Friday, July 24, 2020

GRATEFUL DEAD - Workingman's Dead 1970




To be perfectly honest, this album was given to me along with a few others - the cover is tattered and torn, written on and split, but the vinyl inside plays well.

I'm sure that true hardcore Dead Heads will disagree, but for the casual observer (me) 1970 was a good Grateful Dead year. It saw the release of 2 albums, this featured LP and their next studio album 'American Beauty'. They contained between them four of my favourite tracks - 'Uncle John's Band', 'Truckin'', 'Casey Jones' and 'Friend of the Devil'.

Take a pause - no more stuff that caught my eye until ..
.. I came back around to the Grateful Dead for one reason and one reason only. Bob Dylan.

I have 3 releases, 2 official, one a bit bootlegy/unofficialish. 
The dodgy one is 'Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead Live Vol 2 Unauthorised' with 14 songs from a concert in Oregon in 1987 where the Dead backed Dylan.
The first official one is live 'Dylan & The Dead' where Dylan is backed by The Dead on seven songs from various shows on the same 1987 tour.
The other official release is the Grateful Dead album 'Postcards of the Hanging' where they do 13 Dylan covers from live shows and rehearsals.

This is a very short post. I'm not into the Grateful Dead to any degree other than the few songs I mentioned. My main attraction is the stuff they did with Dylan.

I'm including this post in my reviews to acknowledge them in the part they play in Dylan history and also to see if there is anyone out there who can recommend other albums that should be included in any collection worth it's salt.

OK Dead Heads, it's your turn.

Answers on a postcard please !!

No comments:

Post a Comment