tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post1531376028241293871..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: 1970: Workingman's Dead reviewsLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-78871500103185334532018-06-25T20:01:47.762-07:002018-06-25T20:01:47.762-07:00This collection of short reviews shows the collect...This collection of short reviews shows the collective surprise felt by critics who first heard Workingman's Dead at the time. Where had the real Grateful Dead gone? Was this a put-on? Were they finally going commercial? <br />Nonetheless the reviews are almost entirely positive, surprised by the quality of the songs and music. One review called the Dead "among the best [groups] that are influenced heavily by the country and blues idioms. The playing is clean, the tunes well constructed, the singing attractively free and easy." ("Record Previews," Asbury Park Press 10/11/70) <br />Most of these critics seem happy to bid farewell to the psychedelic Dead of yore (although one guy still hopes "the old Dead" will come back on the next record). As one review put it, "The Grateful Dead were ripping it up in the first psychedelic days of the long-lost sixties. Now they live on a ranch and play happy country-rock." <br /><br />There were many articles in 1970 about the increasing turn of rock musicians to country music, and some reviewers here note that the Dead have hopped on the bandwagon and "gone country." (Jahn says the Dead are simply "adapting their style to whatever is fashionable," and another critic says they're "readjusting for a broader audience.") There are some telling comparisons to CSN&Y and the Band, although most reviewers seem unaware of the Dead's early folk & blues roots. Other reviews accused them of imitating the Byrds, or picking up "the Nashville sound." <br /><br />Only one review mentions Robert Hunter, who was then unknown outside the credits of earlier Dead albums. The Sydney Morning Herald (in Australia) had one of the few reviews at the time recognizing that some of these songs were derived from older folk traditions, though it wasn't sure what to make of that: <br />"The Grateful Dead rework several traditional blues ideas for their LP... The album is peopled with the ghosts of John Henry, Casey Jones, and other legendary sons of the soil. If Jerry Garcia and his group did not play such superb guitar and harmonica, you would think that songs like 'Cumberland Blues' and 'Casey Jones' were intended as send-ups. It doesn't come out that way." (Gil Wahlquist, "On Record," 12/27/70)<br /><br />Many of these critics were Dead fans already - "incredible musicians," "always improving," "you can always expect something different."<br />Perhaps due to the compressed record-review format, hardly anyone mentions the Dead's current live shows, though several had seen them live. But the Dead had been playing these songs for many months, so the record wouldn't have been totally new to recent showgoers. Jahn mentions that the Dead are now playing with the New Riders, "an abbreviated version of the Dead" (at that point many people didn't see them as a separate group).<br /><br />I'd hoped to find more negative reviews, but here only Hilburn has a complaint that would become more frequent in later years: that the Dead's music was boring and unemotional. Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com