The Grateful Dead rode the road for all it was worth, rising from mid-’60s
cult heroes to late-’80s cottage industry on the strength of the band’s
unpredictable marathon shows. It mattered little that the band recorded
few studio albums in the years before guitarist Jerry Garcia’s untimely
death in 1995. By 1990, Garcia, guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh,
and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart had compiled a vast and
varied collection of songs that included anthemic rock and loping blues,
as well as long, improvisatory excursions.
While the Dead’s trademark improvisational jams kept the stadiums packed
well into the ’90s, the band’s greatest achievement was a series of
tightly written, acoustic-based tunes that arrived in one breathtaking
volley some 20 years earlier. Recorded within six months of each other,
the music on back-to-back 1970 classics Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty would serve the group for the rest of its days.
But it would take years of self-discovery—and a dose of studio self-discipline—to
make those recordings happen.
All the Way Back
For Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter, the road to Workingman’s
Dead began in 1962, when the two were employed in a series of old-time
string bands around the San Francisco Bay Area. By that time, Garcia
had already become an adept bluegrass banjo player, who’d even showed
up for a Bill Monroe audition but chickened out at the last minute.
Joining Hunter and Garcia in the Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers was guitarist
David Nelson, a young bluegrass maven who would later figure prominently
in the Dead’s evolution as a member of the New Riders of the Purple
Sage.
"In the early part of the ’60s, really great recorded acoustic guitar
stuff was rare," says Nelson, who currently fronts the David Nelson
Band. "Then Doc Watson came along with this accelerated Carter Family–style
of playing using a flatpick, all this back-picking. Jerry went down
to see him play in Los Angeles once, then called me up and said, ‘Listen
to this!’ He put down the phone, picked up the guitar, and started playing
‘Black Mountain Rag.’ I just went nuts! I drove over to his place and
learned the tune straight off. That’s when Jerry began to get his acoustic
vocabulary down."
At the same time, Garcia’s interest was piqued by a new sound wafting
up from Bakersfield. "Along with bluegrass, Garcia loved that raunchy,
Telecaster twang coming from Buck Owens, and in particular, Owens’ guitarist
Don Rich," notes John Einarson, author of Desperados: The Roots of
Country Rock. "Herb Pedersen of the Dillards, who used to hang out
with Garcia in those days, told me about this local Buck Owens show
he went to in 1964 with Garcia and David Nelson, right after Buck’s
‘Together Again’ hit. It was some of the hippest stuff they’d ever heard.
Jerry was completely turned around by Buck’s music, which was essentially
country but also had the rawness of bluegrass. It was extremely influential."
In response to the British invasion in 1964—and the West Coast folk-rock
boom that was its direct descendant—Garcia, like many of his peers,
began moving in a tougher, rock-based direction. By the end of 1965,
Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions (which included Garcia, Weir, and
McKernan) had morphed into the Warlocks and finally the Grateful Dead,
and the acoustic instruments went into the closet. But the seeds had
been sown.
"Garcia already had a built-in acoustic frame of reference from his
listening days," observes writer Jon Sievert. "It got hybridized when
he went electric in the mid-’60s, so it was something else altogether
by the time of Workingman’s Dead."
Time Is Money
By the late ’60s, advances in studio technology had irrevocably altered
the recording landscape. Gone were the days when entire albums were
cut in a week’s time. As eight- and then 16-track machines became the
norm, studios became less like factories and more like workshops. Nowhere
was that change more evident than in California, where musicians like
Brian Wilson, Neil Young, and Frank Zappa spent months holed up in the
studio laboring over a single track.
The Grateful Dead were not to be outdone. Signing with Warner Brothers
in 1967, the band insisted on a clause that allowed them to use as much
time as they felt necessary to complete a recording project. The unfettered
access gave the Dead the opportunity to learn first-hand the machinations
of a modern studio, but it was an expensive lesson.
In 1968, the band issued Anthem of the Sun, an ambitious mix
of live and studio tracks—most averaging around ten minutes in length—that
featured experimental sound montages and quirky instrumentation. Experiencing
the Dead up close and personal circa 1967–68, complete with light show,
space jams, and optional hallucinogens was one thing; attempting to
bottle the naturally occurring psychedelia on vinyl was another. Though
a daring effort, Anthem ultimately collapsed under the weight
of its own complexity.
Not surprisingly, the album that followed, 1969’s Aoxomoxoa, was a concerted effort to rein in the cacophony that prevailed on Anthem.
With "St. Stephen" (one of Garcia’s great early melodies), "Mountains
of the Moon," and "China Cat Sunflower," the Hunter-Garcia team provided
the first real indication of the craft that would soon become its hallmark.
"I think a lot of it was a reaction to their heavily complicated psychedelic
music," remarks Grateful Dead biographer Blair Jackson, author of Garcia:
An American Life. "I believe it was Garcia who said that even though
the earlier material seems very expansive, you couldn’t always push
the limits with stuff that was so complicated. But a good deal of it
was the collaboration between Hunter and Garcia—I don’t think one would
have happened without the other. If Hunter had kept on writing really
obscure lyrics, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to Garcia to come
up with the kind of touching tunes that eventually came out on Workingman’s
Dead and American Beauty."
By decade’s end, the tab for Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa was nearly $200,000. By then, psychedelia, the Dead’s birthright, was
already a passing fancy. New arrivals like the Beatles’ "White Album"
and the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet had signaled a return
to a more acoustic, song-based pop format. The underlying message from
Warner was clear: the Dead’s next album had better be cheap—and good.
Taking evasive action, the band issued the 1969 concert quickie Live
Dead, which effectively halved its IOU with the label and captured
some of the live magic of the band. But then the roof caved in. During
a concert swing through New Orleans in January 1970, several band members
were arrested for marijuana possession, and a short time later, the
band’s manager Lenny Hart (father of drummer Mickey Hart) absconded
with most of the cash the band had left in its coffers. Warner, at the
end of its rope, fronted money, then waited while the band rolled into
San Francisco’s Pacific High Recording studio with its collective back
against the wall.
Years later, Garcia would reflect that the decision to work quickly
and efficiently was a conscious one. "I thought, ‘Let’s not spend a
year. Let’s do it all in three weeks and get it the hell out of the
way,’" he told writer Mark Rowland. "And that way, if the record does
at all well, we will be able to pay off some of what we owe the record
company."
Hand Me My Old Guitar
How did this collection of one-time studio noodlers pull from their
collective hat the rabbit that became Workingman’s Dead? And
why did the Dead decide to record it on acoustic instruments? The band
could just as easily have performed the new material cheaply and electrically
(as it would later do live). But in 1969, a new subgenre was beginning
to permeate the musical landscape—one that was wholeheartedly embraced
by the Grateful Dead’s songwriters.
"I think Garcia was simply becoming aware of the country-rock milieu
out of Los Angeles," says John Einarson. "Bands like the Byrds, the
Flying Burrito Brothers, Dillard and Clark, Hearts and Flowers, and
Poco had all played the ballrooms in San Francisco. Like many other
musicians at that particular time, Garcia sought a return to a more
honest, authentic American roots music." Indeed, it was in 1969 that
Garcia’s flirtation with the pedal steel finally took hold, and for
the next several years Grateful Dead songs would be colored by his idiosyncratic
steel playing.
But it was a new recording from the East Coast that had the most telling
impact on the Dead’s brain trust. "As time goes on, you find out about
more and more people who were influenced by the Band’s Music from
Big Pink," says Blair Jackson. "Hunter, in particular, loved the
folklore element that Robbie Robertson had mined with those songs. It
really set the tone for the new [Grateful Dead] material."
For his part, Garcia envisioned an acoustic rhythm section with strong
bluegrass overtones. Accordingly, he and guitarist Bob Weir procured
the proper tools of the trade. "We came from a folk background," Weir
recalls. "Jerry was in string bands, playing bluegrass and the like. Workingman’s had that same feel, so naturally the dreadnought
was the guitar of choice. We wanted instruments that had real thump.
I went one bigger and got a Gibson J-200, but the Martins had the bottom
[end] and projected clearer."
"Around that time, Jerry and I were out shopping for guitars," David
Nelson recalls. "We’d usually head down to Lundberg’s, this great old
instrument store in Berkeley. Eventually Jerry bought an old D-28, which
he used for some of those recordings."
By the end of 1969, the nearly all-acoustic set of Hunter-Garcia originals
included the slow blues "Black Peter," the countrified "High Time,"
and the epic "Uncle John’s Band," whose tight, three-part harmony was
a nod to colleagues Crosby, Stills, and Nash. To make the imminent recording
process as efficient as possible, the band diligently began rehearsing
the new tunes.
"Jerry and I worked out the two acoustic guitar parts well beforehand,
in hotel rooms, in the practice studio, whenever we got the chance,"
Weir recalls. "Each of us came up with some part that contrasted with
what the other was playing. One of us would play the root chords, and
the other would invert the chords up the neck. We really had it down
by the time we went in to cut the album."
Nelson remembers the various Workingman’s works in progress
as they began to gel. "At the time, we were getting the New Riders together,
and we were all there practicing in Jerry’s living room. In the afternoon
they’d come in and start working on these new songs. Hunter became a
master lyricist during that time. It was an incredible thing to witness."
Pacific High Time
In February 1970, the Grateful Dead sauntered into Pacific High Recording,
operated by the Alembic instrument company. "It was a funky studio with
a 50 by 50 recording room and 14-foot ceilings," notes veteran producer
Elliot Mazer, who bought the building in the mid-’70s. "The control
room was full of gear that had been handmade by Ron Wickersham, one
of the founders of Alembic and an amazing electronics guy. The studio
had excellent acoustics, with two isolation booths and a great live
chamber as well."
Running the board were two members of the Dead’s touring entourage,
Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, who’d acquired the job of producer/engineer
by default. "Bob and Betty were pressed into service," recalls Mickey
Hart. "Bob was an equipment man, and Betty was a live mixer. They did
the best they could with the knowledge they had. Recording the Grateful
Dead was no easy job for any studio engineer, in part because of the
usual madness that followed the band wherever we went. We were always
over budget, over time, mixing by committee, and rushing out of there
to go on the road. It’s amazing that what they got on tape sounded as
good as it did."
Unlike the group’s previous efforts, Workingman’s Dead was the
product of a band that knew exactly what needed to be done right from
the start—and the simplicity of the arrangements made the going that
much easier. "We were set up in what looked like a little crescent around
the drums," Weir recalls, "almost elbow to elbow. It was pretty tight.
There’s a lot of live leakage because of that, but that was fine."
After appearing as guest guitarist on Aoxomoxoa, David Nelson
added a solid bluegrass dimension to the Lesh-Garcia-Hunter work "Cumberland
Blues." "Back in ’62, Jerry had found this gorgeous 1940 Martin D-18,"
recalls Nelson. "It had been used by some country outfit and had two
little holes drilled right through the top where one of those old ’50s
electric pickups had been installed. The finish was worn and most of
the top was bare wood. It was just incredible-sounding. Eventually he
wanted a really good banjo, so when Lundberg found him a nice Weymann,
I traded Jerry my D-18, a Paramount five-string banjo, and 100 bucks,
which was just enough for him to get that Weymann. In return I got one
of the best D-18s in the world—and that’s what I ended up using on ‘Cumberland
Blues.’"
Garcia’s carefully crafted guitar accompaniment solidified the tunes
on the record, from his classic double-string riff on "Casey Jones"
to the colorful D-28 fills that flavor "Black Peter." "Those three-note
chords and pull-offs that Garcia used were a reflection of his banjo
mentors, like Earl Scruggs and Don Reno," Nelson observes. "So much
of his playing on Workingman’s and later on American Beauty harks back to those early influences."
Sessions for Workingman’s Dead were finished in just over a
week and released in May 1970. Ultimately, the album’s variety makes
it difficult to pigeonhole. "High Time" may have been written with Merle
Haggard in mind, but its complex chord changes render it far more sophisticated
than standard C&W fare. And while the band managed to pare most
of the songs down to a respectable four minutes, "Easy Wind" showed
that it could still stretch out in style. Thanks to FM radio extracts
"Uncle John’s Band" and "Casey Jones," Workingman’s Dead became
the group’s first bona fide hit, joining Billboard’s Top 25 by
July. But there was more to come.
The Other One
Even before the release of Workingman’s Dead, a whole new crop
of Hunter-Garcia songs began popping up on the group’s set lists. "Attics
of My Life," "Till the Morning Comes," and "Candyman" sported captivating
Garcia melodies and tight, meticulously arranged three-part harmonies,
while "Friend of the Devil" and "Ripple" continued the bluegrass spirit
of Workingman’s Dead.
By midsummer, the band was back in the studio, ready to crank out its
second album in the space of a year. For the making of American Beauty, the Dead chose a new studio—the recently minted Wally Heider’s in San
Francisco—and a new producer, a novice by the name of Stephen Barncard.
Though still learning the ropes at Heider’s, Barncard already had one
foot in the door, having recorded Garcia’s famous pedal-steel contribution
to the CSN&Y hit "Teach Your Children" several months earlier.
"Mel Tanner [manager of Wally Heider’s] told me that Phil [Lesh] really
wanted a better bass sound than the one he’d been getting," Barncard
recalls, "and if I could make that happen, I’d have the job. So we went
into Studio A, set up, and cut two songs: ‘Candyman’ and ‘Till the Morning
Comes.’ I noticed right away that Phil’s bass setup was just like Jack
Casady’s from Jefferson Airplane, which I already knew about. So that
was it—I was in.
"One of the reasons it was such a fun record to make was that the band
got the basic arrangements together well ahead of time," says Barncard.
"They were just completely prepared and professional in their approach.
I’ll never forget hearing the sound of Phil, Jerry, and Bob’s second
vocal pass on ‘Attics of My Life’ coming through the monitors. It was
as pure a recording process as you could get."
The shimmering guitars and polished vocals that graced the new tracks
gave American Beauty an undeniable sheen. "Pacific High, though
a great little studio, was run on a shoestring," says Barncard. "Heider’s
had real resources obtained from its L.A. facility—it was completely
state of the art."
At Barncard’s suggestion, the band relocated upstairs to Studio C,
birthplace of classic recordings of the time by Creedence Clearwater
Revival, Jefferson Airplane, and CSN&Y. "We did most everything
live—especially when there would be any interplay between the two acoustic
guitars," Barncard recalls. "The reason those rhythm tracks are so tight
is because they were set up really close together, just sitting in these
plastic chairs facing each other, with very little obstruction. I may
have had a few small baffles around the drums, but that was it. When
they were recording, they liked to be able to look at each other’s fingers,
pick up on accents, and so forth. The interplay was a very big part
of those sessions."
Thanks to good microphones (AKG C 60 small-capsule condenser microphones,
Barncard’s favorite), mic placement, and the room’s natural acoustics,
Barncard was able to capture the acoustic guitar backing tracks live,
even with drummer Bill Kreutzmann pounding out the beat just a few feet
away. For added punch on rockers like "Truckin’" and "Candyman," Barncard
patched the Martins through his favorite gadget, the United Audio 1176
limiter.
"The Dead had these beautiful old guitars that were really easy to
record," says Barncard. "I didn’t spend a lot of time on those acoustics.
I’d just plug one ear, stick my other ear in front of their guitars,
find the sweet spot, put the mic there, and then make sure we had it
in the control room. That was it."
David Grisman overdubbed mandolin parts on "Ripple" and "Friend of
the Devil," and Nelson supplied some quick string work on the Phil Lesh
album opener "Box of Rain." "Phil had given me the chord chart the previous
night," Nelson recalls, "and I’d never even heard the tune sung. There
were just a ton of what seemed like random chords thrown together. Every
line was similar to the last, but not quite [the same]. I took that
piece of paper to the session the next day. I ran my Telecaster straight
into the board, they put on the track, and I just read it straight off
the chart—solo break and all. I had no idea what I was doing or what
it was sounding like, but there it was."
American Beauty was issued in November, a mere six months after
the release of Workingman’s Dead, and by Christmas it had reached Billboard’s Top 30. In honor of the Dead’s double dose of success, Rolling Stone named the band Artist of the Year in its year-end
issue.
Acoustic Reawakening
In early 1972, Garcia, still very much in a Martin mood, issued a solo
single, "Sugaree," whose prominent acoustic rhythm and Leslie electric
lead were in keeping with the spirit of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. A short time later, he appeared as a banjo picker
in the bluegrass one-off Old and in the Way with David Grisman
on mandolin, Peter Rowan on guitar, Vassar Clements on fiddle, and John
Kahn on bass. But with the exception of 1980’s live acoustic Reckoning, the Grateful Dead’s unplugged moments would be fewer and further between
as the years wore on.
"I know Bob didn’t really like the pressure of playing acoustic at
the time," says Jon Sievert. "It was a whole different game. It took
Grisman to come in and give Jerry the discipline to return to it years
later."
Garcia’s second acoustic awakening began during the summer of 1986—as
part of a prescribed recovery program after he recovered from a diabetic
coma. "When Jerry got out of the hospital, his doctors were telling
us that in order to recover properly he needed to hear old, familiar
things," says Nelson. "So Mountain Girl [Carolyn Garcia, Jerry’s second
wife] called me and asked if I could get together a bunch of the old
tunes from our bluegrass days. I got a box of tapes together that we
used to listen to, Stanley Brothers and stuff like that, and brought
it by. Shortly after that, Sandy Rothman and I brought our acoustics
along to this big Thanksgiving dinner they were having for Jerry and
started playing a bunch of the old repertoire. By then, Jerry knew more
of the lyrics to the songs than we did! Long murder ballads with tons
of verses—he just nailed them. It was uncanny."
Eventually the trio went public with a series of live performances
(including several on Broadway, of all places), later documented on
the 1988 release Almost Acoustic. "By then, Garcia was completely
off vintage instruments and was using this Takamine—which explains the
‘almost’ bit," Nelson says with a laugh. "It had a pickup, and he ran
it into this little Gallien-Krueger amp."
With longtime friend David Grisman, Garcia continued in an acoustic
vein, highlighted by 1992’s successful Jerry Garcia/David Grisman.
"We decided to get back together and work on some music, and he just
happened to leave his electric at home," says Grisman, whose 30-year
relationship with Garcia is documented in the recent film Grateful
Dawg. "Still, he was using these extra-light strings that sounded
like rubber bands, practically," Grisman recalls. "And during those
first few sessions, he really wanted to record using the pickup. I would
just erase the track immediately afterward! But I kept nudging him toward
a more natural sound, and eventually I was able to make him go up a
string gauge. During one show I even got him to briefly use his D-28
with a mic. Now that was a real victory."
Not Fade Away
For many Deadheads (especially those born too late), following the
Grateful Dead was first and foremost a sociological experience, a chance
to take in a way of life that had long since vanished. For those of
us who didn’t tour, twirl, or turn on, the Dead spoke in purely musical
terms—and with Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, the band provided us with a musical treasure chest as great as any in
the modern era. "They’re one work, really," says drummer Mickey Hart
of the two seminal recordings. "We just had to split them up. But in
a way, they’re twin sisters."
 Excerpted
from Acoustic
Guitar magazine, March 2002, No. 111. |
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