The song makes reference to the group's January 31, 1970, drug bust for possession of marijuana in New Orleans. He wrote several other verses for the song but never seriously introduced them to the Dead.ĭeadheads cite this song as one of the frankest in the group's canon, its lyrics giving a bit of insight in the Dead's own world: "You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel/Get tired of travelin', you want to settle down." Hunter's actual design for the song was to keep writing stanzas to reflect various changes in the band.
The song's autobiographical, on-the-road quality comes from lyricist Robert Hunter spending several months on the road with the band. The American Beauty album peaked at Number 30 on the Billboard 200 chart and is one of the Dead's handful of million-sellers.
Until "Touch Of Grey" in 1987, "Truckin'" was the Grateful Dead's most successful single, peaking at Number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – vocals, keyboards A little voice inside said, "don't look back, you can never look back.Recorded: Spring and summer 1970 at Wally Heider Studios, San Francisco, California I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Tesla Model S. For the final shows, tickets are pricey, and sky box seats even pricier. There were surely fan casualties - psychedelic wipe outs from the band's endless tours.Īnd these days it takes more than a VW bus to follow them. Lead guitarist Garcia was a heroin addict, which contributed to his death in 1995. Four of their pianists died, two from drug or alcohol problems. crowd sourcing.īut excess is also baked into part of the group and its scene. It was subsequently a fairly regular part of the live repertoire. Now such things are called the sharing economy. Truckin was first performed by the Grateful Dead in August 1970 in an acoustic set.
#Truckin grateful dead full
The band was one of the first to hire an archivist and create a database of its vault full of shows. Originating in Harlem in the ‘20s but with tendrils stretching back into the murky era of minstrel shows, truckin’ was a move from Black dance culture. Dude, I'll trade you a soundboard of Cornell '77 for Boston Garden '93?Īnd a thriving economy of Deadheads selling and trading T-shirts, food and, yes, drugs followed the band everywhere. Truckin’ is a Grateful Dead classic with deep roots, autobiographical lyrics, and a history of big jams, an iconic album closer that provided a preview of what was to come. These recordings were then bartered like gold. Today Palo Alto is the well-heeled heart of Silicon Valley, where the digital revolution "disrupts" forms of traditional business.īusiness wise, the Dead did things that didn't yet have a name but are now embedded in the digital economy: The band famously let fans record all of their live shows. It's apt, perhaps, that the band got together in the back of a music store in what was then the sleepy city of Palo Alto, California, south of San Francisco. And sometimes we come up with catfish and sometimes we come up with trout." Psychedelic ramblings.īut when it worked, the band took improvisational exploration to Coltrane-esque heights with joy and fervor.Īs founding member Bob Weir said of the live shows, "It's pretty evident that what we're doing is going fishin'. That meant on bad nights they ran into musical brick walls or headed down self-indulgent highways. With their late guitarist Jerry Garcia's one-of-a-kind riffing, boldly melding mixolydian and blues scales, the band crafted its own genre. Library of Congress Read More Produced by. Musically, the Dead didn't just break the mold, they melted it with high heat and stirred it with touches of American jazz, blues, country, bluegrass and Cajun. Truckin by Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Robert Hunter appears on the Grateful Dead album, American Beauty (1970). The Dead, in their own hazy meandering way, disrupted both the musical and business norms of the industry. The Grateful Dead say fare three well with their final, sold out concerts at Soldier Field in Chicago. This weekend fans say goodbye to a rock band that embodies two quintessentially American traits: innovation and excess. Marc Pierce, 51, of Baker City, Ore., wears a Jerry Garcia T-shirt as he heads to the Grateful Dead concert at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
0 kommentar(er)
