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The Grateful Dead's first four albums reinforced their stature as a performing group, with a loose improvisational feel rooted in the blues, rock & roll, and modern jazz. But with the 1970 release of WORKINGMAN'S DEAD, Garcia, Weir, Lesh, McKernan, Kreutzmann, and Hart reined in their many spatial musical elements and found their true stylistic niche in the studio with an engaging blend of country, blues, and folk. Where earlier studio releases strove to recreate the kind of freeform group improvisations that won the Dead a fanatical cult following in the Bay area, WORKINGMAN'S DEAD drew upon a rural American vernacular that was in many ways analogous to that of the Band.
The resulting music has a rootsy, timeless quality, with tight instrumental arrangements, concise solo breaks, and a carefully wrought style of vocal harmonizing. The Dead won extensive airplay with tuneful songs like "Uncle John's Band" and "Casey Jones," while expanding their following well beyond San Francisco. Garcia's slithering pedal steel counterpoint and twangy banjo rolls make for a charismatic new style of bluegrass on "Dire Wolf" and "Cumberland Blues," while "New Speedway Boogie," featuring some of Robert Hunter's best lyrics, is a pointed personal metaphor for the tragic chaos at Altamont the summer before. This remains one of the legendary band's most concise and beautifully executed records.Rolling Stone (7/23/70, p.32) - "...an excellent album....'Uncle John's Band', which opens the album, is, without question, the best recorded track done by this band..."
Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.95) - 5 Stars (out of 5) - "...a modest, even penitent look back, not for nostalgic reassurance but for wisdom and perspective....maps the crises of the present onto the past and offers solace only in the ability of human virtues...to survive the most harrowing chaos."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.153) - "Inspired by the first two Band albums and the harmonies of Crosby Stills & Nash....Homespun folk and frontier songs played and sung in a loose, lived-in manner and sung as an old tie-dye T-shirt." Workingman's Dead Music Review Average Rating: (4 out of 5 stars)  A successful turn into folk and country
Often overshadowed by the follow-up "American beauty", this was the Dead's first dive into folk and country music. Compared to the extended jam sessions on "Live/Dead", released only 6 months earlier, this album revealed a complete change in the band's musical style. Inspired by the soft three-harmony singing of Crosby. Stills and Nash, the Dead went into the the studio in the winter of 1970 and completed "Workingman's dead" in about two weeks. The result was amazing, and The Dead also started to play an acoustic set at concerts (which can be heard on "Bear's Choice" and "Dick's picks 8"). "Workingman's dead" contains classics such as "Uncle John's band" and "Casey jones", but I'd rather prefer songs like "Dire wolf", "Cumberland blues" and "Black Peter". The album was so successful that the band released another album ("American beauty") only a few months later with the same atmosphere. And combined, these albums are the best The Dead ever did in studio, and the songs were the basis for all the Grateful Dead shows in the decade to come
Submitted by asmund.svensson (Oslo, Norway)
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Purchase Workingman's Dead CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Grateful Dead American Beauty CD (1970)
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AMERICAN BEAUTY was an instant classic when it was first released November of 1970. It is among the most satisfying and enduring of the Grateful Dead's studio recordings, expanding as it does on the engaging mix of country, blues, and folk materials they first coined earlier in the year with WORKINGMAN'S DEAD.
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Includes a 28-page booklet with rare photos, notes on the recording sessions and lyrics.
Additional personnel includes: Neil Aspinall (tamboura, harmonica); Mal
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One of the most famous and influential albums ever recorded, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND had a huge impact on the music world, signaling the beginning of a new era of sophistication and maturity in rock. The musical experimentation was dynamic and fresh, several tracks were edited to create seamless transitions, and even the visual design was more elaborate than anything previously attempted.
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With her mind-blowing mix of heavy metal guitar prowess and bluesy, soulful vocals, Orianthi will draw some justifiably well-earned comparisons to such giants of rock guitar as Jimi Hendrix and, her own idol, Carlos Santana. On her 2009 sophomore album, BELIEVE, her style hews closer to the finger-frenetic pyrotechnics of such '70s and '80s icons as Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai. Throw in her ability to sell a lyric and carry a strong melodic vocal phrase while also throwing down some devastating slabs of heavy metal riffage, and she starts to look a lot like the fantasy love child of Prince and Lita Ford. What's even more delicious is how, at face value, BELIEVE fits nicely next to studio-crafted--albeit stylistically successful--albums ...
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Henry Cow's debut is a dazzling preview of everything the band would explore throughout its career. Opening with Fred Frith's "Nirvana for Mice," the album mixes tightly structured compositional themes with adventurous improvisational passages. One of the most important elements in the band's sound is drummer Chris Cutler, who produces a sound that's constantly in motion but never unnecessarily busy.
This original quintet lineup would splinter soon after this release. Departing reed player Geoff Leigh was replaced by Lindsay Cooper (who played bassoon and oboe) with the release of this album's follow-up, UNREST. The writing of multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson writing stands in compelling contrast to Frith's, with Hodgkinson's sense of European classicism rubbing shoulders with avant-garde jazz and rock. While later releases found Henry Cow staking out its own sonic turf more rigorously, comparisons here to Frank Zappa's most earnest compositional work are quite apt.
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