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The Grateful Dead released two albums in 1970 — “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty” — that changed the band’s trajectory forever.
“These are the two albums that eventually really established the Grateful Dead for the long haul,” says Dennis McNally, the band’s official historian.
After releasing a trio of studio albums — “The Grateful Dead” (1967), “Anthem of the Sun” (1968) and “Aoxomoxoa” (1969) — that failed to meet commercial expectations or broaden the Bay Area band’s appeal beyond a niche audience, the Dead’s fourth and fifth studio efforts garnered radio play across the country. It established the group as a national touring act, improved its financial outlook and delivered the heart of a songbook that would, as much as anything else, secure the band’s substantial place in rock ‘n’ roll history.
“If they had stopped playing in late 1969, they would’ve been this aberrant, brilliant jazz-rock-fusion group that did some fascinating things,” McNally says. “But it’s what they did in the next year (that) locked them into being one of the cornerstones of American music.”
Half a century later, these twin titans from 1970 are regarded as outright classics — the band’s greatest achievements in the studio. Rolling Stone magazine included both on its famed list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, right up there with such revered offerings as R.E.M.’s “Automatic for the People,” Roxy Music’s “Avalon,” Aretha Franklin’s “Lady Soul” and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”
And they are big attractions to this day, as evidenced by the fact that the Rhino records label is releasing special 50th deluxe editions of both albums. (“Workingman’s Dead” comes first, on July 10, with “American Beauty” to follow likely in the fall. See dead.net for details.) Both albums can be streamed on such sites as Spotify and Amazon as well.
In honor of the milestone anniversary, we’re taking readers on a trip back to 1970 to retrace the steps of the Dead as they create these albums. Our tour guide for the occasion is McNally, who wrote what is, by far, the best book ever written on the band — “A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead” (2002).
‘Come hear Uncle John’s Band’
The story of the Dead’s magical 1970 starts in the spring of 1969, when lyricist Robert Hunter begins sharing a house in Larkspur with longtime pal Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead singer and lead guitarist.
Having already collaborated on several tunes together — including every track that would make it onto the Dead’s then-most recent studio outing, 1969’s “Aoxomoxoa” — the Hunter/Garcia songwriting team were looking to hone their craft even further, McNally says.
But they’d do so in a way that was quite different for the Grateful Dead at the time, abandoning the type of free-form, experimental anthems the band was known for in the late ‘60s, and instead pursuing a more lyric-focused, acoustic-driven country sound that was influenced by the Byrds and The Band, as well as Hunter and Garcia’s own shared background.
“They went back to their old roots, which was the folk/bluegrass scene of the early ‘60s that they both were part of in Palo Alto,” McNally says.
The result of those efforts would propel the Grateful Dead into the old Pacific High Recording studios on Brady Street in San Francisco in February 1970, hoping to finally create a spare and direct studio album that would ease some of the band’s financial burden.
“They had signed a contract with Warner Bros. that allowed them unlimited recordings — which was insane on Warner Bros.’ part,” McNally says. “Because they had now made three (studio) records — none of which had sold particularly widely. They owed about a quarter of million dollars in recording costs, which in 1970 was a lot of money.
“They knew that (Warner Bros. executive) Joe Smith was going to get a gun and come to San Francisco and shoot them if they tried to do another triple experimental album.”
While the psychedelic freak fests of “Anthem of the Sun” and “Aoxomoxoa” would each take several months to record, the Dead knocked out the more straight-ahead “Workingman’s Dead” in about three weeks.
“They simply couldn’t afford to get elaborate,” McNally says. “But more importantly, really, that’s not what the music called for. What they were after — sound-wise, approach-wise — was Buck Owens and the Bakersfield sound.”
The result, McNally says, was sort of plain and simple, but it also contained “some of the best songs ever.”
It would also make one particular record exec very happy.
“They send the tape to Joe Smith,” McNally says. “He puts the cassette on thinking, ‘Oh, God, yet another cosmic masterpiece.’ And then he hears ‘Uncle John’s Band’ and he literally ran the length of the corridor of Warner Bros. in Burbank screaming, ‘Oh, my God, the Grateful Dead have made a record album!’”
Smith wasn’t the only one thrilled with the result.
“’Workingman’s Dead comes out June 14, 1970 and has this immediate impact because it starts getting played on the radio,” McNally says.
‘Just keep truckin’ on’
“In ’69, they could make money in exactly two places in the entire United States,” McNally says. “They could make money in San Francisco and they could make money at the Fillmore East, which had opened in ’68 in New York.
“They could not tour widely because their records weren’t played anywhere and then, as now, if nobody has ever heard of you, you’re not going to get any offers from promoters.”
All of that changed once FM radio stations began spinning “Workingman’s Dead” — in particular, the tracks “Uncle John’s Band” and “Casey Jones” — and introducing the Grateful Dead to fresh ears across the country. The number of Dead fans began to skyrocket, making it possible for the group to route nationwide tours.
“That’s when they started becoming the Grateful Dead that could play everywhere,” McNally says. “Eventually, of course, we got to the point where we had to play three nights everywhere because the demand was so intense that you simply had to play more than one night.”
But not everyone in the Grateful Dead camp was focused on new touring opportunities.
“While all this is going on, of course, Hunter is still living in Larkspur and he is still writing songs like bananas,” McNally says.
Hunter and Garcia penned a new batch of tunes in the spring of ’70, but finding time to record them was going to be tough because the Dead had signed on to appear on the late-summer Medicine Ball Caravan tour, where bands would travel around the country, living in teepees and playing music for fans along the way. B.B. King, Alice Cooper and Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw were among the acts that took part.
A documentary film would be made about the whole shebang. McNally imagines the original pitch went something along the lines of: “Yeah, it will be Woodstock on wheels!”
The only problem? “There’s nobody in the Grateful Dead who wants to sleep in a teepee,” McNally says. So, the band dropped off the Caravan at the last minute.
“Now, this creates an interesting situation,” McNally says. “Suddenly, they’ve got two weeks of vacation that they didn’t plan on — that is to say, no dates, no gigs booked. And they say, ‘All right, we’ve got all this material and it’s good — let’s record it.’”
‘Ripple in still water’
As summer was winding down, the band ventured into Wally Heider Studios — on Hyde Street, across the street from where the legendary Black Hawk jazz club once operated — and began work on this new batch of mostly Hunter-Garcia material.
Opened in 1969, Heider’s quickly became a recording hotspot for Bay Area acts and other musicians. By the time the Dead came through its doors in August of 1970, Heider’s had already hosted Creedence Clearwater Revival, Neil Young, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Santana and other notable artists.
It was “the first really professional, high quality studio in San Francisco,” according to McNally, and the Dead was finally ready to use all of that technology to the musicians’ full advantage.
“Their first album was rushed and sort of basic and a little bit funky and creaky, with some good playing on it,” McNally says. “And the second one is this total experimentation — which is brilliant — but they weren’t quite on top of it enough to make it as great as it could have been. And ‘Aoxomoxoa’ was their first 16-track album, where they learned how to really work with 16-track in the studio.
“Now, they get to ‘American Beauty’ and they really know what they are doing in the studio.”
That know-how, combined with high quality studio equipment, translated to a lushness of vocals, a certain sheen to the production, that was certainly missing on “Workingman’s Dead.”
Plus, the album was just loaded with songs that would become undeniable classics.
“Seriously, ‘Friend of the Devil,’ ‘Sugar Magnolia,’ ‘Ripple,’ ‘Brokedown Palace,’ ‘Attics of My Life’ and ‘Truckin’’ are all on this album,” McNally says. “Bruce Hornsby said that Grateful Dead songs were hymns. They are part of the American songbook. And that started with ‘Workingman’s Dead’ — ‘Uncle John’s Band’ — and the material on ‘American Beauty.’”
Both the albums were commercial hits, becoming the band’s first two studio efforts to achieve gold and platinum certifications. But their impact on the band went way beyond that.
“They started out in 1965, like every other band that ever was, as a cover band,” McNally says. “Then, for a while in ’66, they are a blues band. From ’67 to ’69, they are an experimental jazz-rock-fusion band that can play 45 minutes and not sing a verse. If they would have stayed with that, they would not have had the impact they did — because the American public wants to hear songs.”
And that’s what it would get with “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty.”
“What happened with these two albums, they became what Jerry called a ‘full range’ (band),” McNally says. “By the end of 1970, they’ve got these long jazz-rock fusions, they’ve got country songs, they’ve got rock ’n’ roll songs.
“They play it all — and they play it all in one night. So, it isn’t all one thing, it’s many things — full range.”
