The Grateful Dead were already established as paragons of the free-form, improvisational San Francisco psychedelic sound when they abruptly shifted gears for the acoustic Workingman's Dead, a lovely exploration of American roots music illuminating the group's country, blues, and folk influences. The lilting "Uncle John's Band," their first radio hit, opens the record and perfectly summarizes its subtle, spare beauty; complete with a new focus on more concise songs and tighter arrangements, the approach works brilliantly. Despite its sharp contrast to the epic live space jams on which the group's legend primarily rests, Workingman's Dead nonetheless spotlights the Dead at their most engaging, stripped of all excess to reveal the true essence of their craft. AMG.
listen here
Friday, September 16, 2011
Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead 1970
Popular Posts
-
The only album by the Steve Baron Quartet was a fitfully interesting but uneven effort, jumping between Baroque folk-rock, moody early si...
-
Kathy McCord - Kathy McCord 1970 Kathy McCord released a lone self-titled LP in 1970, the first release from Creed Taylor ’s CTI Records, ...
-
A wild, freewheeling, and ultimately successful attempt to merge psychedelia with jazz-rock, Soft Machine 's debut ranges between loving...
-
The Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. On this side of the Atlantic, all anybody remembers them for i...
-
When you think of the Doors , "guitar" isn't the first thing that usually comes to mind ( Jim Morrison 's manic persona an...
-
The Kinks - The Kink Kontroversy 1965 The Kinks came into their own as album artists -- and Ray Davies fully matured as a songwriter -- wi...
-
Ahmed Abdul-Malik was one of the first musicians to integrate non-Western musical elements into jazz. In addition to being a hard bop bas...
-
Spud released 2 albums on the Philips record label - their 1975 debut 'A Silk Purse' and 'The Happy Handful' (also in 1975...
-
Redbone was a Los Angeles-based group led by Native American Pat and Lolly Vegas . They hit paydirt in 1974 with the million-seller "...
-
Tiny Tim 's 15 minutes of fame were starting to run out when Tiny Tim's Second Album was released in November 1968, and it sold onl...
0 comments:
Post a Comment