lance/ Cave/Napalm For Breakfast/Hell's Bells
"*Ugh* That heap big jungle creates heap big
drumming!"
What
do you see in the 'heart of darkness'? Skeletons! Yes - that makes perfect
sense! A rare case of the Dead getting involved in a film project, the
re-telling of Joseph Conrad in 'Apocalypse Now' has many links with the Dead:
the film massacred the principles behind the Vietnam War (something the Dead
often spoke against) and Francis Ford Coppola went to a Dead gig specially to
ask for Mickey's help particularly after needing to contact a reliable drummer
with lots of African instruments and a love of dense textures and time
signatures to make the jungle sound really 'odd' (Mickey more than qualified!)
However, Hart didn't make this album alone - he brought in Billy and Phil to
help out as well as a host of Mickey's drummer friends (including lots of Indian
tabla players) for what became the only album ever credited to 'The Rhythm
Devils', the name the percussive-based backline of the Dead went by during
concerts. The soundtrack is certainly memorable and Dead fans might recognise
some of the drum patterns from the band's many improvisations down the years,
most of them credited to Mickey. The record makes full use of one of his
inventions (of course it is - who else would think of this?) 'The Beam' - a
C-shaped block containing 13 piano bass strings all tuned to the same note ('D'
if anyone wants to build their own and pluck along?), with attached volume
pedal and all the sorts of effects most musicians would get on synths and
guitars. It's certainly atmospheric and impressive for being created in just
ten days from scratch, though not perhaps what you might call a 'musical' experience unless you're heavily
into your percussion. The songs do work well in the film though, making Africa
out to be an 'alien' place. However nothing really stands out or changes -
though listed as eleven separate tracks there aren't really that many changes
anywhere along the line and while this suits the film, as a soundtrack record
it's probably the most disappointing of Mickey's percussion based records. Then
again perhaps I'm just being grumpy: I've never really 'got' this film or the
book it's based on (which is hopeless, one long clumsy metaphor that never gets
anywhere and is about as colonialist as Kipling, no matter how many university
professors have tried to pout Conrad with the modern modernist universal
approach), an anachronism that the Dead shouldn't have touched (even the
updated 'Apocalypse Now' script is best described as patronising in places).
The LP includes much longer extracts of the recordings than were featured in
the film and were expanded again for CD release in 1990 with the addition of
the five minute instrumental 'Kurtz'.
"Reckoning"
(Arista, April 1981)
Dire Wolf/The
Race Is On/Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie/It Must Have Been The Roses/Dark
Hollow/China Doll/Been All Around This World/The Monkey And The
Engineer/Jack-A-Roe/Deep Elem Blues/Cassidy/To Lay Me Down/Rosalie McFall/On
The Road Again/Bird Song/Ripple
"If my tunes were played on the harp
un-strung, would you hear my voice come through the music?"
With
no new material or ideas about what to record, the Dead decided to pad out
their contract with Arista with a live record. Having recently revived the
'acoustic set' they'd played around with in 1970 (thanks to some low-key
performances in some smaller venues that fitted the intimacy of the acoustic
sound), it made sense to record a double album made up of an acoustic first set
and an electric second. However the band realised their songs were now so long
that the electric set would eat into too much of the running time so instead
they decided to cut the sets in half, releasing two double albums a few months
apart. The general consensus is that 'Reckoning' - the acoustic half - is the
better, simply because it's rarer and it's true it does have its moments,
starting with an excellent energetic version of 'Dire Wolf' and moving on to a
chilling 'China Doll' and perhaps the definitive released version of 'Bird
Song', frail and yet full of wonder. There's also the welcome chance to hear
three songs previously only released on Garcia's or Weir's solo records fully
integrated into the Dead canon (however it's a shame that there are so few songs
here from the band's own 'acoustic' albums 'Workingman's Dead' and 'American
Beauty'). However in most other ways 'Reckoning' is the weakest of all official
Dead releases out in their lifetime: their cover versions were always mixed bag
and this set tends to go for the rarest, oblivious of quality. This is simply Jerry and Bobby having fun
rehashing songs from their childhood and while interesting to hear, once, isn't
really worthy of your time. The band joked later that they spent 'about three
lazy afternoons' rehearsing this material and it shows - this is too safe, too
cosy, too fragile to be the Dead, with the two drummers reduced to some barely
audible covers and the lack of power behind him showing how weak a singer a
poorly Jerry had become in this period. In total some nine cover songs are
here, all of them exclusive to this set (although a few can also be heard from
later archive CDs) which ought to be a
good thing - but there's no way that the Dead would have gotten away with this
on any previous release - or indeed in any previous period.
Without
Pigpen to give these often twee country and blues songs some earth (as per
'Bear's Choice') there's simply no point to them: Bob's cover of George Jones'
'The Race Is On' is worthy only thanks to his sterling vocal not the hopeless
backing; Jerry has no voice left for a slowed-down-to-a-crawl version of 'Oh
babe It Ain't No Lie' (which add to insult to injury includes some awful
feeding back problems with the monitor); Jerrys' equally shaky for the traditional
'Been All Around This World'; 'The
Monkey and the Engineer' is an awful song, a novelty folk tune without any
proper melody and very silly words - a poor man's mixture of China Cat
Sunflower set on the scene of Casey Jones; the band finally get around to
releasing a version of live favourite 'Jack-A-Roe' but it's not the best by any
means, with a slow blues feel and another weak Jerry vocal; ditto live regular
'On The Road Again' which rocks so poorly it isn't funny - the band may be
approaching middle age but this has them in their rocking chairs. Only on the
revivals of the first acoustic set 'Deep Elem Blues' and 'Dark Hollow' does the
band breath any life into these songs - and even then the 'Bear's Choice'
versions beat them hands down. The one exception and worthy addition to the
band's setlist is the breezy folk tale of 'Rosalie McFall', who finds true love
only to die soon after. Fans love this album because it features the band
trying something different to usual and indeed the 'unplugged' revisitations of
old favourites are a full decade ahead of their time. However it speaks volumes
to me that the acoustic set was dropped from the band's shows as soon as the
live album was recorded, with none of these songs lasting for much longer - the
truth is the Dead simply aren't a tight enough until to do these songs justice
and too often chicken out, singing the easier songs they all knew from their
childhood rather than learning some acoustic covers and re-hashing even more
dangerous old songs that made have made this record truly worthy (what about an
acoustic 'Dark Star' or a revival of 'Mountains Of The Moon'?)
Like
'Dead Set' the 'new' songs added to the CD re-issue (extended to two discs) are
actually more interesting and makes you wonder why the album wasn't released
that way at the time. An instrumental version of Weir's solo 'Heaven Help The
Fool' sounds rather better heard like this than on the over-click record, one
of only three goes at 'Sage and Spirit' doesn't quite come off but is a worthy
attempt, while the pretty folk tale 'Little Sadie' is far worthier of release
than any of the covers on the album proper. Alas this set is fleshed out with
several repeats that sound near enough identical to the released versions, as the Dead's setlists didn't really change
much in this period. While 'Dead Set' is far from perfect, at least that
overshadowed record had the occasionally tight performances and lots of
electric power - 'Reckoning' just makes the Dead sound prematurely aged and
long in the tooth, robbing all but a handful of performances of their true
worth. Even the welcome of Rick Griffin, who designed the 'Aoxmoxoa' sleeve,
seems something of an anti-climax, with the same dead-white background seen on
'Go To Heaven' with a rather obvious 'skull' crest of arms over the top. The result is a shabby release whose
momentary thrill of hearing the band trying something new has worn off long
before the second folk cover song.
(Arista, August 1981)
Samson And
Delilah/Friend Of The Devil/New New Minglewood Blues/Deal/Candyman/Little Red
Rooster/Loser/Passenger/Feels Like A Stranger/Franklin's Tower/Rhythm
Devils/Space/Fire On The Mountain/Greatest Story Ever Told/Brokedown Palace
"LOng distance runner what you standing there
for? Get up, get on, get out of the door!...' or 'You say it's a living - we
all gotta eat'
Though long dismissed as being less interesting than the
acoustic 'Reckoning' and featuring a more 'normal' set of Dead arrangements, I
actually much prefer this 'second' album of 1981 (the Dead's sixth official
live album - in fifteen years). The songs tend to be better, less rare
certainly but still containing a fair few surprises in the arrangements,
especially a slowed down 'Friend Of The Devil' and the then-rare cover of
'Little Red Rooster'. This album also sees the first official release of
'Rhythm Devils' and 'Space', the lengthy improvisations common to many Dead
gigs. In fact, discounting 'Live/Dead' (an excellent representation of the band
live in 1969) this is arguably the closest of all the live albums to what a
Dead concert felt like - the surprises, the extended jamming sounds, the
warm-ups in the first set - and in retrospect it's odd that the band waited so
long before releasing an album like this. Certainly the packaging is better -
the clever pun in the title and the wonderful cover by Dennis Larkins of
overgrown skeletons walking over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge makes this
one of the nicer looking Dead albums.
However, like 'Reckoning' the elephant skeleton in the room
is that this is a 'filler' album, the band eking out more of their unwanted
contract with Arista as quickly as possible with another double album that the
year after 'Go To Heaven' is conspicuous by featuring no new original songs
(just a lot of covers). Also the band live in 1981 were in something of a
creative slump - the songs had stopped coming and Brent Mydland's pushing to
fill the gap with his trademark sound of gruff vocals and synth parts annoyed
as many people as it thrilled. Notably he plays far less of a role on this
album than on the average concert of the day (with no lead vocals) as if the
band are afraid of unsettling their audience. However they should have been
braver: Brent's vocals toughened up a great number of the band's songs and many
of the covers he brought to their repertoire were amongst the best, all missing
here in favour of old tired Garcia and Weir vocals we've heard several times
over. At least he was taking some risks - the rest of the band are playing it
far too safe by Grateful Dead standards as Jerry's health declines and the band
run out of new material.
The result is a mixed bag. For every song that works really
well (a sprightly 'Deal' with some chirpy hammond organ, a lovely slow
'Candyman', a funky 'Fire On The Mountain' that's sparser than normal,)
there'll be some poor song dragged long past their comfort zone into a rambling
epic that's the epitome of what every 'outsider' hates about this band (, five
of Bob shouting himself hoarse over 'New New Minglewood Blues', a three minute
'Passenger' that rocks hopelessly badly sounding like a parody). Admittedly
this is the Grateful Dead and fans have learnt to take the rough with the
smooth, but there are far better performances than these sitting in the tape
vaults from the same period of October 1980 (a busy month), even granted that
this was far from a golden age for the band. By mixing the best and worst so
readily this is all too convincing a portrayal as to what it was like to go to
a real show at the time, when the band could go from geniuses to a hopeless pub
band in the space of a few bars. The result is another wasted opportunity,
albeit with more things going for it than the 'Reckoning' set as at least the
Dead are in their 'natural habitat' here and at least we get four songs that
had only appeared on solo records up until this time, plus the cover of 'Little
Red Rooster' and the 'in concert feel' of 'Rhythm Devils' and 'Space'. Clearly
its no match for 'Live/Dead' and the Dead now sound like a fine tuned band
desperately trying to keep together rather than a bunch of telepathic geniuses,
but there's much to enjoy that so often gets overlooked- especially in the
expanded CD version,
thanks to the addition of several period tracks that are a lot more interesting
than what made the record (a storming 'Let It Grow', the rare cover C C Rider
and a thrilling 'Lazy Lightnin' > Supplication' that's a welcome addition
for every fan who hadn't got round to buying Bob's 'Kingfish' album yet which
should have all been present the first time around) although again not
everything if first-class (Ten minutes of the repetitive 'Sugaree' a nearly
nine minute 'High Time' that's so slow it's almost standing still, and a full
eleven minutes of 'Shakedown Street' that plods along aimlessly for two-thirds
of the song). Spare a thought for fans who bought this album on CD the first
time it came out though as a single disc with a few minutes of 'Space' (one of
the big selling points) pruned back. However while the album now sounds better
this lot still won't really be enough to convince anyone except truly committed
fans and even some of them might feel short-changed. The third truly
inessential official Dead release?
Bob
Weir "Bobby And The Midnites"
(Arista, October 1981)
Haze/Too Many
Losers/Far Away/Book Of Rules/Me Without You//Jospehine/I Want To Fly Away/Carry
Me/Festival
"Play for fun, play for keeps, you know they
play with fire too, and comes the veil of the night - God knows what they do!'
Bob's
third band was named after a section in episodic American Children's series
'Andy's Gang', screened between 1950 and 1960 (when Bob would have been three,
going on thirteen, the perfect age) and including that well known catchphrase
'pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!' (and they wonder why the children of this
era grew up to take drugs?!) UK readers
might want to think of 'Andy Pandy', with a puppet coming to life and having
adventures, often involving movie sets and TV shows. Anyway Midnight was the
gypsy violinist who played while sitting on a calliope while a mouse called
Squeeky danced the night away and painted a rather rosy portrayal of life as a
musician - no tunings, no rehearsals, no badmouthing managers, no
disintegrating keyboard players and lots of adventures (as captured nicely by
Victor Moscoso in his album cover of a winking cat in a graveyard, based on a
sketch that reportedly came to Bob in a dream). You can see why Bob would have
wanted to recapture that same spirit for his next side band after so many
difficult years in the Dead and with Kingfish (who'd split by this time),
recruiting the best of the local sessions musicians, old pal Matthew Kelly and
his current Dead pal Brent Mydland. The 'cat' icon also becomes a neat contrast
to Jerry's own attempts to spend more time on his solo career with 'Cats Under
The Stars' (although it speaks volumes that while Garcia's is sleek and elegant
but in the background so that your eye has to work, Bob's cover is in your
face, actually winking at the listener, much like the two records audibly).
There's
a real sense of escape in the music too, which is the closest Weir ever came to
making a fully heavy rock record, with a commercial sheen that's also the
closest any of the Dead came to making a new wave record. Low on subtlety but
high on power, this is what the Dead would have sounded like if they'd grown up
on a diet of Chuck Berry and psychedelic rock without the blues jugband and
folk beginnings. 'There are nights for taking chances...we're gonna have some
fun - we'll be the brightest!' screams opening track 'Haze' before it plunges
into a memorable middle eight minor key part that hints at how desperate Weir
is to escape. In many ways this album can be seen as response to Garcia's
increasing frailty and the need within the band to slow things down a jot to
slow the guitarist to keep up - this album is like an aggressive re-action to
being made to walk slower than your natural pace for too long.
While
clearly there are less layers and more surface than on 'Ace', I actually rather
like this album. What could so easily have become just another noisy early 80s
album has just enough characteristic touches within the songs (only two of them
written with Barlow by the way - most are either solo songs or written with the
band) to keep things interesting. Every time you think a song has surrendered
to cliche and is going where you expect there'll be a curveball - a middle end,
a key change, a quiet passage just to remind you that this is a band that
really can play 'properly' and are just playing like this out of choice. What
is a shame is that, with Jerry gone, Bob still sticks rigidly to rhythm guitar,
content to let chief collaborator Bobby Cochran take the lead and while he's
rather good he's also very of his time (short pinging soaring guitar bursts, of
the sort everyone was playing in 1981). In short Weir now sounds like Jefferson
Starship - but with the caveat that even though that band clearly aren't as
good or as groundbreaking as Jefferson Airplane, treated on its own merits it's
still superior to most every other album made using the same style. Highlights
include opener 'Haze' (a song written for close friend and photographer Bruce
Baxter), the slow-burning rocker 'Me Without You' (more like something Humble Pie
would do) and the sweet piano ballad 'Carry Me' (a 'Looks Like Rain' for the
80s). Only yet another couple of rubbish
Dead reggae songs 'Book Of Rules' and 'I Want To Fly Away' lets a consistent
album down. Sadly none of these songs were ever played live by the Dead,
although to be fair that was probably the point - this is an album reminding
the world that the band could rock, once upon a time and in different
circumstances still can.
"Jerry Garcia "Run For The Roses"
(Arista, November 1982)
Run For The
Roses/I Saw Her Standing There/Without Love/Midnight Getaway//Leave The Little
Girl Alone/Valerie/Knockin' On Heaven's Door
"If you got the 'Do-Re' I got the 'Mi' and I
got a notion we're all out at sea"
Further
sign of Jerry's declining creativity came with the last studio record of his
lifetime, a record that all too sadly is summed up by the dinosaur on the
cover, however ferocious it might think it is, a record that all too often
sounds like 'Cats Under The Stars' weakest moments - a house cat with what
sounds like a home-made synth and heavy on the covers rather than an album
worthy of Garcia's reputation. Recorded in the 'missing' period after 'Go To
Heaven', it's arguably the last album Jerry spent his full attention on before
his coma and he already sounds like he's struggling vocally, with very little
guitar playing throughout the album either. Worst of all, despite containing
only seven songs Jerry co-writes just two (with old friend John Kahn
collaborating with Robert Hunter on an 'extra' song 'Leave The Little Girl
Alone'). The most 1980s Dead record of them all (yep, even more than 'In The
Dark'), this record is about as far from the free-flowing sixties feel the band
had when they started as you can get - everything sounds squeezed into little
digital boxes, with no note out of place but equally no warmth or chemistry
between the players. Containing surely the dumbest Beatles cover of all ('I Saw
Her Standing There' with all the passion taken away) and an agonising slow
version of everyone's favourite Dylan song except me (I think it's stupid) 'Knockin'
On Heaven's Door', this is a dog of an LP, despite the tiger on the front. How
did it come to this?
Hurt
by the poor sales to 'Cats Under The Stars' and knowing that the Dead were
unlikely to ever use up his latest batch of songs, Garcia seems to have put as
little effort into this record as possible. Two songs ('I Sa Her...' and
'Without Love') were outtakes from 1974's 'Compliments' plastered with some
extra synths. Not only Jerry but reliable bassist John Kahn were deeply in the
throes of drug addiction, recording more to give them something to do other
than smoke rather than because of any great zeal for the material. In context
it's amazing the record has even as few highlights as it does have: the title
track being an actually pretty convincing pop song, mixing the groove of
'Althea' with Hunter in a 'China Cat Sunflower' mood. 'Midnight Getaway' is a
typically yearning Garcia-Hunter ballad that's better than anything on the last
two Dead albums which sounds to me as if it's Hunter trying to make his old
friend see the error of his multiple-marital ways ('Heard you walking down the
stairs, and I counted them one by one, one for each year that flew by').
'Valerie' sounds awful in this sterile environment but heard live (and via
outtakes) this will grow into one of the Garcia Band's better songs, as
singalong as 'Sugaree' but with a slinkier, sexier feel. If only Jerry could
have had the patience to have made the rest of the material this strong and
overhauled his band 'Run For The Roses' still could have worked well. In truth
it just needs some pruning - but at seven songs leaves very little left after
'deadheading' has take place. Strangely
the outtakes featured first on the 'All Good Things' Garcia box set and later
when the album was released in its own right are far superior, featuring a
warmer less claustrophobic sound and some great performances including a lovely
'Dear Prudence' and perhaps the best of the many renderings of folk song
'Peggy-O' doing the rounds.
(Columbia, August 1984)
(I Want To
Live In) America/When The Beat Meets The Street/ She's Gonna Win Your
Heart/Ain't That Peculiar?/Lifeguard //Rock In The 80s/Lifeline/Falling/Thunder
And Lightning/Gloria Monday
"She leaves me with no doubt that with half an
ounce of effort I'd get paid"
Keeping
the cat motive, but this time turning a cheeky winking ethereal feline into an
ordinary house cat trodden on by human beings, rather says it all for this
rather sorry follow-up. Columbia had high hopes for the first record which
never really realised and instead they did that old record company thing of 'interfering'
with the follow-up so that even the fans the original appealed to were put off.
Surely the presence of superstar-in-the-making Bob Weir was more than enough
for any band? Well no, hence this album's line-up of crudely arranged 'special
guest' appearances by Steve Cropper, Brian Setzer and Kenny Gradney (making him
the second member of 'Little Feat' to have worked with the Dead). The results
are rather anonymous and could have been released by any half-decent pop band,
with second guitarist Bobby Cochran tackling more of the lead vocals. Weir can
still write a good hummable pop tune, though, and his four co-writes on the
record - most of them with old friend John Barlow - are easily the best on the
record, especially the tension-filled ballad 'Falling' and the 'Lazy Lightning'
style Chuck Berryied sequel 'Thunder and Lightning' that's a far more
convincing 50s throwback than anything on the Dead's own albums (and includes
the memorable Barlow line 'Studded leather angel howling like a tabby cat in
heat'). By and large, though, this record is a missed opportunity with none of
the power or aggression of the debut album and very little that rises above the
ordinary. Needless to say none of the originals ever made it to the Dead
setlists, although the worst aspects aren't the original songs (which show some
promise in composition if not execution) but the horrid cover songs.
Unfortunately there are a lot of them and they're all bad: the Weir-led Smokey
Robinson cover 'Ain't That Peculiar?' for instance is even worse than Byrd
Chris Hillman's version from 1977 (which is really saying something!) and six
cover songs on a ten-track album is a worrying sign of lost interest. This time
Bobby and the Midnites are the wrong side of the start of the day, their magic
deserting them like Cinderella as mysteriously as when it first came. What a
shame.
(Grateful Dead Records, Recorded Autumn
1987, Released December 1988)
Swing Low
Sweet Chariot/Deep Elem Blues/Blue Yodel #9 (Standing On The Corner)/Spike
Driver's Blues/I've Been All Around This World/Here To Get My Baby Out Of
Jail/I'm Troubled/Oh The Wind And Rain/The Girl At The Crossroads Bar/Oh Babe
It Ain't No Lie/Casey Jones/Diamond Toe/Gone Home/Ripple
Jerry's
coma seemed to spur on a new creativity within him - not unusual you might
think, given the amount of things that must have been going through his mind
during his painful comeback. However, interestingly the need to carry on seems
to have been turned into the desire to perform rather than write and just as
'In The Dark' was mainly made up of older material cut with a new enthusiasm,
so this live album of covers (tapes in 1987 but not released till a couple of
years later) seems to hint at a renewed vigour just to get out on the road
again and make some music. This time round Jerry surrounded himself with
another bunch of old friends - New Rider Dave Nelson, right-hand man John Kahn
and newcomers Sandy Rothman, Kenny Kosek and Danny Kemper for an album of
bluegrass favourites. Had Jerry never met Pig, become the guitarist in a
jug-band and then psychedelics his career might very well have turned out like
this and he certainly has a knack for the material, even if he still sounds
unusually old and feeble, still side effects of the coma.
The
result is less interesting than 'Old And In The Way' but still fascinating as a
chance to hear Jerry in a fully acoustic setting more interesting than the one
on Dead album 'Reckoning' (it's titled 'Almost Acoustic' because only John
Kahn's bass is plugged in!) Completely at odds with most records out in 1987,
it's as if the clock has turned back a quarter of the century and there's a
nice intimacy about this set, as if Jerry is sighing a breath of relief at
playing for a smaller crowd he can actually see after as hard year of touring
stadiums. Once again it's a very up and down album, but some of the songs are
particularly suited to Jerry and especially his new weary voice: Mississippi John
Hurt (the writer behind 'Stack O'Lee' which might sound familiar to anyone
whose heard the 'Shakedown Street' album) wrote Spike Driver's Blues which is a
far more apt song for Jerry to re-write, full of Johnny Cash style angst and
determination; the driving traditional song 'Oh The Wind and Rain' which
features a nice 'Casey Jones' style shuffle beat; finally Bill Carlisle's
country weepie 'Gone Home' which features a stunning acoustic guitar solo that
proves that Jerry sometimes still had it in him to approach his best work. In
additions fans will find many songs best known from their place in the Dead
setlist: a mandolin heavy 'Ripple' is the only original, but Jerry also tackles
a number of cover songs the band have often performed: 'Deep Elem Blues' 'I've
Been All Around This World' 'Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie' and 'Standin' On The
Corner' (a song Jerry last performed with the Dead as long ago as 1966!)
However perhaps the most important addition to the canon here is a third take
on the strange tale of train driver Casey Jones, this time in another song by
Mississippi John Hurt (which is slow and wordy, even compared to 'The Ballad
Of...' that the band occasionally played in concert but does have a catchy
chorus: 'Casey Jones was a brave engineer, he told his fireman to not to fear,
says all I want my water and my coal, look out my window see my wheel drive
roll!').
In
short, this album with much to recommend and is a nice chance to hear another
folkier side of Jerry, although it should be stressed that the band don't quite
gel and Jerry often sounds more asleep than he did in the Dead's live shows, as
the extra concentration needed for acoustic shows wears him out. Pigpen, who
would surely have been recorded something similar in his middle age in some parallel
universe somewhere, would still surely have approved with that extra struggle
making these often intense songs even more authentic. However this isn't by any
means an easy record to listen to and the set coasts as much as the Grateful
Dead ever did in this period. Another three live albums from the same tour,
'Pure Jerry Vols 1 and 2' and 'Ragged But Right', were released in 2004 and
2010 respectively and are pretty much the same - we haven't reviewed it here
because if we included every posthumous release this book would be another 200
pages long!
(Columbia, February 1989)
Slow Train/I
Want You/Gotta Serve Somebody/Queen Jane Approximately//Joey/All Along The
Watchtower/Knockin' On Heaven's Door
"There must be some way out of here, said the
joker to the thief - there's too much confusion, I can't get no relief"
This
live album, recorded on a joint tour of 1987, should have been sensational. An
early case of two artists teaming up to potentially double their audience, there
was a lot of mutual respect and admiration between Bob and the Dead. After all
the Gratefuls had been covering Dylan material since the beginning (an 'It's
All Over Now Baby Blue' from 1965) and will later release a two-CD set of their
covers across thirty years. Dylan for his part loved the looseness and
improvisation the Dead brought to his work, telling newspapers that he was
impressed and that the band 'knows my work better than I do!' What's more Dylan
had fun - a word not often associated with him - enjoying being just another
member of the band who didn't treat him simply as a God (someone from the Dead
community reportedly told him on the first day 'I'm afraid we've already got a
'Bob' and it'll get confusing, so we'll have to think of something else to call
you!') On a high from the success of 'In The Dark' - and keen to help out
Dylan, at something of a career low - the Dead worked up several hundred songs
to play in rehearsals, but alas they fell back into old habits during the
actual tour and generally played the usual stuck rota of Dylan semi-classics
and standards (apart from the last night, when Dylan suddenly launched into 'Mr
Tambourine Man'( a song he'd never rehearsed with the band - who looked
suitably shocked!)
Alas
the tour was incredibly hit-and-miss, the problem being that both Dylan and the
Dead tend to be very fickle players. Whenever one would be up, the other would
be down - meaning that too much of the tour tended to capture Bob in all his
vocal-splitting venom-spitting glory only to be let down by a painfully slow
and out of sync backing, or conversely that the Dead sounded like a monster and
Bob sounded like a weak and feeble ghost. Pulling together the best of these
shows - six of them, performed between July 4th and July 28th 1987 - should
have been easy, especially as the live album was intended from a first to be
souvenir of the two acts together rather than the sets they played apart. There
is, you see, a really good hour or so live set to be found across the six gigs
(ie perhaps a twelfth of what they played at those shows that month) but this
CD really isn't it. On the tour the pair tackled all sorts of fascinating Dylan
songs neither of them had played before: take your pick from 'The Times They
Are-A Changin' 'Man Of Peace' 'Ballad Of A Thin Man' 'Stuck Inside Of Mobile'
'The Chimes Of Freedom' 'Tangled Up In
Blue' 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' 'Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' 'Highway 61
Revisited' 'Tomorrow Is A Long Time' 'The Wicked Messenger' 'Heart Of Mine'
'Memphis Blues' 'Simple Twist Of Fate' 'Watching The River Flow' 'Dead
Man' 'Maggie's Farm' 'Shelter From The
Rain' and 'Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 35' (yes the pair did sing 'Everybody
must get stoned!') , all of which sound more interesting than what we got: a
flippin' funeral version of 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door', a croaky version of 'I
Want You', a passionless 'All Along The watchtower' - the sort of things done
better by any half-decent Dylan tribute act. Perhaps Bob should have toured
with The Byrds instead?
The
tempos drag, the musicians play in their own separate worlds without ever quite
meeting in the middle, Dylan is at his nasalist and most unlistenable and not
one bit of the magic that ever so occasionally appeared on stage makes it to
this CD. Rightfully hailed as the weakest official release in either artist's
canon, it seems in retrospect like a typical piece of wry Dylan humour to allow
such a shoddy collection of songs through when there are so many good
alternatives out there. Additionally, you could argue that the Dead were so fed
up of being 'big' after 'Touch Of Grey' that they deliberately set out to
torpedo their reputation, fast. As a result the Dylan tour has gathered the
reputation amongst fans of being a good idea that never ever worked - certainly
this CD never works for a minute, but we humbly suggest that the Dead archive
puts out a full concert from these shows (if Dylan lets them) so fans can see
for themselves that this project was more than just a good idea and did work,
just about, sporadically (yes 'View From The Vault' released the Dead's set on
their own from the penultimate gig on the 24th, but not the two legends
together). The only thing worth rescuing from all of this mess is the inspired
album cover by old Dead friend Rick Griffin, a marvellous illustration of a
young sunglasses-wearing Dylan and his old 'Skulls and Roses' version of the
band, linked by a giant train (an image heard in many works by both bands).
"Without
A Net"
(Arista, September 1990)
Feel Like A
Stranger/Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo/Walkin'
Blues/Althea/Cassidy/Bird Song/Weather Report Suite (Let It Grow)/China Cat
Sunflower > I Know You Rider/Looks Like Rain/Eyes Of The World/Victim Or The
Crime/Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower/One More Saturday
Night/Dear Mr Fantasy
"Do anything to take us out of this gloom -
sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy!"
The
Dead's official 'swansong' in their lifetime was rather predictably another
live album (their eighth in all, discounting 'retrospective' archive sets) and
a rather disappointing 'goodbye' to the Brent Mydland era when the band had all
but regained their confidence and begun to find a new style again after a half-decade
of being a little lost. The Dead had last released a live record from the early
part of Mydland's run with the band and his style had changed a lot since then,
so on paper a live album from Spring 1990 seemed the natural thing to do.
However the band simply taped the wrong tour, one that found the band a little
worn out and would end up being a tour nobody wanted a souvenir following
Brent's death just after the tour but two months before the release date. Organised
mainly by Phil, the album was already in the planning stages when Brent died
and a hasty tribute to 'Clifton Hanger' was added on the sleeve at the last
minute, the alias used by Brent on checking into hotel rooms. It's sadly not
the tribute he deserved, being easily the weakest of all the official Dead CDs
and all the more puzzling given that later archive releases from various parts
of the tour reveals that there is a rather good triple vinyl set in there
somewhere - it's just that this isn't it!
Like
a lot of the band's 'compilation' live records, this just doesn't 'feel' right
together somehow, even though many of these songs were played on a majority of
nights. The result is just too up-tempo, with too many longwinded yet similar
jams embedded together and with Brent's synths at their most irritating and
shrill. The lack of cover songs and rare material seems like something of a
missed opportunity too - actually quite a lot were played on this tour ('Wang
Dang Doodle' 'All Along The Watch-Tower' 'Revolution' 'When I Paint MY
Masterpiece' etc) so it's a shame that only rather bland versions of Robert
Johnson's 'Walkin' Blues' and Traffic's 'Dear Mr Fantasy' made the cut. Even
the chance to include cracking versions of the songs not eligible for a live
album before (songs from 'In The Dark' and 'Built To Last') seems a bit of a
missed opportunity: instead the latest songs here fate from 1980's 'Go To
Heaven' (an awful lot of that album is here actually!) Even old warhorses like
'China Cat' and 'One More Saturday Night' sound a little past their best here.
There is at least one shining moment though which proves how great this set
could have been: one of the better (and shorter!) performances of 'Eyes Of The
World' with guest saxophonist Brenford Marsalis, which finds a nicely jazzy
groove that points the way forward to what the Dead could have been doing in
this period. Perhaps the band should have kept that safety net in place after
all because they do plunge off the high-wire rather often across this album! To
be fair, the Dead were moving on, finding a new chunkier yet also more
ballad-filled setlist across the year that was one of their better periods as a
touring band - you just wouldn't know that from this rather odd release. The
best thing about it may well be the cover, the last drawing that Rick Griffin
(the mastermind behind 'Aoxomoxoa' and others) did for the band featuring
skeleton clowns and skeleton red indians
before his untimely death in August 1991. Interestingly, despite being 'canon'
- and an album the band claimed to be very proud of at the time - this record
was not included as part of the 'Beyond Description 1973-89' box set and has
not been re-released since its first appearance on CD nearly thirty years ago.
(Rykodisc Records, September 1990)
#4 For
Gaia/Sky Water/Slow Sailing/Lonesome Hero/Fast Sailing/Cougar Run/The
Eliminators/Brainstorm/Pigs In Space
"*Grunt* Ugh heap big stick play drum solo *
Grunt* I prefer 'Space' "
More
fun with drums, with the debut of what will become Mickey's ensemble piece
'Planet Drum' (although they aren't called that here yet). The title suggests
this is going to be heavy and adventurous, like the 'Drums' part of the Dead
show writ large, but actually the 'edge' part comes from Mickey's desire to
make them sound 'soft...sparse, beautiful, serene, patient and clam'. The album
doubles as a rather good impression of life in the rainforest, full of
twinkling pan pipes and sound effects that like the best of his album becomes
hypnotic after a while. Mickey clearly wrote this album with half a mind on his
book 'Drumming At The Edge Of Magic' released the same year, a debate about how
central the art of rhythm is to our philosophy, emotions and spirituality (the
book starts off with the Mongols, the first culture known to make drums central
to their way of life before moving back to cavemen and eventually The Big
Bang). Like a lot of these albums what you get out of it depends how much you
want to hear - it's clearly no substitute for the poignant emotional
storytelling of the Dead at their best, but it's more interesting and made with
thought than - say - a whole album of drum solos. Dead fans will be most
interested in the six minute 'The Eliminator, a scary soundscape of the forest
under attack from man, thanks to one of the last guest appearance of Jerry
Garcia's career. The truly bonkers 'Pigs In Space' is worth a listen too,
sounding like not just the fake Muppets TV show of the same name on fast
forward but the weirdest psychedelic trip any of the Dead have taken since
'Seastones'. Once again none of these songs actually has any lyrics.
"Infrared
Roses"
(Recordings of 'Drums' and 'Space' from
various shows between 1989 and 1990 edited together)
Crowd Sculpture/Parallelogram/Little
Nemo In Nightland/Riverside Rhapsody/Post-Modern High-Rise Table Top
Stomp/Infrared Roses/Silver Apples Of The Moon/Speaking In Swords/Magnesium
Night Light/Sparrow Hawk Row/River Of Nine Sorrows/Apollo At The Ritz
"Ugh! Me
given up playing nice rhythms now! Ugh me now try to subvert's mankind's desire
for order and structure by using detailed jazz-based improvisations to break
the restrictive measures of modern day living. Ugh! Actually me feel
sick..."
For
many fans the 'Drums' into 'Space' part of the Dead's setlist was when they
used to get up, stretch their legs and join the interminable queue for the bathroom.
If one of them was you then you probably won't need to buy this album, which is
a precursor of sorts to the better known mash-up of 'Dark Stars' in
'Grayfolded' but using a collection of the Dead's wonkier moments recorded
between 1989 and 1990. The hour-long compilation was put together by Dead
collaborator and producer Bob Bralove and is certainly done with a lot of care
- the album starts with the chatter of Deadheads milling about and is edited
together with some skill, with each track segueing nicely into the next. The
ever-creative Robert Hunter got involved during the packaging stage too, naming
each of the twelve 'parts' with a host of Dead-like cryptic titles that makes
these pieces seem more interesting than they really are ('Post-Modern High Rise
Table Top Stomp' is so good I seriously considering borrowing it for the title
of this book, while 'Speaking In Swords' is a pun worthy of any great poet and
'River Of Nine Sorrows' is one I'm surely keeping for my autobiography of
working on Alan's Album Archives - get your pre-orders in now folks!') Parts of
the CD do indeed point towards how good the Dead and especially the 'rhythm
devils' portion of them can be ('Little Nemo In Nightlight' is the perfect
soundtrack if Tim Curry ever decides to make a sci-fi film involving mutated
seagulls! 'Riverside Rhapsody' is beautiful and haunting as well as very very
weird) and fun can be had guessing which track the Dead have just segued from
('Parallelogram' is clearly 'Not Fade Away' while '#Apollo At The Ritz' has
shades of 'Estimated Prophet'). However for all the clever packaging and
editing - and not withstanding the fact that a compilation of 'Drums and Space'
from the 1970s (when things were less...weird) might have worked only too well
by breaking the every day rules and restrictions of music and taking it to its
highest possible level, this is the Dead long past that point. It's really just
a collection of self-indulgent bleeps and bloops from the Dead using the
'Drums' and 'Space' sections as down-time fun rather than getting off the stage
and the 1980s technology and the lack of 'proper' songs in between each section
makes listening to the whole album slightly nauseating by the end. This is one
of those Dead products that separates the men from the boys - me I'm back on
the bus, scratching my head, wondering when
this long strange but mainly fun trip got so weird and scary (even the
cover is enough to give you nightmares, with the usual skulls so commonly seen
on Dead album covers now looking huge and downright evil!)
(Arista, Recorded 'Spring' 1990,
Released August 1991)
The Way You
Do The Things You Do/Waiting For A Miracle/Simple Twist Of Fate/Get Out Of My
Life/My Sisters And Brothers/I Shall Be Released/Dear Prudence/Deal//Stop That
Train/Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)/Evangeline/The Night They Drove Old Dixie
Down/Don't Let Go/That Lucky Old Sun/Tangled Up In Blue
"T'was then he felt alone and wished he's gone
straight, and watched out for a simple twist of fate"
On paper this
set looked so good - a collection of some of Jerry's favourite songs, covered
by a hot and happening band of his favourite non-Dead musicians captured in
concert in a rare return to San Francisco (The Warfield Theatre). With several
salivating songs that Jerry ought to sound brilliant on (The Beatles' 'Dear
Prudence' ought to be made for his old-man voice, 'That Lucky Old Sun' too
should find a natural home in Jerry's gently jazzy hands) and a band made up of
old friends John Kahn, Melvin Seals, David Kemper, Jackie LeBranch and Gloria
Jones what could possibly go wrong? Had Jerry released this album twenty or
even ten years before it might have been so different, but alas he's having one
of his periodic low times and without the Dead to rescue him this set is sadly
lethargic and noodling even if it is a highlights set made up of various shows
recorded over a couple of months, with several songs pushed long past their
natural endings as if Jerry's forgotten how to stop. 'Dear Prudence' especially
spends so long 'looking round round round' than you sense the sun has gone down
by the end of the song and she's fallen asleep waiting to be coaxed out of her
hiding hole. Jerry's vocals are weak and struggling, as if he's trying to keep
himself up right, and whole his guitarwork shines as well as ever there's less
space for him to work in these songs, with even his beloved Dylan covers
sounding under par compared to average. Whilst the band's sound veers towards
pop and jazz, there's also a curious reggae lilt to many of the performances
which never really suited Jerry's style. Only on the cover of old Dead
favourite 'Deal' (performed with a distinct gospel flavour thanks to the
backing singers) does this live album really take off, Jerry coming alive on a
song he clearly knows better than anything else here, followed by the
hard-rocking Evangeline and Jesse Stones' nicely Dead-like 'Don't Let Go'. Many
fans duly raved about this album for showing off Jerry's eclectic range of
styles from reggae to gospel to folk to blues,
but in actual fact this record shows what a hard time Jerry has in this
period playing anything except his signature sound - and how wrong that same
sound becomes when added to a backing that clashes with it. The result is a shocking disappointment, like
all the worst moments of the Dead's 1990 concerts put together on one disc. At
least Jerry keeps his tradition of clever album covers, with a nice 'Where's
Wally?' style cartoon drawing of the band on stage looking back at the audience
drawn by bassist John Kahn.
"Garcia-Grisman"
(Acoustic Disc, August 1991)
The Thrill Is
Gone/Grateful Dawg/Two Soldiers/Friend Of The Devil/Russian Lullaby/Dawg's
Waltz/Walkin' Boss/Rockin' Chair/Arabia
"The thrill has gone - the thrill has gone
away"
Jerry's
longest lasting partnership outside the Dead and his own Garcia Band was with
old friend David Grisman, best known to Deadheads as the ukulele player on
'Ripple'. The pair's friendship dates back longer than anyone who knew Jerry
except Robert Hunter, the pair meeting at a 1964 show and occasionally getting
together for concerts in the pre-Dead days. Grisman's career developed somewhat
in parallel to Jerrys', undergoing all the moves from bluegrass to psychedelia
to folk-rock that his friend went through although Grisman's personal taste was
more for jazz. Grisman first played with Garcia in the 1973 band 'Old and In
The Way', where he got his nickname 'Dawg' after Jerry kept teasing him about a
stray dog that always seemed to be following him around (hence the name of this
album's first recording 'Grateful Dawg', a union of the pair's natural styles).
Jerry was clearly never going to give these projects the same time lavished on
the Dead but he had so much music coming out of his veins even in the 1990s
that he still has more leftover than most collaborators and result is pretty
evenly split between the two. Fans curious to know more should look out the
'Grateful Dawg' documentary film released in 2001 which shows home footage shot
by Grisman's family of the pair rehearsing at his family's house, as well as
the music video shot for album single 'The Thrill Is Gone' that was never
broadcast in Jerry's lifetime (it's not that interesting musically but - dear
God - he's dressed in a suit and if that doesn't make you want to buy it
nothing will!)
Somehow
more 'adult' than most of Jerry's work, appealing not just to the bluegrass
fans out there but the big band ones too, it was greeted warmly by many fans
for showing a whole new side at Jerry that had only really been lightly brushed
before. Certainly the album has it's highlights, including a road-weary 'Friend
Of The Devil' with mandolin picking throughout and the lengthy closing suite
'Arabia', adopted by Garcia from a traditional Spanish number and at sixteen
minutes arguably his one last great attempt at trying something big and bold
and epic (although predictably this means sitting through some mind-numbing
jams waiting for the good parts to come along - still it's better than sailing
on auto-pilot). But there's something cold and unlikeable about this
collaboration. Usually Dead-related projects have a certain warmth to them,
some emotional power whatever the setting and an intimacy and looseness that
few other bands can match. This album is a little too precise and polite, with
very little jamming outside that last track and Jerry's voice is growing
feebler by the minute in this period, making some of the songs ('devil'
especially) painful to listen to. The sad fact is too that bluegrass and
pre-war songs simply aren't that interesting, well not as interesting as what
the Dead usually provide anyway (I have just come to this book after writing
about endless Chris Hillman bluegrass albums in our Byrds book, which might
explain why I'm being so grumpy, but this album is even more boring and
characterless than there). My trouble with a lot of this period material 9and
the new originals written in the same style) is that it's all about showing
off, not about emotional connection between singer and audience. Jerry was
usually the last person to show off but he could do it when he chose - he just
doesn't want to here (or is perhaps too poorly to draw on his inner greatness,
taking the easy way out). Grisman, while a great writer and performer in his
own right, is left holding the baby - and he's not quite sure what to do with
it, taking the softer option of doing what the plan always was anyway and
coming out of the shadows only when he needs to. This pair are old friends, as
close as any two musicians not in the same band can be - but you wouldn't know
that from this album, where their interaction is muted and distant. While you
can see why Jerry wanted to make this record (his second straight album of
covers of some of his favourite songs in 1991) he's not up to making it and the
idea itself is only of interest to a small percentage of his fans who actually
like the music the Dead and their ilk helped sweep away in the 60s for being
too polite, too twee, too empty for the modern crunch of electric power. The
result is one of my least favourite Grateful Dead spin-off albums, worth owning
only for the closing suite and cover of an old friend and even they only
feature Jerry at his sporadic best.
Mickey
Hart "Planet Drum"
(Rykodisk, September 1991)
Udu
Chant/Island Groove/Light Over Shadow/Dance Of The Hunter's Fire/Jewe (You Are
The One)/The Hunt/Temple Caves/The Dancing Sorceror/Bones/Lost River/Evening
Samba/Iyanu (Surprises)/Mysterious Island
"*Grunt* Ugh heap big stick play drum solo * Grunt*
me heap big stick play drum solo too! * Ugh let's jam! *Ugh me still prefer
'Space'!"
This
time around Mickey's plan for this album was to join percussion styles from all
around the world, wo this record features musicians from America, India, Brazil,
Puerto Rico and Nigeria all coming together (it's kind of 'Graceland' without
the songs). Like many a Mickey Hart project, this record was released
simultaneously with a tie-in book featuring essays by Mickey about the
different styles and cultures of drumming from around the world. The set sold
surprisingly well for an all-percussion album (it was the number one 'world
music' album for most of the year, not that it had an awful lot of competition)
and won a Grammy award too - the first ever given out in the 'world music'
category. The highlights are the moments that stop being solely about the drums
(a struggle to sit through if that's not your main interest in music) and add
some human touches, with some lovely vocals from guest singer Flora Purim (a Brazilian
Donna Godchaux!) The result is louder than most of Mickey's albums, less about
the mood and more about the relentless rhythms that just keep on coming on a
wide variety of instruments, although once again the feel by the end is rather
hypnotic and does feel as if you've travelled to a different place. Fans of
drumming though will love it, especially the chance to hear so many different
textures gathered together in one place and playing across each other
contrapuntal Grateful Dead style. In short, there's no other album like 'Planet
Drum', even the other Mickey Hart solo recordings tend to concentrate on one
culture at a time - whether that's a good thing or not is up to how you feel
about forty minutes of drumming, grunting and squawking!
Jerry
Garcia/David Grisman "Not For Kids Only"
(Acoustic, October 1993)
Jenny
Jenkins/Freight Train/A Horse Named Bill/Three Men Went A-Hunting/When First
Unto This Country/Arkansas Traveller/Hop-A-Long Peter/Teddy Bear's Picnic/There
Ain't No Bugs On Me/The Miller's Will/Hot Corn Cold Corn/A Shenandoah Lullaby
"I won't weir beige - it shows my age - I'll
have to wear a foldy-roldy tildy-toldy seek-a-double use-a-cozza roll to find
me!"
Well,
they got that right! In an album unthinkable more than a few years before
(would you really trust the Grateful Dead with the nation's youth?) this is the
adult Dead turning to infants as their new audience, without ever quite being
infantile. Yes, welcome to the 'Horrible Histories' equivalent of folk-song
albums, featuring a Casey Jones-style song about being run over by a freight
train, a man's pets all commit suicide to run away from him and a thief who
gets arrested and beaten up after letting his 'guard' down when he falls in
love. Most albums filled with children's songs tend to be awful - people get
the wrong idea that youngsters' lives are cute and fluffy when some of the most
horrific storylines imaginable have been written for children - so one up to
old friends Garcia and Grisman for telling the musical equivalent of the
Grimm's Fairy Tales (all of which, notably, come from America and specifically
the deep South). The problem is few children are going to sit down and listen
to an album this, well, polished: there's no danger in this record, no musical
equivalent of the hammer blows delivered in the lyrics with this album far too
prim and proper to appeal to any 'real' child. The pair were clever enough to market
this album as being for more than 'just' children though - it's a collection of
traditional folk songs from their own childhoods and those of their aging
fading audience. Sometimes the idea is a good one: the hilarious 'There Ain't
No Bugs On Me' ('Though there be bugs on the rest of you mugs!') is one of
Jerry's funniest cover songs, done complete with sound effects and 'Horse Named
Bill' is clever as well as funny, managing not to talk down to its audience or
shorten it's words whilst still being cute ('I had a girl and her name was
Daisy, and when she sang the cat went crazy, with deliriums and all kind of
cataleptics') with perhaps the greatest vocal of Jerry's last decade of
recordings, warm and cozy and perfect for this kind of story-telling. 'Arkansas
Traveller' somehow manages to be both great and ghastly at the same time,
Garcia and Grisman singing in cod-Arkansas accents as they enunciate their
words on a tale that wouldn't be out of place on 'Sesame Street' ('Your trash
can ain't from around these parts is it?') Deadheads too will find much to
debate across this record - is the tale of the 'fool' met in Arkansas whose
insulted for his stupidity before saying he'll feel 'right at home' in a state
full of such idiots the figure on the front of 'Europe '72, is 'Freight Train'
being driven by a man 'high on cocaine' as per 'Casey Jones' and is 'Hopalong
Peter', the old man about to pop his clogs, the inspiration for Jerry's own
'Black Peter'? Hearing this record you can really tell where Jerry especially
got many of his ideas from and how burned into his psyche many of these folk
songs were, making this more than just a dismissible children's cover record. Jerry's guitar and David's mandolin also work
better here than on their first album, balancing each other's sound nicely.
At
other times, however, this album features the pair simply seeing what they can
get away with and the answer isn't as much as they think they can: this 'Teddy
Bear's Picnic' is treated as a 'Friend Of The Devil' style jazz-folk gallop
which is almost hopelessly wrong, 'Miller's Will' is a hideous fiddle song that
seems to last an eternity not a mere three minutes, while in contrast to what
we said eight minute closer 'Shenandoah Lullaby' has the worst studio vocal of
Jerry's last decade on this Earth, all flat notes, shallow breaths and
feebleness (hearing this monstrosity would make more children cry than any
number of gruesome tales would). The result, then, is another curious
Garcia-Grisman blend of the inspired and tired which is indeed a nice earthy alternate
to 'Barney The Dinosaur' as Grisman hopes in his sleevenotes, but sometimes
earthy just isn't as interesting or as eventful as candy-coloured cartoon
chaos. Few children would choose this record out of choice - and those that are
have probably been brainwashed by being brought up by Deadhead parents where
this sort of this is normal - but folk traditionalists longing to recapture a
childhood they never had will still find much to enjoy here. Once again the
album cover may be the best thing about this record, a witty pen-and-ink
drawing by Grisman of the duo playing for a bunch of toddlers - half of which
are bawling their heads off and half of which are looking the other way, bored!
(Swell/Artifacts, 'mid' 1994/'mid' 1995)
Volume One
(Transitive Axis): Novature (Formless Nights Fall)/Pouring Velvet/In Revolving
Ash Light/Clouds Cast/Through/Fault Forces/The Phil Zone/La Estrella
Oscura/Recedes (While We Can)
Volume Two
(Mirror Ashes): Fold (Unlisted Track)/Transilience/73rd Star Bridge
Sonata/Cease Tone Beam/The Speed Of Space/Dark Matter Problem-Every Leaf Is
Turning/Foldback Time
"Shall we go you and I while we can, through
the transitive nightfall of diamonds?"
Fans
of the Dead's late 60s recordings often spend their time deciding how good an
archive set is by how long the performance of 'Dark Star' is. Some like me had
even joked that the best release the Dead could ever make would be a full CD of
nothing but 'Dark Star'. However be careful what you wish for sometimes,
because this nearly two-hour two-disc set containing a full one hundred
performances of 'Dark Star' does exactly that and, well, it's something of a
curate's comet this release. Avant garde composer John Oswald was the
mastermind behind it (predictably it was fellow avant garde aficionado Phil who
first gave him a call about the idea) and decided sensibly that he would cobble
the performances together the same way that 'Anthem Of The Sun' had done, by
gradually overlapping one performance after another so that when one version
seems to be running out of steam it would suddenly rush in to another
performance heading in a different direction, perhaps even another dimension.
Centred around an unheard 17 minute live version (dubbed 'In Revolving
Ashlight') from the 'Live/Dead' period though (which is fabulous) most of these
extracts sound bitty and scattershot,
adding up to slightly less than the glorious whole fans were anticipating. It
has to be said, too, that the 'Dark Star' occasionally revived in the 1970s
1980s and 1990s mutated into a very different beast altogether: more modern,
gauche and somehow less other-worldly.
While
some parts work only too well (generally the earlier extracts on the first
disc) even these are somehow slightly frustrating, as a 'cooking' version will
suddenly segue into a less appetising jamming session. The rather odd decision
to have lots of Jerrys singing at once, often slightly out of sync with each
other, is also weird and off-putting without being all that 'trippy'. Quite
often the 'Dark Stars' will end up in the murky grey areas of 'Space', a far
less salubrious place where the song tends to go 'supernova' rather than light
up the skies. You can tell, too, that the project was slightly more rushed than
it was meant to be, with the first batch of CDs shipped before the second disc
was ready and which had to be 'mail-ordered' (although the boxes still came as
a double-set). For all that, though, this is a worthy project that occasionally
works only too well, proving just how many different and memorable places the
Dead took one of their most famous pieces and is an experiment that no other
band could possibly have tried - this is a unique experience which was only
made possible thanks to the Dead's desire to go somewhere new every night and
their ability to record pretty much every single journey this song ever made
into space.
The
sheer variety of places this song goes - ending up segueing into Dead
favourites 'That's It For The Other One' and 'Feedback' as well as Simon and
Garfunkel's silly '59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin' Groovy)' on '73rd Star
Sonata Bridge' - and going everywhere from novelty comedy to intense atonal
squeals does for once and for all show what an amazing achievement the original
song was, it's two simple verses paving the way for so much 'extra', adaptable
to how the band are feeling at any particular time. It's clearly done with a
lot of love and care too, with some superb and very Dead titles given to the
individual tracks - all of them making some reference to the song or a Dead
phrase only 'Deadheads' will get. The writing credits too don't bother delving
into the ins and outs of every era - instead the band writers are credited as
'McGannahan Skjellyfetti', a writing credit that hasn't featured on a Dead
album since 1967! The trouble is that so many of the dead-end destinations are
here, rather than the truly sublime moments when 'Dark Star' suddenly clicks
into place and becomes one of the defining expansive songs of the era. Strangely
the section that arguably works best - the finale 'Foldback Time' - does so
precisely because the band stop noodling around and play perhaps the definitive
compact version of the song, which at just four minutes adds quite a different
flavour to the rest of the set. Let's just say this set is miles better than
The Beatles' own mash-up album 'Love' but nowhere near as good as either
'Anthem Of The Sun' or a full classic-era performance of 'Dark Star' that
hasn't been messed around with and leave it at that.
"The
Arista Years"
(Arista, October 1996)
CD One:
Estimated Prophet/Passenger/Samson And Delilah/ Terrapin Station/Good
Lovin'/Shakedown Street/Fire On The Mountain/I Need A Miracle/Alabama
Getaway/Far From Me/Saint Of Circumstance/Dire Wolf (Live)/Cassidy (Live)/Feel
Like A Stranger (Live)/Franklin's Tower (Live)
CD Two: Touch
Of Grey/Hell In A Bucket/West L.A. Fadeaway/ Throwing Stones/Black Muddy River/Foolish
Heart/Built To Last/Just A Little Light/Picasso Moon/Standing On The Moon/Eyes
Of The World (Live)
"Got to be heaven, 'cause here's where the
rainbow ends, if this ain't the real thing then it's close enough to
pretend"
A
fair attempt to make sense of the confusing and inconsistent Arista years, this
is a generous double-CD set, despite the fact that the Dead only ever had one
bona fide hit on the label! This set has clearly been compiled by or at least
in consultation with a fan, because the track selection is generally spot on:
four of the better songs from 'Terrapin Station' (gaining marks for being brave
enough to include the lengthy title track complete, arguably the best thing
here), five from 'Shakedown Street' (including clear highlight 'Fire On The
Mountain'), three from 'Go To Heaven' (I'm not sure why 'Alabama Getaway' and
'Far From Me' are here over 'Lost Sailotr' and 'Althea' but 'Saint Of
Circumstance' is in so I'll let that pass), two songs from the acoustic live
set 'Reckoning' (including Weir's solo track 'Cassidy'), two songs from live
electric release 'Dead Set' (not the ones I'd have chosen, but hey ho they're
not bad), a full five lengthy cuts from 'In The Dark' ( a nice mix of the
obvious and the lesser known), also five from 'Built To Last' (nice, with
Jerry's songs transferred complete, but 'Blow Away' and 'I Will take You Home'
should be here over 'Just A Little Light' and 'Picasso Moon') and finally the
one highlight from final live record 'Without A Net'. There's nothing new here
and long-term fans will probably never get this record out of the sleeve, but
if you're the sort of fan who thinks the Dead dropped off around 1970 but are
still curious about what came next this is the perfect guide, including almost
everything that should be here and with an authentic enough flavour as to what
the late 70s and 80s Dead were all about. Arguably the best Dead compilation
around, making some less interesting albums seem better than they really were -
even though strictly speaking it deals with the band's least appealing era.
(Arista/Rhino, November 1999)
CD One (1965-1970):
Can't Come Down/Caution (Do Not Step On The Tracks) (1965 Version)/You Don't
Have To Ask/On The Road Again/Cream Puff War/I Know My Rider/The Same
Thing/Dark Star > China Cat Sunflower > The Eleven/Clementine/Mason's
Children/To Lay Me Down
CD Two (1969-1974):
That's It For The Other One/Beautiful Jam/Chinatown Shuffle/Sing Me Back
Home/Watkins Glen Soundcheck Jam/Dark Star Jam > US Blues
CD Three
(1974-1984): Eyes Of The World/The Wheel/Stella Blue/Estimated Prophet/The
Music Never Stopped/Shakedown Street
CD Four
(1985-1990): Cassidy/Hey Pocky Way/Believe It Or Not/Playin' In The
Band/Gentlemen Start Your Engines/Death Don't Have No Mercy/Scarlet Begonias
> Fire On The Mountain/Bird Song/Jam Out Of Terrapin
CD Five
(1990-1995): Terrapin Station/Jam Out Of Foolish Heart/Way To Go
Home/Liberty/Lazy River Road/Eternity/Jam Into Days Between/Days
Between/Whiskey In The Jar/So Many Roads
"It's too weird man...it's really too weird up
here. If you'd like to spend an idle half hour sometime come up here under
these similar circumstances and see what it's like: truly weird, utterly weird,
beyond the pale..."
The
sheer audacity of it! A five disc career comprehensive featuring early pre-fame
recording sessions, live recordings and unreleased songs recorded in the studio
- none of which have ever been released before despite a thirty year career and
already a very large helping of archive releases! Other bands the Dead's age
and length were struggling to pad out box sets with material that had been
released hundreds of time over - and here were the Dead almost casually
slinging away gems from all corners of their long career (especially the
beginning and end!) While there are, as is so often the case with the Dead, a
fair bit of head-scratching over the song selections (Is the 'Watkins Glen
Soundtrack Jam' really special enough to be here shorn of the song it came out
of? Why is 'Jam Out Of Terrapin' not only here at all but split from its parent
song by a change of disc? Is there someone I can apply to for getting the
seventeen minutes of my life back I spent listening to one of the shoddiest
versions of 'Shakedown Street' around?) the surprising thing about this set is
how good almost all of it is. This is after all a set of recordings either not
considered for public consumption (the live recordings) or thought not good
enough for a strangers' ears (a lot of the studio stuff) and yet most bands can
match 'So Many Roads' for brilliance or versatility on their own best-ofs.
And
I mean all: those early unreleased recordings - superb, not just historically
but musically too, the Dead's country blues and especially pop roots showing
more than they will later on but the music none the worse for that. The late
1960s free-flying into the great unknown with a rare 'Dark Star > China Cat
> The Eleven' sequence that comes close to 'Live/Dead' style brilliance,
full of that courageous charge and yet subtlety that the Dead expressed best in
this period. There's an even better 'That's It For The Other One' from the
Fillmore West in February 1969 that's just jaw-dropping,. turning from angelic
to pure rock monster to pure blistering psychedelic telepathy to howls of
ecstasy to a whole range of teasing cat-and-mouse false endings that display
every reason the Dead were not just downright great but unique, perhaps my
favourite Dead recording of all of them - every single thing in this book. We
skimp over the country-rock year of 1970 a little, but even that era sounds
great thanks to a rough but rather good outtake of 'Mason's Children' (left off
'Workingman's Dead') and a stunning 'To Lay Me Down' (eventually re-recorded
for 'Garcia' in 1972 but here intended for 'American Beauty'). The 'middle'
years are represented by a stunning lengthy jazzy improv version of 'Eyes Of
The World' that's perhaps the best of the many versions doing the rounds and a
sublime version of 'The Wheel' from the Dead's post-hiatus return in 1976
that's pure beauty, growing and evolving with every turn of the central riff's
cogs. Things drop off for the first half of the 1980s but then come back with a
vengeance for two stunning outtakes from the 'Built To Last' sessions: Brent's
best rocker 'Gentleman Start Your Engines', an in-joke phrase given over to the
band's drinking sessions turned into a dark song of menace and guilt and
wistful Garcia-Hunter ballad 'Believe It Or Not' that might not say as much as
some of the pair's other songs but conveys its sparse and direct approach
sublimely. Finally the second half of disc five is given over to no less than
seven songs intended to varying degrees of certainty for the 'final' album that
never made it, heard both in 1993 studio rehearsal form and live settings. As
the box says, so many roads - and yet they all sound like 'home', the Dead's
three-decade tapestry nicely turned not into some diluted tasteless vanilla
compilation but a package almost as complex and exciting as the 30-year journey
itself.
Given
the price I'd have liked to have seen a bit more done with the packaging (the
box itself is very bland compared to the music within, just that 'thunderbolts'
skull on a white background this time), there's sadly only one song featuring
Pigpen, such a key figure in those early years (a rather ropey 'Chinatown
Shuffle') and I personally could have turned this set into a four-disc version
with no real harm done to the music whatsoever. But then this album's
sprawlingness is also part of the fun - never a band for repeating themselves
between projects (if during songs a bit of repetition is of course par for the
course) this is especially fun when played to non-Deadheads who won't believe
you that the work of all of these discs are by the same band. Of course by the
time they've gone from the winning pop of 'Can't Come Down' to the last
poignant ballads of 'Days Between' (the last great Dead song) and 'So Many
Roads' (the last nearly great Dead song) they'll have become a Deadhead too. Or
at least they should have done - if not then chances are who you've been
playing these songs to are either deaf, moronic or saying so just to be
intrinsically annoying in which case you have my very deepest sympathies. Why
can't all box sets be as great as this?...
"The
Very Best Of The Grateful Dead"
(Rhino, September 2003)
Truckin'/Touch
Of Grey/Sugar Magnolia/Casey Jones/Uncle John's Band/Friend Of The
Devil/Franklin's Tower/Estimated Prophet/Eyes Of The World/Box Of Rain/US
Blues/The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)/One More Saturday Night/Fire On
The Mountain/The Music Never Stopped/Hell In A Bucket/Ripple
"Come hear Uncle John's Band by the riverside,
got some things to talk about here beside the rising tide - Goddamn well I
declare, have you seen the like?!"
Dead
compilation number four now and another attempt to turn 30 years of music into
one handy container. Clearly it cannot be done - no fans can agree on what the
best Dead songs are on a single album never mind across a career - but this set
does a better job certainly than the first two and gets bonus points for both
lasting the length of a normal CD (some 77 minutes) and for licensing songs
from both the Warner Brothers and Arista years. There are no live songs here
barring 'One More Saturday Night' which is a pity - perhaps the set should have
been re-named 'Best Of The Studio Dead' or better still 'The Most Popular
Studio Dead Songs'? However you can't really quibble at the track listing too
much, especially given that this set was designed from the first as a 'starting
point' to the 'so many roads' and so can't include anything too complex or
off-putting. Favourites like 'Truckin' 'Sugar Magnolia' 'Casey Jones' 'Friend
Of The Devil' and 'Touch Of Grey' are all here, along with well loved album
tracks like 'Franklin's Tower' 'Estimated Prophet' 'Fire On The Mountain' and
'Hell In A Bucket'. The songs are pretty evenly matched between Jerry and Bobby
songs plus Phil's lovely 'Box Of Rain' and there are no cover songs, the one
thing which ruined the 'Long Strange Trip' compilation. However the sequencing
is a little weird: we start and end in 1970, jump forward 18 years before going
back again and four of the Dead's rockier songs are all sandwiched together at
the start, with the second half higher on ballads all stuck together. If only too there could have been room for the
other longer classics of the Dead genre: 'Dark Star' 'That's It For The Other
One' 'Terrapin Station'... Oh and where the heck has 'China Cat Sunflower'
gone, one of the more accessible and likeable Dead songs of the 1960s. You
could argue a case for the lovely 'Mountains Of The Moon' too, not to mention
gorgeous ballad 'Stella Blue' and the catchy singalong 'Scarlet Begonias' and
the jam extraordinary 'Playin' In The Band' and outlawe song 'Jack Straw' and
the classy 'Wharf Rat' absolutely has to be here and...Ok, OK...I think you get
the picture - you just can't reduce the Grateful Dead to one single disc
without leaving something important out. It's still about the best introduction
to the band there is out there if you can't get hold of the 'American Beauty'
album and wasn't meant for us obsessives anyway. Just be warned if you buy it
that yet again that phrase 'very best of' should be taken with a pinch of salt
and at least a five hour extension!
"Weir
Here - The Best Of Bob Weir
(Hybrid
Recordings, February 2004)
CD One
'Studio' : Cassidy/Mexicali Blues/Looks Like Rain/Playin' In The Band/One More
Saturday Night/Lazy Lightnin' > Supplication/Feel Like A Stranger/Easy To
Slip/Wrong Way Feelin'/Shades Of Grey/I Want To (Fly Away)/Easy Answers/Two
Djinn/Ashes And Glass/Wabash Canonball
CD Two 'Live'
: Truckin'/Estimated Prophet/Hell In A Bucket/Me And Bobby McGee/New New
Minglewood Blues/Man Smart Woman Smarter/Jack Straw/Sugar Magnolia/Throwing
Stones/The Music Never Stopped/Masters Of War
"It's a
rainbow full of sound, it's calliopes and clowns"
A
nice collection of songs from Bob's side of the stage, this is a handy way of
getting not just the best of Bob's solo and Dead recordings but the best of his
spin-off bands Kingfish, Ratdog and Bobby and the Midnites too. In truth this
is arguably all you need of Bob's solo career (which is a little bit up and
down in terms of quality to be honest) and mixes well worn favourites with
rarities and even an exclusive string of recordings on disc two (tracks three
to six, all live recordings with the Dead).
The set has some hard decisions to make to fit everything in on two
discs (hardly enough to fully capture the flavour of such a prolific and
under-rated writer and guitarist) but gets most of them right: there are five
of the eight songs from 'Ace' here, rightly regarded as his masterwork outside
the band; many fans have struggled to get hold of the Dead favourite 'Lazy
Lightnin' > Supplication' jam in its original form with Kingfish while only
very choice (and usually right) selections of Bob's later albums are here too.
The exclusive live songs are an odd touch (although it's nice to see 'Man Smart
Woman Smarter' out on something official at last), breaking up the rhythm of
the 'Dead' disc and meaning that there's no space for such Bob favourites as
'One More Saturday Night' 'That's It For
The Other One' 'Born Cross-Eyed' and 'I Need A Miracle'. If you're enough of a
fan to buy this set, though, chances are you know all those songs backwards
already and the wittily titled 'Weir Here' offers a nice introduction to Bob's
rarer work and a reminder that there were at least two great writers who played
in the Dead, not just Garcia as everyone always thinks.
(Flashback, April 2011)
Truckin'/China
Cat Sunflower/Unbroken Chain/US Blues/The Music Never Stopped/Shakedown
Street/Alabama Getaway/Throwing Stones/Standing On The Moon/Touch Of Grey
"Listening for the secret, searching for the
sound, but I could only hear the preacher and the baying of his hounds"
Dead
best-of number four -the second since the band's split - and for once we've
gone smaller, with only ten track selections, most of them apparently chosen at
random. The good points are that this record was released by a smaller spin-off
of record label and features their typically gorgeous packaging and show a lot
more concern for the artists than most companies trying to make a quick buck
and was cheap - affordable for curious fans who'd never been willing to fork
out enough to give any previous Dead records a go. It's a little too soon yet
to work out if this set will create an influx of Deadheads the way that the
other three compilations have to some extent, but I don't see why not: the band
sensibly dip back to 1969 for 'China Cat Sunflower' (currently at the peak of
its fame thanks to an inclusion in the various artists 'Rock Band' game) , old
favourite 'Truckin' and new favourite 'Touch Of Grey'. It's the other seven
selections that bring concern: rather than 'Sugar Magnolia' 'Dark Star' and
'Casey Jones' at al we get a ragbag of songs that aren't anything like as well
known. Sometimes this works: 'Unbroken Chain' certainly deserves to be and is
something of a lost Dead classic, with 'Shakedown Street' a fan favourite not
often included on compilations while 'Throwing Stones' is amongst the best of
the latter-day Dead and 'Standing On The Moon' is a touching goodbye that
deserves to be more widely known too. However is the slight 'Alabama Getaway'
or the jokey 'US Blues' really the best the Dead have to offer? What the set
might have done better is what it seems to have tried to do half-heartedly
across the set and offer one representative sample of each Dead song, all the
way through their career and digging below the usual popular choices. As it is,
without even a single live song on its running order, this CD certainly isn't
what longterm fans would consider a 'best-of' nor the true introduction it
promises to be. *Sigh* perhaps on the fifth time round they'll get it right...
A Now Complete List
Of Dead-Related Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:
'Grateful Dead' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-10-grateful.html
'Anthem Of The Sun' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-23-grateful-dead-anthem-of-sun.html
'Aoxomoxoa' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-20-grateful.html
'Grateful Dead' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-10-grateful.html
'Anthem Of The Sun' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-23-grateful-dead-anthem-of-sun.html
'Aoxomoxoa' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-20-grateful.html
‘Live/Dead’ (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/grateful-dead-livedead-1969.html
'Workingman's Dead' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/news-views-and-music-issue-138-grateful.html
'American Beauty' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-40-grateful-dead-american-beauty.html
'Workingman's Dead' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/news-views-and-music-issue-138-grateful.html
'American Beauty' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-40-grateful-dead-american-beauty.html
‘Grateful Dead’ (1971) aka
‘Skulls and Roses’ http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/grateful-dead-aka-skulls-and-roses-1971.html
‘Europe ‘72’ (1972) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/grateful-dead-europe-72-album-review.html
'Wake Of The Flood' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-59-grateful-dead-wake-of-flood.html
'From The Mars Hotel' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-99-grateful.html
‘Europe ‘72’ (1972) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/grateful-dead-europe-72-album-review.html
'Wake Of The Flood' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-59-grateful-dead-wake-of-flood.html
'From The Mars Hotel' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-99-grateful.html
'Blues For Allah' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/grateful-dead-blues-for-allah-1975.html
'Terrapin Station' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-72-grateful.html
'Terrapin Station' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-72-grateful.html
'Shakedown Street' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/grateful-dead-shakedown-street-1978.html
'Go To Heaven' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/grateful-dead-go-to-heaven-1980-album.html
'In The Dark' (1987) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/grateful-dead-in-dark-album-review.html
'Built To Last' (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-7-grateful.html
'Built To Last' (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-7-grateful.html
Surviving TV Clips
1966-1994 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-surviving-tv-clips-1967.html
The Best Unreleased
Recordings 1966-1993 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-best-unreleased.html
The Last Unfinished Album
1990-1995 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-last-unfinished-album.html
Live/Solo/Compilations
Part One 1966-1976 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official.html
Live/Solo/Compilations
Part Two 1978-2011 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official_29.html
A Guide To The CD Bonus
Tracks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-guide-to-cd-bonus-tracks.html
Dick's Picks/Dave's Picks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-dicks-picksdaves-picks.html
Road Trips/Download Series/Miscellaneous
Archive Releases
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-road-tripsdownload.html
Essay: Why The ‘Dead’ Made Fans Feel So ‘Alive’ https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/grateful-dead-essay-why-dead-makes-fans.html
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-road-tripsdownload.html
Essay: Why The ‘Dead’ Made Fans Feel So ‘Alive’ https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/grateful-dead-essay-why-dead-makes-fans.html
Five Landmark Concerts and
Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/grateful-dead-five-landmark-concerts.html
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