The Grateful Dead \u2013 The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get \/ The Other One (1968)<\/p>\n
The Dead\u2019s love for the road is in evidence on this segment from That\u2019s It for the Other One, the four-part opening track of their second LP, Anthem of the Sun. A rare Bob Weir-penned lyric details the Dead\u2019s youngest member being busted by the cops \u201cfor smiling on a cloudy day\u201d \u2013 referencing a real-life incident when Weir pelted police with water balloons as they conducted what he took to be illegal searches outside the group\u2019s Haight-Ashbury hangout. It then connects with the band\u2019s spiritual forebears the Merry Pranksters<\/a> by referencing Neal Cassady, driver of \u201ca bus to never-ever land\u201d. The song later evolved into The Other One, one of the Dead\u2019s most played tunes and a launchpad for their exploratory jams \u2013 as in this languid, brilliant version<\/a> at San Francisco\u2019s Winterland in 1974.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 Truckin\u2019 (1970)<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a long, strange trip it\u2019s been,\u201d reflected Weir on what is arguably the Grateful Dead\u2019s anthem. The group were only half a decade into a remarkable 30-year career when lyricist Robert Hunter penned this picaresque of their touring escapades. It\u2019s heavy on the gnarly details \u2013 groupies consumed by \u201creds, vitamin C and cocaine\u201d, and endless hotel-room drug-busts \u2013 but the Dead\u2019s spirited delivery and, in particular, Weir\u2019s jovial growl, located the magic in their peripatetic lifestyle. As with many Dead tunes, Truckin\u2019 was best heard in concert (or on a fan-taped bootleg traded in the car park before a show). The rumble captured at London\u2019s Lyceum on the Europe \u201972 live LP is as fine as any you\u2019ll hear.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 Sugar Magnolia (1971)<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead: Sugar Magnolia \/ Scarlet Begonias \/ Fire on the Mountain (Winterland 12\/31\/78) \u2013 video<\/p>\n A tribute to Weir\u2019s longtime paramour Frankie Hart \u2013 \u201ca summer love in the spring, fall and winter\u201d who could \u201cmake happy any man alive\u201d \u2013 and a highlight of their 1970 LP American Beauty, Sugar Magnolia showcased the Dead\u2019s embrace of Americana and songcraft. Their second most played song evolved a joyful coda in concert, Sunshine Daydream, and it was often the first song they would play after the clock struck midnight at their New Year\u2019s Eve concerts. The performance at San Francisco\u2019s Winterland Ballroom on 31 December 1978<\/a>, marking the closure of the venerated venue, is a true Deadhead favourite.<\/p>\n Bob Weir \u2013 Playing in the Band (1972)<\/p>\n Playing in the Band portrays the Dead\u2019s lifestyle as some quasi-mystical vocation, with the narrator a talk-is-cheap road warrior who has developed his own philosophies along the way: \u201cI don\u2019t trust to nothing \/ But I know it come out right.\u201d Evolving from a riff coined by David Crosby during a jam in Dead percussionist Mickey Hart\u2019s barn, the track first surfaced on the Dead\u2019s eponymous 1971 live LP, then featured on Weir\u2019s 1972 solo debut Ace, before the group reclaimed it as a vehicle for their most questing, open-ended excursions. The legendary 46-minute version from Seattle\u2019s Edmundson Pavilion in 1974<\/a> is reckoned to be the longest song performance the Dead ever pulled off.<\/p>\n Bob Weir \u2013 Cassidy (1972)Bob Weir pictured in 1976. Photograph: Mark Sullivan<\/p>\n Named for the young daughter of a Dead roadie, Cassidy doubles as a tribute to beat poet Neal Cassady, whose restless, questing example cast a long shadow for Weir. A lilting, upbeat folk-rocker, it finds Weir offering the infant Cassidy life lessons he has drawn from Cassady\u2019s quixotic lust for freedom, singing on the coda: \u201cLet your life proceed by its own designs \u2026 Let the word be yours.\u201d This sentiment, along with the pearlescent, folky tangle of a riff, made Cassidy a song Weir revisited throughout his career, with the Dead<\/a> and also with RatDog, the group he formed following Garcia\u2019s death in 1995.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 The Music Never Stopped (1975)<\/p>\n Is 1975\u2019s Blues for Allah the funkiest Dead album? The Meters-esque swing of Jerry Garcia\u2019s Franklin\u2019s Tower suggests as much, as does this Weir-penned reverie, steeped in the rhythms of the south. The Music Never Stopped is driven by Weir\u2019s prickly guitar figures, stirring up a groove that wouldn\u2019t have shamed Allen Toussaint, while the sparring harmonies with singer Donna Jean Godchaux<\/a> give this playful number a Bourbon Street-worthy earthiness. The down-home imagery, co-written with Weir\u2019s regular collaborator John Perry Barlow, verges on the hokey, but if you aren\u2019t seduced by the \u201crainbow full of sound \u2026 fireworks, calliopes and clowns\u201d, that\u2019s your loss.<\/p>\n Kingfish \u2013 Lazy Lightning\/Supplication (1976)<\/p>\n After the Dead temporarily ran aground in the mid-70s, Weir jumped ship to join his pal Matthew Kelly\u2019s group Kingfish, for whom he wrote this luminous two-parter mixing imagery of lust and addiction. The studio version, all pristine harmonies and succinct, FM radio-ready AOR, is charming. But as is always the way with Dead-related music, the song truly came into its own after the group reformed and Weir added it to their setlists. Performances such as this one from the Sportatorium in Florida in 1977<\/a> unlocked the conversational, jazzy potential that is only hinted at on Kingfish\u2019s studio original.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 Estimated Prophet (1977)<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead: Estimated Prophet (Live at Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York 3\/29\/90) \u2013 video<\/p>\n \u201cThe Grateful Dead play reggae\u201d may be a hard sell as a concept, but Estimated Prophet is something else. The track possesses a menace that is rare in Dead music, with Weir portraying a darkly charismatic Manson-like figure duelling with the voices in his head and threatening to \u201ccall down thunder\u201d and \u201cfill the sky with flame\u201d. The portrait is grimly compelling, the band doubtless having crossed paths with many such drug-damaged characters as the 60s soured. Fans cite the 1990 recording from New York\u2019s Nassau Coliseum<\/a> as the keeper, with guest musician Branford Marsalis playing lyrical saxophone, but the song\u2019s dark heart is perhaps best represented on the recording of their 1979 show at Oakland Auditorium Arena<\/a>, where Weir\u2019s choppy guitar lends a foreboding undertow to Brent Mydland\u2019s sprawling keyboard solo.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 Lost Sailor (1980)<\/p>\n The Dead seemed mostly unconcerned by whatever trends were moving the mainstream. During their tenure at Clive Davis\u2019s Arista records, however, the storied record mogul teamed them with outside producers, hoping to connect the Dead, however reluctantly, with the zeitgeist. The sleeve of 1980\u2019s Go to Heaven, with the group in white disco suits and flowing tresses as if they\u2019d hired the Bee Gees\u2019 stylists, suggested an uncharacteristic misstep. But the album itself has aged well, in particular this meditative and melancholic number. On Lost Sailor, a disillusioned Weir recognises himself in the figure of a haggard old boatman as dedicated to the sea as the singer and guitarist is to the open road, musing \u201cfreedom don\u2019t come easy\u201d.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead \u2013 Hell in a Bucket (1987)<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead\u2019s only US Top 10 LP, 1987\u2019s In the Dark, is far from beloved among Deadheads. But while a goofy, skeleton-packed video<\/a> briefly sold these boomers to the MTV generation, this cynical kiss-off to a former lover proved the Dead hadn\u2019t sacrificed their dark wit for stardom. The narrator plays like a character from a Steely Dan song, a loser nevertheless focused on having the last laugh, as Weir\u2019s Dylanesque croak depicts his ex as \u201cthe reincarnation of the ravenous Catherine the Great\u201d and reasoning, in the irresistible hook, \u201cI may be going to hell in a bucket, babe, but at least I\u2019m enjoyin\u2019 the ride\u201d. It\u2019s a timeless sentiment, even if the gonzo music video<\/a> featuring Weir in a pastel suit straight out of Miami Vice, and his leather-clad ex, has not aged so well \u2013 though Bob is clearly having fun throughout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Grateful Dead \u2013 The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get \/ The Other One (1968) The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-405316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}