With the recent passing of legendary Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, I have begun to dive back into my self-espoused Deadhead tendencies and the band’s spellbinding discography. Two twin albums in particular — “Workingman’s Dead” (1970) and “American Beauty” (1970) — will be the focus of this retrospective installment of my column.
As the revolutionary spirit of the ’60s rolled into the acquiescence of the ’70s, very few would have bet that the Grateful Dead, the freewheeling psychedelic champions of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, would put out twin LPs that would become standards of the Americana and country-rock canon.
“It was a surprise to us — as it was to everybody else,” said Robert Hunter, lyricist and one of the creative partners of the Grateful Dead, speaking of the band’s success on the DVD “Classic Albums: Grateful Dead — Anthem to Beauty” (1999). “This machine-eating, monster-psychedelic band is suddenly putting out sweet, listenable material.”
As Hunter indicated, they suddenly stepped on their musical breaks, slowed down the tempo of their psychedelic space jams and decided to come into orbit with fully fleshed-out tunes. The results of their labor were “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty,” two complementary albums released within a few months of each other.
The twin albums are an anomaly in their discography and the natural gateway for most “Deadheads,” a self-appointed term to describe the Grateful Dead’s intergenerational fanbase. The classification of “Deadhead” later expanded to include anyone who is a fan of their music and their associated free-loving stance on life, even including folks who were not even alive before the group officially disbanded after lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
The Grateful Dead, by all accounts, defy categorization and logic, always skirting off the edge of reality for what is possible for a rock 'n' roll band. An analysis of the band inevitably feels like a sociological research paper, as the band’s perennial appeal and impact warrant social, economic, political and regional explanations.
Over the years, more than their music seeped into the collective consciousness. Their iconography, the 13-Point Lightning Bolt with blue and red hues, the dancing bears and the “Steal Your Face” skull remain an integral aspect of the group’s legacy. To anyone wondering what the effects of an increasingly secular world would be, then the pseudo-religion of the Grateful Dead canon is surely a great place to start.
These two LPs are the most concise and effective studio statements the Grateful Dead made throughout their decades-long career.
For me, those opening guitar strums and jangling percussive notes on opener “Box of Rain,” Lesh’s original composition, set the tone perfectly for their album “American Beauty.” Written with the assistance of Hunter about the untimely death of Lesh’s father, the song is strikingly somber yet still performed at a swift pace.
“And it's just a box of rain / Or a ribbon for your hair,” Lesh sings in the song’s outro. “Such a long long time to be gone / And a short time to be there.”
“Box of Rain” also feels prophetically placed. It is the opener for their landmark album, but the song was the very last song the original group would ever perform live, capping off their final performance on July 9, 1995, at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The jamming did not end in 1995, though. Dead & Company, the current mix of past Grateful Dead members alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, played the last notes of their ominously titled “The Final Tour” on July 15, 2023, in San Francisco. This time, past members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart joined Mayer, Burbridge and Chimenti in a nationwide tour that demonstrated the band’s timeless appeal. Yet again, their final show was not their last as they graced the legendary stage of the Sphere in Paradise, Nev. as part of their residency in August 2024.
On “Workingman’s Dead,” the counterpart to “American Beauty,” the band is also a well-oiled musical machine.
Take the opener “Uncle John’s Band,” for example, a sweet and homespun guitar ballad full of rich vocal harmony. The bluegrass-inspired track alludes to bygone tales of past Americana. One performance of this song that sticks out decades later was during their late ’80s stadium rock era, a result of the band’s surprise Top 40 hit “Touch of Grey” (1987). In the 1987 version, new pianist Brent Mydland joined the band, adding much-needed vitality and husky backup vocals.
“Well, the first days are the hardest days / Don't you worry anymore,” the group sings with tastefully layered harmony. “'Cause when life looks like Easy Street/ There is danger at your door.”
The final track “Casey Jones,” a song loosely based on the railroad engineer of the same name, is also one of the band’s most recognizable tracks. Over a bluesy rock beat, Garcia delivers a humorous plea for a railroad conductor to watch his “speed,” a double entendre that refers both to the acceleration of the train as well as his cocaine use.
“Driving that train, high on cocaine / Casey Jones you better, watch your speed,” Garcia humorously sings. “Trouble ahead, trouble behind / And you know that notion just crossed my mind.”
Then there is the eternal Garcia-Hunter collaboration on “Ripple,” their most iconic and striking acoustic ballad. Nothing quite crystalizes the simplicity and charm of Americana quite like this short-and-sweet track. Although only played 42 times (compare this to the Grateful Dead’s most played song, “Me and My Uncle,” which was performed 616 times over their storied career), my favorite is the stripped-back version performed in New York City on Oct. 31, 1980 — the audience’s clapping and hollering, coupled with the laid back acoustic feel of this performance, truly put me at ease. A close second might be the rendition Bob Weir & Wolf Bros performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk back in 2020.
“You who choose to lead must follow / But if you fall you fall alone,” Garcia tells the listener over sparse acoustics and a light drum shuffle. “If you should stand then who's to guide you?/ If I knew the way I would take you home.”
I often return to these twin albums when I yearn for a simpler time than our own. The Grateful Dead sings of a quaint and quiet life that I could only dream of. This charming stillness, like the landscapes of the splendid and lazy “Eyes of the World” (1973), is from a bygone era, one I can visit but never truly inhabit.
With charming guitar ballads, shuffling bluegrass boogies and folksy American landscapes, “American Beauty” and “Workingman’s Dead” warm the soul when the world needs it most. I cannot think of a soundtrack more antithetical to the times we live in, and yet, that reality underscores its necessity.
