Having a feature called Dirty Hippie Week and not featuring the Grateful Dead would be like having a list of the greatest basketball players without Michael Jordan (ask Bill Walton). They're the unabashed Godfathers of the entire jam scene, and their warts-and-all approach resulted in some truly transcendent moments from their inception to their demise. In just a few days it will have been 13 years since our boy Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia shuffled off this mortal coil, but to many it feels like eternity. Still, Phil & Friends, Ratdog, and the various incarnations of The Dead have kept the party going in respectable and uplifting style, and have inducted a number of new faces and players into the legacy. Sure, some of the fans living in vans (even today) will make you scratch your head (possibly from the insects living in their blonde dreadlocks) but they can't be faulted for loving something so lovable. (Graphic by http://photobanana.deviantart.com/)Here's part of one of my favorite sets, 5/8/77 @ Cornell, features:
Mama Tried
Row Jimmy
Dancin' In The Streets
Scarlet Begonias
Fire On The Mountain
The wah-wah sound on "Dancin'" always gets me. So cool.
Phil & Friends dates here, Ratdog dates here.
And as you probably already know, you can find tons of download-able Dead shows over here at The Archive.
1 comment:
Back in the day, dude! "American Beauty," Workingman's Dead," and "Mars Hotel" are wafting melodiously through my brain. And I always flash on those famous polydactyl cats the Dead raised.
I always wanted one because I think they had 7 toes not only 6.
Didn't Mountain Girl raise them or something? Now, I really want to know;I don't recall. Who knows?
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