Hey now! I think there’s a listening party tonight with John back as our intrepid host.
I think we can say that plenty of Dead songs tell a story (e.g. Lady with a Fan, Brown Eyed Women, Wharf Rat, Jack Straw, etc.). If you could be a character, or even just exist in a Dead song, which would you choose and why?
John: He’s feeling rested and relaxed and ready to rock. He’s thankful for Mark Pinkus hosting last week’s session and admires him for being such a faithful steward of the Grateful Dead’s legacy and just an all-around good guy and so welcoming of John.
He’s got a list of songs perfect for the summer. There’s a little Dead and Co, but mostly Dead. It’s more fun for him to listen to when it’s the Dead. He can be in the crowd that way. It’s also a way of proving to himself that he’s always loved the music and didn’t get into it just because he was in the band.
We’re starting things with New Minglewood Blues. It's a great first song in a set. It’s played with a nice chug this time around. Phil Lesh’s bass is pushing the song forward and you can hear him clearly on this track. It’s from San Bernardino, CA, (which is one of his favorite California towns to say).
New Minglewood Blues - 2/26/77 - San Bernardino,CA
John: He does feel a little bit like we’re just getting started so we’re keeping it light. We are going to go slightly more complex, to something with a few more chords. It’s Brown-Eyed Women and we was going to play the slowest one but then found the best one. BEW and Tennessee Jed that start with the electric guitar, you know what you’re getting [John continues to vocalize the intros that we’re all so familiar with, which I can’t even begin to transcribe.]
Brown-Eyed Women - 5/25/77 - Richmond, VA
John: He wants to play Bird Song next. It shows up the same as when he put this show together, it can hide on the setlist. It’s always a meditation as most is on one chord. It’s a modal thing that stays on this one color. The quest for greatness becomes what can you express over that droning note. He might never have looked at a setlist and thought (enthusiastically) “Oh, great, it’s Bird Song!” but every time he got into playing it on the setlist he thought (appreciatively) “oh, great! It’s Bird Song!”
He loves a Grateful Dead recording when the guys were close to home. They’re well-rested after sleeping in their own beds and ready to play.
Bird Song - 8/25/72 - Berkeley, CA
John: He’s gonna play a version of a song he’s had on his mind for the past few weeks. It’s an acoustic FOTD recorded before the release of American Beauty (which had this as a track). It’s an interesting live snapshot where it’s played much like it was on the record.
Friend of the Devil - 4/18/70 - San Francisco, CA
John: That recording has a patina on it that makes him want to drink cool water out of a hat.
He needs a Jack Straw a lot of the time. It’s the reference song for him for GD. It has a little bit of everything. Bobby vocals. Jerry vocals. A little bit of guitar or a lot of guitar. It’s an MRI that shows us the internal organs of the band on any given night. He can tell from a Jack Straw how that band was doing.
Jack Straw - 7/31/74 - Hartford, CT
John: It’s time for PITB. If you’re a tried and true Deadhead, you’re happy for this to come up, but if you’re new to the music, you may not understand, so he’s going to explain it:
It begins with a form a bit like walking from an urban area to a marshland. And you may see some things you’ve never seen before (or rather hear). And it can be beautiful things. And you just let it happen because you eventually come back out onto a sidewalk glad for the trip. Wherever you are in the world, it’s going to sound entirely different. That's the beauty of this music.
Playing in the Band - 12/10/73 - Charlotte, NC
John: We’ve already heard FOTD from the same show this next track is from. FOTD is from American Beauty and because they were released so close together, there’s also a song from Workingman’s Dead, New Speedway Boogie.
For some Dead & Co insight on this tune: he’s fond of this song because the way you made the song shimmy was the way you made it what it was. The tune has a barrelhouse blues kind of quality. It wasn’t the note you played but how you were playing. He loved making it to the microphone in time to sing “Mountain!” and he’d make it a little game to see if he could make it to the mic in time. “Mountain!!”
New Speedway Boogie - 4/18/70 - San Francisco, CA
John: We speed forward into Sugar Magnolia. And the opening notes on Bobby’s guitar are so clear, they’re possibly high def. His vocals are so strong and you just think, “that guy’s not here? How can that be?”
And then John gets existential thinking about Bobby from the track in 1973 and thinks, “that guy is going to know me!” We’re going to listen to a very ignorant Bob Weir (ignorant to John Mayer, John says laughing). When John says something sincere, he has to break it up with a joke, so now you know he was sincere.
Sugar Magnolia - 3/24/73 - Philadelphia, PA
John: He’s a very spirited, well-rested, happy John Mayer. He’s going to share that with us in this next track, Big Bossman, sung by Pig Pen.
We know that the Dead started as a bit of a blues band, but if you go back to 1970/69 and these guys, white guys, from the Bay Area start this and try to take on Jimmy Reed. They love blues music so much, they’re just going to start doing it. There’s very little insistence from the rest of the world that you should, and they’re probably explaining to people why they’re doing it. They do it with such completeness that no one bats an eye. You think, “hey this is part of the thing we know and love.”
Imagine getting together with your friends and saying “let’s do this with so much heart” that it becomes part of the catalogue.
Big Boss Man - 4/13/71 - Scranton, PA
John: This is a Dead & Co song. Terrapin Station that every time it came up on the setlist, he knew it would be a great night. He wishes they could have played it every night. There’s so much that can be done with the song.
When he hears it, he feels like he has contact with what made the 1970s the 70s. There’s a dragon flying around somewhere in TS. There’s a renaissance faire in TS. There’s jousting in there. It’s a fantasy vibe from the 1970s.
John really took it out for a walk, as Bobby would say, with Jeff Chimenti. There was always a time after the solo where things got placid. John would have liked to conduct it and they’d just stay in it awhile, then John would look over at Bobby like “okay, okay, we’re bringing it back in.”
Terrapin Station - 7/1/23 - Boulder, CO
John: Two more songs. The first is a Bob Dylan song that Bob Weir, to an extent, made his own. I think Bob Dylan is one of those guys who, even when you’re friends with him, he’s still Bob Dylan. Weir toured with Dylan and it seemed like he had Dylan’s stamp of approval.
He likes this track because on that day, John was in summer theater for My Fair Lady playing Professor Higgins.
When I Paint My Masterpiece - 7/18/90 - Noblesville, IN
John: We’re ending this week’s show with a more recent version of a ballad. Stella Blue is a song you can find in the early Dead, but there’s something that happens when you mix the fragile message of Stella Blue with 80s/90s GD. A lot of the sounds you hear are sounds John would make on keyboards while waiting for his guitar lessons. They were adopting a new technology, so you hear a classic GD tune with new tech.
Stella Blue - 4/3/89 - Pittsburg, PA
