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Workingman’s Dead by the Grateful Dead (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Workingman’s Dead
  • Group name: the Grateful Dead
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Warner Bros.
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: both of my parents would have owned copies of this record, but this one has no markings on it.
  • Buy it on Amazon: $27.60

Workingman's Dead by the Grateful Dead

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Some of my earliest musical memories in my childhood are of listening to a cassette tape of Workingman’s Dead in my mother’s brown Volvo station wagon, but I have no memory of ever asking her or my father what “high on cocaine” was supposed to mean…

What I expected

Workingman’s Dead.

What it was actually like

… I guess I just kind of thought of Casey Jones as a children’s song, though at that age, I’m not sure that I was even entirely aware of a distinction in music between “children’s” and the rest of it. And I guess that children today hear every imaginable kind of explicit reference about drugs, sex and violence in every popular medium, but I somehow doubt that my nieces will hear a song like that in the way that I heard it.

At any rate, now I recognize it and a lot of Grateful Dead music as part homage to, and parody of, Bob Dylan, but mostly just drawing from, and contributing to, the American folk tradition of story songs.

One thing I don’t think I realized before today is how dark much of Workingman’s Dead is, especially songs like Dire Wolf and New Speedway Boogie, with all the poverty and death and vice. But in a big part this is a blues record, so I think it fits well with the subject matter.

At this moment, my favorite part of Workingman’s Dead is the banjo part in Cumberland Blues, which is so, so good, and especially how it creeps up on me. My least favorite part is the length of Black Peter, which just goes on too long for a slow song.

This record is sublime, but I still like American Beauty better.

Grade

5/5: love it

Ace by Bob Weir (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

Ace by Bob Weir

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what this even was. Neither of my parents had any memory of a record called “Ace,” and since that’s the only word on the front of the album, I started by trying to locate a band with that name, which does exist and was recording records in the appropriate time period – but no amount of search engining could identify this specific Ace record.

Finally I started reading the fine print on the back, and saw references to “Robert ‘Ace’ Weir,” ie. Bob Weir, from the Grateful Dead.

Needless to say, I’m more or less familiar with Bob Weir, but not with “Ace,” his nickname and solo project.

What I expected

Cosmic American music.

What it was actually like

This was basically a Grateful Dead record, though I only recognized one song, Playing in the Band, which I mentioned that I loved when I listened to Skull Fuck a few months ago. This was a version I’d never heard before that was pretty similar to what I had heard in the past for the most part, with just some slightly different instrumentation and vocals, until a pretty good extended jam towards the end.

Greatest Story Ever Told was also great, while Walk in the Sunshine, which was very bluesy, could have been good, but was lacking some energy. Similarly, I liked the blues style piano and the guitar solo on One More Saturday Night, but the vocals were very 1980s sounding.

Mexicali Blues immediately made me think of someone that I once knew from Mexicali (and/or its sister city Calexico) and was more of a country song that had maybe a slight Oompa Loompa music sound to it, but it was entertaining and I liked the tempo and the excellent guitar.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Grateful Dead (Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses) by the Grateful Dead (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Grateful Dead (Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses)
  • Group name: The Grateful Dead
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Warner Bros. Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: my parents had two copies of this record. One has no markings on it at all. The other has “Goldstein” written all over it – on the inside cover and on all four faces of the two LPs.
  • Buy it on Amazon: $69.89

Grateful Dead (Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses) by the Grateful Dead

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m just a bit too young to have seen the Grateful Dead perform live – I vividly recall being in my grandparents’ beach house in Margate, New Jersey, the adults and my cousins shocked and upset, after the news of Jerry Garcia’s death (which was also the same day as the Netscape IPO) when I was 14.

I’ve listened to approximately a zillion hours of live Grateful Dead recordings – in part because my parents were fans when I was a kid, and also in the past ten or fifteen years my father has always had their concerts playing on satellite radio when he’s in his car, but also I love a lot of their music despite not being a “jam band” fan.

I’ve never specifically listened to this this record (which I guess is just called “Grateful Dead,” despite being known by their fans as “Skull and Roses,” and which the band named “Skull Fuck”), but I expect that I’ll know more or less all the songs on it.

What I expected

It’s a live Dead record from 1971, so that basically says everything.

What it was actually like

First of all, this was awesome, and especially so because in 1971, these guys were not really a big deal, but by doing essentially the same things, again and again for three decades or so, they made themselves into the biggest deal. So I’m sure that someone listening to “Skull and Roses” shortly after it was recorded might have enjoyed it, and maybe even loved it, but would have completely lacked the ability to grasp how significant it was.

Also, the Dead could have gone the way of a lot of bands who made horrible music in the later 1970s and 1980s, but chose not to do that, and that’s special.

At any rate: the sound on this record seemed maybe a little flat, or almost compressed too much. It was as if I was listening to MP3s on a MacBook, and wasn’t able to pick out the sharp sounds. Maybe that was the copy I listened to, but what a bummer.

I loved it, though. Two of their covers really stood out: Me and Bobby McGee was good, but their version of Johnny B. Goode was outstanding. Playing in the Band was also so, so good.

Side 2 was an 18+ minute jam called The Other One and, predictably, was the most boring part.

Grade

5/5: love it