GRATEFUL DEAD ‘Workingman’s Dead’ 50th Anniv Dlx Ed (3CD) *FINALLY ARRIVED!!

$55.00 Inc GST

Available on backorder

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Description

 

On June 14, 1970, the Grateful Dead released Workingman’s Dead, an album that was unlike anything they’d ever done, one that showed the world a new side of the Dead. It was clearly the same band as before, but now with a distinctly different sound and approach to the music, pivoting from psychedelic improvisation to folk-rock storytelling for the “everyman,” as the album’s title suggests.

This three-CD 50th Anniversay set includes the original album with newly remastered sound, along with the band’s previously unreleased live performance from 1971 at the Capitol Theatre. The show featured a plethora of songs from both Workingman’s Dead and the band’s follow-up album, American Beauty, which was released in November 1970. Some highlights include Weir’s moving vocal take on “Me and Bobby McGee,” Pigpen’s whiskey-seasoned growl on “Easy Wind” and a stellar run through “Uncle John’s Band” to close out the show.

While the Dead’s first three studio albums appealed to many, the group didn’t yet have the mass breakthrough that would make the entire world take notice of this band of misfits from the Bay Area. Workingman’s Dead changed all that. With eight perfect songs – like “Casey Jones” and “High Time” – the album solidified the Jerry Garcia-Robert Hunter songwriting tandem as one of the best, and most important, songwriting collaborations in music history.  Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart recorded the album in about 10 days at Pacific High Recording Studio in San Francisco with Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor – the band’s live-sound engineers – as producers.

Fifty years on, every song on Workingman’s Dead sounds fresh, alive, and new.