
With the first few weeks of the new year comfortably under our belts, we now return for a second series of what was one of our most popular features of 2024, ‘Cant Live With It, Can’t Live Without It’, and yours truly having the honour of kicking things off. As my first offering proved to be such a success, if I do say so myself, I have decided to stick to the tried and tested method of choosing an artist/band with a lengthy career, and a large recording output, whose reputation is unlikely to be tarnished, maybe even enhanced by being the subject of such an iconic feature. Okay that last claim might be stretching things a little, so let’s just cut to the chase and get things started.
The band I’ve chosen this time around are San Francisco’s seminal outfit the Grateful Dead who through a recording career that spanned over 22 years produced no less than 13 studio albums. Having come together in 1965 as the Warlocks, they played their first gig under their new name during the final weeks of that year and would play their final concert in July 1995, just a month before co-founding member and legendary guitarist Jerry Garcia passed away at the age of 53. During their career they would establish themselves as one of the most respected and influential outfits ever to grace a stage with their lengthy improvised live shows becoming an integral part of rock’n’roll history. Their music drew on an eclectic mix of styles, fusing rock with blues, jazz, bluegrass, folk, country, gospel, reggae, and psychedelia, marking them out as one of the founding-fathers for what today we like to call Americana.
Can’t Live Without It: “American Beauty” (1970)
“American Beauty”, the band’s fifth studio album, was released in November 1970, barely four months after the release of their previous offering “Workingman’s Dead”, and the two albums are seen very much as companions, some would say like brother and sister. The comparison is understandable, as prior to these recordings the band’s legacy had been forged on the stage rather than in the studio, mainly because they used their songs as starting points for improvisation that suited their psychedelic sound, of which they were the original true explorers, rather than ideals simply to be duplicated. However, the fading embers of the 60’s marked the beginning of the end of the ‘Hippie Dream‘, requiring the band to take stock and, in the studio at least, find a new approach. Crosby, Stills, & Nash had long been friends with the band, especially Garcia, who was particularly impressed with how the trio used their vocal harmonies, and was looking to embrace a similar approach, while the band’s lyricist Robert Hunter began incorporating more American folklore into the narratives including trains, guns, gambling and alcohol, using the country’s geography and religious symbolism to help create a visual soundscape full of American myth. The musical arrangement was also changed, now drawing heavily on the Bakersfield sound, a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950’s in California defined by its use of electric instruments, and strong backbeat, being highly influenced by rock’n’roll, and born out of a reaction to the slickly produced sound emanating from Nashville.
“Workingman’s Dead” proved to be a resounding success, but in many ways it was a just template for what the band would create just four months later, having moved the recording process to Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco and choosing to co-produce the album with staff engineer Stephan Barncard, rather than previous producer Bob Matthews. They had also just discovered that manager, Lenny Hart (father of the drummer Micky Hart) had renewed their contract with Warner Brothers Records without their knowledge, before skipping town with a sizeable amount of the band’s wealth.
Like it’s predecessor, “American Beauty” was innovative for its fusion of bluegrass, rock’n’roll, folk and of course country music, though where “Workingman’s Dead” mixed the grittier Bakersfield sound with the band’s psychedelic roots, the new release was mostly acoustic in nature, with Garcia replacing his electric guitar for a pedal steel, while there was a greater focus on major-key melodies and folk harmonies. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann later explained, “The singers in our band really learned a lot about harmonising from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who had just released their seminal album “Deja Vu”, (recording their vocals around a 360 degree mic, before adding identical overdubs at 3/4 of the level). It was also on this album that Garcia first collaborated with legendary mandolinist David Grisman whose playing is heard to great effect on the tracks ‘Friend Of The Devil’ and ‘Ripple’.
Just as significantly was the increased writing input from the rest of the band which was in stark contrast to previous albums where almost all the songs had been composed by the songwriting partnership of Garcia and Hunter. This was immediately apparent from the opening number, the sublimely beautiful ‘Box Of Rain’, co-written by Hunter and bassist Phil Lesh, it was the first Grateful Dead song to feature Lesh on lead vocals. Harmonies were provided by Bob Weir as well as Garcia who also played piano, while David Nelson (of New Riders Of The Purple Sage) guested on lead guitar. As recently as last year ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’ ranked this song in the ‘Top 500 Songs Of All Time’. Second track ‘Friend Of The Devil’, a song written by Garcia and Hunter along with John Dawson, (also from New Riders Of The Purple Sage) opens with Garcia playing a delightful descending G major scale in the bass register, while Hunter’s lyrics skilfully succeed in connecting the fatalism of the physical frontier with the wonder of the psychedelic one. Third track ‘Sugar Magnolia’, with writing credits shared between Hunter and Weir, who also supplied the lead vocals, has long become one of the band’s best known songs and remained an integral part of their live set throughout the following decades while fourth number ‘Operator’, was written and sung by co-founder and original frontman for the band Ron McKennan (aka Pigpen). In truth, this was his only real contribution to the album as by this time his role within the band had become vastly diminished due to his deteriorating health. The first side of the original vinyl album comes to a close with ‘Candyman’, another classic Garcia/Hunter track with its beguiling structural simplicity and sweetest of melodies encouraging the listener to just drift away on a warm summer’s breeze.
Side two starts as side one finished with another gem from the pen of Garcia and Hunter, as ‘Ripple’, with its similar melody to the gospel hymn ‘Because He Lives’, along with some simply breathtaking mandolin playing from Grisman, marks this song out as another album highlight. Here again, this track appears in ‘Rolling Stone Magazine’s ‘Top 500 Songs Of All Time’. Hunter had written the lyrics while in London, where the following number, ‘Brokedown Palace’, was also conceived, again featuring Garcia on lead vocals, but it is on the following two songs where the band make full use of what they had learnt from C.S.N&Y, on the art of harmonising. Though both ‘Till The Morning Comes’ and ‘Attics Of My Life’ are again Garcia/Hunter compositions the three voices of Lesh, Weir and Garcia, weave effortlessly between each other, at times utterly stark, like a gothic choir, emphasising a greater care, confidence and contentment in their ability as vocalists. The album closes with the prosaic road anthem ‘Truckin’, with writing credits shared between Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, and Weir. This autobiographical song has over the years become the one most associated with the band, with this blues based boogie and shuffle rhythm tune containing the synonymous line “What a long strange trip it’s been”, that for many captures and epitomises the band’s very ethos.
According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye the music of the Grateful Dead “touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists”, and in many ways this album is the sound of America shaking itself awake at the dawn of a new decade. True, the following years would find the band increasingly ploughing a lone furrow, indifferent to the ever-changing fashions of pop music and its chameleon guises. Glam, Disco, and Punk, all treated with the same apathetic disdain, confident in their own musical direction and development which in reality few could match. To me “American Beauty” deserves its place as part of a triptych of albums alongside The Band’s eponymous release and Stephen Still’s “Manasas”, as the bedrock of what today we call Americana Music.
Can’t Live With It: “Shakedown Street” (1978)
The immediate years after the release of “American Beauty” saw the death of McKennan (Pigpen), 8th March 1973, of complication from liver damage, having performed on stage with the band for the final time the previous June. After releasing three consecutive live albums from 1971 – 1973, to honour their contract with Warner Brothers Records, the band formed their own record label and released “Wake Of The Flood” (1973), and “From The Mars Hotel” (1974), that combined their mix of country, folk, ragtime and R&B along with bebop and modal jazz, courtesy of new Keyboard player Keith Godchaux who had initially become a member of the band in 1971, with his wife Donna joining on backing vocals the following year. The band’s desire to keep moving forward resulted in shades of progressive rock infiltrating “Blues for Allah” (1975), while “Terrapin Station” (1977), their first for new label Arista came awash with orchestration. However, despite the consistent shift in flavouring one was never in any doubt that they were listening to the Grateful Dead, doggedly determined to follow their own path, though not totally adverse to trying new ideas, always loyal to their own brand, regardless of what was going on around them, uncompromising in their desire to follow their muse, disinterested in the trappings of commercial success. That was until November 1978.
Recorded over a slightly longer gestation period than the previous two studio albums, “Shakedown Street”, released on 15th November, was produced by legendary guitarist, singer-songwriter Lowell George (Little Feat), along with bass player John Kahn, who was Garcia’s principal musical collaborator outside of the Grateful Dead. Released during the height of the second wave of punk rock in California and under pressure from Arista to produce a more commercial-sounding album, the band are found here floundering, abandoning their trademark experimental edge, and instead creating a patchwork of soft rock, tinged slightly with disco and Latin syncopation, though without the synthesisers or horn section associated with those genres, instead favouring a more polyrhythmic backing, making use of a steelpan and cross-beat drumming. It would be fair to say that the band’s drummer/percussionist Micky Hart exerted more influence here than on any previous album, earning three co-write credits in addition to assisting with the arrangements to several other songs, including the Garcia/Hunter-written title track which bears strong similarities to the Bee Gees, who Hart greatly admired.
One senses a distinct power shift in the dynamics of the band during this period, with a decidedly reduced contribution from Garcia and Weir, whilst Lesh was conspicuous by his absence, offering no creative contribution to the new recording. Instead the album consists of two cover version, the opening track ‘Good Lovin’, a number 1 hit single for the Young Rascals in 1966, and sung here by Weir, is full of infuriating pop sensibilities, while ‘All New Minglewood Blue’, despite offering a more rustic rock vibe never quite escapes sounding like a poor pastiche of Little Feat. Donna Godchaux also manages to muscle in on the songwriting credits, first as co-writer with Weir on ‘France’, which with its steel drums sounds much more Caribbean than French, while both the lyrical narrative and delivery hint at a very inferior imitation of Joni Mitchell during her “Court And Spark” period. Godchaux takes sole responsibility for the pointless ballad ‘From The Heart Of Me’, later describing the album herself as “almost tongue in cheek”, which would appear to be a pretty accurate description.
Despite this, there were still moments that reminded one of a more glorious past, such as the reggae-inspired ‘Fire On The Mountain’, Hart’s most positive contribution as co-writer with Hunter, on which Garcia delivers some excellent vocals, and ‘Stagger Lee’, an original Garcia/Hunter composition based on the often covered folk song that finds the duo playing to their strength, drawing on American folklore to create a number that echoes those halcyon days at the beginning of the decade. However, closing number, ‘If I Had The World To Give‘, sees the once adventurous writers resorting to a soft rock ballad, the type that would become so prevalent during the on coming decade. Weir did at least manage to ignite a little fire and passion on ‘I Need A Miracle’, a song he co-wrote with poet John Perry Barlow, but again it speaks volumes that a song that would be dismissed without a second’s thought for either “Workingman’s Dead”, or “American Beauty”, would be seen here as one of the album’s strongest numbers.
“Shakedown Street”, was seen as antithetical to the band’s earlier rustic traditional rock by many fans who saw the change in style as trend-following and mainstream-baiting, while Hart later went on record stating, “We were trying to sell out”. Lowell George would die shortly after the album’s release, and Keith and Donna Godchaux would leave the band soon after, while Garcia, who for some years had become a frequent smoker of ‘Persian’, a type of heroin, found his health declining, a factor that may well have contributed to his limited contribution to the album.
The following years would see further albums released including “Go To Heaven” (1980), and “In The Dark” (1987), both with similar limited success that also made them serious candidates for this dubious accolade. In the end however, my decision in choosing “Shakedown Street”, was based on the level of disappointment I felt on first hearing the album after what the band had previously achieved, whereas by the time the later albums were released my hopes and expectations were already considerably lowered, and though the band’s continued influence would resonate with successive generations to this present day, my personal view is that with “Shakedown Street”, those dying embers of the ‘Hippie Dream‘ were finally extinguished for good.
It’s difficult to argue with your logic, Graeme. In mitigation, some of the songs became longstanding live favourites, and I’ve always loved the cover. The title track is a classic song in their canon, and like many Dead songs, live versions are preferable to the studio track.
Hi Martin. always aware I was probably opening a can of worms with this one, and take on board your comments. I think the core of my argument revolves around the fact that prior to ‘Shakedown Street’, the dead had released studio albums with songs that didn’t always show them in their best light, but you never doubted their resolute commitment to prioritise creative integrity over commercial compromise. With songs like ‘France’, ‘I Need A Miracle’, and ‘If I Had The World To Give’, it felt like those priorities had been sacrificed.
Good to note you “scribing” again, Graeme…. and I have to say, you drop back into the saddle with the ease of a John Wayne. Excellent article as usual; I agree with what you say and your rational is, to me, spot on. American Beauty is clearly a bonafide classic … and yet …. for me, that’s it. I’ve never been a fan of the groups catalogue and I have tried! Probably due to the jazz, reggae and psychedelic influences – genres that do absolutely nothing for me. As Martin says, the live versions were (much) preferable to the studio ones, at least for me.
P.S.
Please don’t banish me to the land of Brotherhood of Man!!
Hi Alan. Many thanks for you kind words, though I have just checked the ‘Americana Rules and Laws’ handbook and it does state on page 66, that “any suggestion or admission of not being a fan of the Grateful Dead, does in fact incur a penalty of a weeks banishment to the land of Brotherhood of Man”, so I’m afraid that’s seven days of ‘Figaro’ for you, lol
Fair enough …. I hang my head in shame.
Can I get time off for good behaviour if I mention Jackson Brown & Gene Clark?? BTW …. ooooh, judging by the comments already made, it looks like you have, indeed, opened up a can of worms – good luck with that!
Jackson Browne & Gene Clark will always gain you redemption in my eyes. Consider yourself reprieved, lol. Yep, the proverbial can of worms has clearly been opened, though to be fair I was half expecting it.
Clearly somone with an ignorance of the Dead. The Dead sets in the 1960s were full of R&B covers. Jerry and Pig loved them almost as much as the old blues runs. Shakedown Street is a great R&B track. Fire is a great song. Minglewood was a song played in 12 iterations over time since 1967. Lowell George was hardly a voice of disco but ignorance is rife. And If I had the World to Give is a nice song that they‘d never play live given the chord progressions and equivalent challenges involved therein. Shakedown gets too much criticism from those who don’t understand the Boys and what they were getting at.
Hi Jack. Thanks for getting in touch and sharing your views, though in truth I am a little confused by the point you’re making. The inspiration behind these articles is to choose and an artists strongest and least strong album and explain that decision, to which end I feel I’ve done. In choosing ‘Shakedown Street’ I believe I still pointed out it’s own high points, as it is not an album without merit, just not as good in my opinion than it’s predecessors.You obviously disagree and consider it to warrant equal praise, fair enough, though I would be interested to hear what you do consider to be their weakest studio album and why. It is now almost fifty years since I bought my first Dead album, but I’m always happy to discuss the finer points with those that may be more informed.
That’s right Graeme, what are we doing here other than making a stack of all the studio albums and noting what’s at the top and what’s at the bottom? It doesn’t mean – necessarily – that the bottom one is actually as totally bad as the provocative Feature Title would suggest. For some artists it does, but maybe not The Dead.
Course, I do like Shakedown Street – but I like Go To Heaven as well. Not as much as American Beauty, Workingman’s Dead, or Blues for Allah…somedays I think ‘Franklin’s Tower‘ is the best song Grateful Dead ever recorded. And somedays I don’t (it’s ‘Box Of Rain‘ obviously).
So I’d rather have Shakedown Street in the world than erased from existence – but I get where you’re coming from 🙂
Hi Jonathan, thanks for getting in touch and your sagacious words. You’re right, I think some people do take the feature’s headline to literally. For me the Grateful Dead with their cannon of material were just ideal candidates for this feature that was meant to encourage debate. The last thing you are looking for is for everyone to agree with you (gee, that would be weird and scary), but rather to encourage a healthy discussion and possibly bring the artist to those who hadn’t previously had them on their radar. Different opinions are great, as long as we all agree that ‘Scarlett Begonias’ is actually their best song! Lol.
Great article Graeme. What is hard to reconcile is that although Shakedown St was a weaker offering by the band, they were still a touring force on the road delivering some great concerts. However 1978 was clearly the start of
A slow decline for the band until out of nowhere they revived and had their last fantastic run in 1988-1991. I am more of the opinion that all their studio albums after American Beauty had some weak spots and that the band was simply not a good studio band. But those albums (except 1980 go to heaven …. Which has very little to offer) each had songs that after the band refined them on the road, became great live material for the band.
Hi Dave, many thanks for getting in touch and your kind words. You make a very valid point regarding the fact that the Dead’s strength lay very much in their live performances, as if they used the studio to create a simple framework that they could build on and mould during their on stage improvisations. To that fact they were truly masters of their craft.
Whilst I agree that Shakedown Street and Go to Heaven are probably not there best efforts to say that ‘In the Dark was similarly unsuccessful’ commercially is categorically wrong. It went double platinum and made the top 10 of the Billboard charts and produced their only top 10 single. To make such an obvious mistake leads one to doubt how much you actually know about the Grateful Dead?
Hi Mark. Thanks for getting in touch. I am however slightly confused as, having re-read the article I can find no reference to the commercial success of ‘In The Dark’, in fact, the only reference I have made to commerciality were the Dead’s disinterest in such trappings up to 1978 where upon new record label Arista applied pressure on the band to produce a more commercial-sounding album. That fact was also born out by Micky Hart’s comment stating “We were trying to sell out”, which again is a recorded fact. In referring to ‘In The Dark’ in the article with the line “similar limited success” I was referring to the artistic similarities, nothing else, the commercial success of ‘In The dark’ is well document but had no relevance to this article.It’s now almost fifty years since I bought my first Dead album and though I’m always open to learning something new, to suggest this was an obvious mistakes makes me feel you should possibly read the article again.
I have found it difficult to judge the merits of the Dead’s records in isolation from the band’s live performances. So much of the so-called forgettable material could be transformed in concert. The hotter numbers from Shakedown in particular.
The jams that spun out of Shakedown street and Scarlett Begonias are amongst the most memorable in my history with the band.
The recordings, for me were rebuilt and reimagined after hearing some of the stuff live.
Hi Peter. Thanks for getting in touch. You are absolutely right about how the songs from Shakedown street were often transformed in concert, it was indeed what they excelled at.
It’s true that from Blues For Allah onwards the Dead’s studio albums could be a little patchy. Although Garcia’s songwriting contribution to Shakedown was less than normal that wasn’t down to any lack of creativity as the same year’s Cats Under The Stars included a sheaf of Garcia, Hunter classics. What we do see in Shakedown is the band returning to their 65/66 repertoire and revisiting blues/ R&B while at the same time updating them – they did the same on Terrapin Station with Dancing In The Street. The songs from Shakedown continued to be cornerstones of GD setlists through to 1995. Those that didn’t were by no means poor songs – give a listen to Bonnie Prince Billy’s take on If I Had The World To Give on the Day Of The Dead tribute. I agree that the Hart/ Kreutzmann axis was more to the fore although this again continued a trend from Terrapin Station and makes sense in the context of Hart having returned to the fold relatively recently. Your piece has certainly encouraged me to give shakedown a spin and that can never be a bad thing for writing about music.
Hi Richard, thanks for getting in touch. You make some very valid and well written points and I will give Bonnie Prince Billy’s take on ‘If I Had The World To Give’a listen. As you alluded to, the whole point of these article are to create discussion and possible encourage those not familiar with the albums to search them out, and glad to hear you’re going to give ‘Shakedown Street’ another listen, it is not a bad album, just not my favourite for reasons given.
I have seen the Grateful Dead about 35 times. Studio albums are largely irrelevant to me. I only listen to live Grateful Dead
Hi Rupert, thanks for getting in touch. Now there’s another possibility for the feature article ‘ favourite and least favourite live Dead albums’. Fancy having a go?
Thanks, Graeme: This is a tough one. I’ve always believed every Dead album has some strikingly, beautiful tracks and some foul balls. I see your point here. I personally have counted Shakedown as a can’t live without. But I also like Go To Heaven and the Mydland songs. I always thought the studio versions were a means to an end to get to the lives shows. I think this is a great topic for their live albums. I must play Birdsong with the Dead and Branford Marsalis a couple times a week from Live at Nassau Coliseum. Thanks for the thought-provoking material.
Rather than focusing on Shakedown Street. I am interested in the selection of American Beauty. I am not going to question that it is a great album but in my opinion a live release should have been “can’t live without it”.
A live album was selected for string cheese incident ” carnival 99″ so this series isn’t limited to studio albums.
I would argue Europe 72 show ls be the “can’t live without it”. 17 songs 6 sides capturing the experience. Multiple songs (jack straw, he’s gone, rambling rose, tenn jed, brown eyed women)that were never released as studio version. The closing with morning dew is fantastic. Last meaningful pigpen contribution.
Hi Sidney. Thanks for getting in touch and for turning the focus to the “can’t Live Without It” album. Your argument for Europe ’72, certainly turns the spotlight on another great album, and one that finds the Dead in the setting they excelled at best. My choice for best live album would possibly be “Cornell 8th May 1977” recorded at Barton Hall, Cornell University, but to be fair in my article I did state I was solely focussing on studio albums. The main reason for that is that there is only 13 studio albums, where as if you include the 9 official live albums, plus the 87 retrospective live albums and the 36 dick’s Picks, you have a grand total of 132 albums to choose from, which if I were try and listen to everyone before writing my review, as I did with the studio albums, you would probably receive my completed article sometime in 2027.However a top 10 Live Dead albums would certainly be a fascinating and probably just as controversial read.
Don’t forget the Dead’s crate sets – complete Europe 72, on a mere 73 CDs. Whilst that’s the extreme there are plenty of other double-digit box sets to choose from – In and Out of the Garden is just 17CDs….
Thanks Jonathan. That’s a whole lotta live music, but pretty sure somebody out there will have listened to the complete live collection. Wonder how long it would take to listen to them all back to back?