In a Rolling Stone interview around the release of Workingman’s Dead, the group’s lynchpin, Jerry Garcia, reflected on the effect that misfortune had had on the group’s mentality. “Being able to do that was extremely positive in the midst of all this adverse stuff that was happening,” he said. “It was definitely an upper… it was the first record that we made together as a group, all of us. Everybody contributed beautifully, and it came off really nicely.” Mason's Children" (recorded at the Civic Auditorium in Honolulu on 1/24/1970) (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, Weir) – 6:32 Uncle John's Band" (recorded at Winterland on 10/04/1970, incorrectly listed in sleevenotes as recorded at Winterland, 12/23/70) – 7:57 In more practical terms, the self-consciously arch closing number here, is indicative of how clean and unfettered was the sound of the Grateful Dead on this LP (now highlighted by the remastering by David Glasser); astute co-production between the band, Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, provided a burnished sonic realism that accurately captures the multiple textures of the eight performances, not to mention the various emotional undercurrents that gave birth to the material and permeated the performances of these novel additions to the band's canon like "Dire Wolf," featuring titular leader Garcia on pedal steel. a b Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip. Jake Woodward, et al. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2003, p. 108.

This was, sort of, stepping out of our spacesuit and coming down to Earth and putting on a pair of Osh Kosh and digging the furrows ... we would have to bring the music in, to support the texts: Hunter's Holy Grail" What came easily to CSN was work for the Dead. Garcia’s partner Mountain Girl—aka Carolyn Adams, a former Merry Prankster who wound up marrying the guitarist in 1981—laughed about the process to band biographer David Browne, claiming in his 2015 book So Many Roads: The Life And Times Of The Grateful Dead, “They were expected to sing all those parts, and it didn’t go well. It sounded like cats howling.” It’s possible to hear that howl echoing through Workingman’s Dead. The trio’s voices don’t quite mesh, sometimes hitting a dissonant chord, sometimes scrambling for the same note; their effort isn’t merely heard, it’s felt. All that fumbling winds up as an asset on Workingman’s Dead, adding a bit of messiness to the tight performances. The well-defined structure of the songs subsequently gave more focus to the band's live improvisations. Unlike in later years, where segments of concerts were designated free playing, numbers such as the readily-recognized segue of "China Cat Sunflower">"I Know You Rider" provided openings through which the band, as individuals or a collective, might pursue spontaneous flashes of inspiration, without in any way sacrificing the sanctity of the song. As documented on the complete February 1971 Capitol show included here on discs two and three—a companion piece to which is Three From the Vault (Grateful Dead, 2007)—this milestone set carries an underlying distinction as one of the earliest recordings of the group sans Hart on drums. Still, Warner Bros. was ready to promote the album. “An album of country-flavored tunes by the Grateful Dead — an album different from anything they ever did before,” went one of its radio ads, which cheekily added, “Steal it.” But at the time, no one worried about record-store theft. In spite of that ad and problems with radio play, Workingman’s Dead became the band’s most popular record to that point, breaking into the Top 30 on the Billboard album chart. To this day, Matthews says he still receives royalties for his work on it.

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t Hunter. The material reflects clear country, blues and folk influences; the arrangements are sharp and concise; the performances lilting and subtle. In 2003, the album was ranked number 262 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. At the time of its original issue, the record was—as it still is, to startling effect—unlike any other entry in their discography. In the wake of a bust in New Orleans, with their business organization struggling and in debt to their Warner Bros. Record label, the band was also confronting seismic cultural changes that caused profound alterations in the music they were creating: the new-found emphasis on folk and country styles outweighed that concentration on the blues during their early days as well as the more freewheeling psychedelic improvisation that followed. Yet even today, this bittersweet collection of original songs, just over a half-hour in duration, recorded within a single month in the same year it came out, remains a testament to creativity as a refuge from chaos and bad fortune. From the start of the Grateful Dead in 1965 until his very final days in 1995, Jerry Garcia had anywhere upwards of 25 guitars. Some lasted for decades at a time; others were only used for a few months and discarded. With each new era of the Grateful Dead came a brand new guitar until Garcia finally slipped into a particular comfort zone with luthier Doug Irwin. These are the stories behind his most prominent axes. 1965: Guild Starfire

When the Grateful Dead convened to record Workingman’s Dead in February 1970, they were intent on change. They wanted something lighter, simpler; something closer to a folk or country record than a psychedelic one. Conveniently, they were also deep in debt to their record company and trying to extract themselves from a recent—and costly—drug bust. Their previous album, Aoxomoxoa, took nearly six months at the cost of more than a million dollars in today’s money; Workingman’s Dead was done in nine days. Dire Wolf" gets mad props though with the chorus ("Don't muder me... please") and the "New Speedway Boogie" is similarly infectious. The Dead had further honed their chops by playing a series of acoustic sets during the winter of 1969–1970, mixing versions of their new songs among folk and country covers. The entire album was recorded and mixed in about 10 days. Overdubs included Garcia’s pedal-steel parts, Pigpen’s harmonica, various acoustic and electric guitar parts and, of course, the vocals, which were certainly at a level the Dead had never achieved before. I found this mix way better than the American Beauty Atmos with Beauty's vocals being way too overwhelmingly up front. New Speedway Boogie,” Hunter’s pointed shot at San Francisco Chronicle writer Ralph J. Gleason about the Dead’s involvement in the disastrous Altamont festival, is among the most revealing sections of The Angel’s Share. Altamont — the free show with the Rolling Stones; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Jefferson Airplane; and others — had taken place just two months before the sessions, leaving chaos and a murder in its wake. The Dead had been involved in the planning and had been scheduled to play but, at the last minute, refused to go onstage amid the Hells Angels–induced turmoil.Lyricist Robert Hunter had joined the band on the road for the first time, resulting in a period of faster song development. Unlike the psychedelic, electrified music for which the band had become known, the new songs took a new direction, reviving their folk-band roots. Bassist Phil Lesh stated "The song lyrics reflected an 'old, weird' America that perhaps never was ... The almost miraculous appearance of these new songs would also generate a massive paradigm shift in our group mind: from the mind-munching frenzy of a seven-headed fire-breathing dragon to the warmth and serenity of a choir of chanting cherubim. Even the album cover reflects this new direction: The cover for Aoxomoxoa is colorful and psychedelic, and that of Workingman’s Dead is monochromatic and sepia." [12] In recent years, a search revealed that the photograph was taken at 1199 Evans Avenue in San Francisco. [13] Workingman's Dead is the fourth studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded in February 1970 and originally released on June 14, 1970.

On that late-winter-1970 day at Pacific High recording studio in San Francisco, Jerry Garcia wasn’t happy with what he was hearing. The Grateful Dead were trying to finish “New Speedway Boogie,” a song they’d played live only three times, and they were having trouble finding a groove.The album title came about when Jerry Garcia commented to lyricist Robert Hunter that the album was "turning into the 'workingman's Dead' version of the band". [19] Having both worked on all of the album's songs and gone out on the road with the band, Hunter appears as a seventh member on the front cover photograph. Given that the only Workingman’s Dead leftovers that had surfaced before had been various takes of “Dire Wolf,” Lemieux wasn’t sure what to think. “We’ve been burned before,” he says. “We’ve designed an album cover for a great live show and then the tapes showed up and we couldn’t use them. But here Brian and Mike had a feeling it was something Workingman’s Dead–related.” Given that most of what Lemieux has overseen was live material, he “freaked out,” he says, when he realized what those tape boxes contained.

I said that on a panel later,” Hunter continued, “and the other guy on the panel just laughed at me and thought I was saying something that wasn’t true. As though I was saying the reason we didn’t have hits was because of Nixon. Well, you know, it’s true! And I felt real miffed. If Nixon hadn’t done that, I think the Grateful Dead would’ve been rich and famous looong before they were. Because those are two mighty big songs.”In many ways, the Dead were shaped by the challenges they faced. Their financial situation forced them to rehearse and record Workingman’s Dead in a matter of weeks at Pacific High Recording, a modest San Francisco studio located just around the corner from the Fillmore West. Running up a huge studio bill while experimenting with the possibilities of studio recording was not on the agenda this time around. For these sessions to work, the material had to be written and rehearsed beforehand – a convention that the freewheeling Dead had previously only flirted with. “It was the first record that we made together as a group” Announcing Workingman's Dead 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition". dead.net. May 6, 2020 . Retrieved May 28, 2020. Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rded.). Virgin Books. p.143. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6. The complete takes show the development,” says Dead legacy manager David Lemieux, who oversees the band’s archiving. “The Dead had been playing these songs for so long, in some cases nine months, so they had them down. But this is where the nuances developed.”