Workingman's Dead [Import]

Grateful Dead | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Warner Bros UK
• ASIN: B000002KB6
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,209 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy wind, blowin cross the bayou today......., November 5, 2001

By 

Archmaker (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Workingman's Dead (Audio CD)

We came into the Dead concert and knew something was up when Jerry Garcia sat down behind a peddle-steel guitar. Instead of the rambling, hit or miss, acid-soaked freeform type of Dead concert we were accustomed to, we heard tightly structured songs, played tightly with economy and clarity. Instead of pyschedelia we were getting blues and country-tinged folk music, albeit played electric with double drummers. It was a new incarnation of the Dead which was to become the Workingman's Dead & American Beauty. It was a surprise.

It still is surprising to listen to this album, especially for those who only know the aura & reputation of the Haight-Ashbury hippie Grateful Dead. Erase that image, and you realize you are listening to quintessential American music, with roots ranging from Appalachian folk to Cajun Bayou to the Oakie dirt farm and the fieldhand's campfire. And it rocks.

This is simply a fine and Classic album. There isn't a wasted song in the bunch, with great music matching Robert Hunter's terrific lyrics. The guitar leads trade with each other over Phil Lesh's restless bass and the rhythms laid down by Kreutzman and Hart, complex and syncopated and kick-ay. And I love Pig Pen on Easy Wind, wailing, hoppin, bluesy and ballsy. It's one of those albums solid from start to finish.

This is great American music played by an American band. It's feet are planted firmly where its title indicates, in the life and music of the workingman. It is timeless.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars absolute gold, September 3, 2000

By 

Clint Sidle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Workingman's Dead (Audio CD)

the pre-cursor to the all time dead classic, american beauty, workingman's dead is just as good. featuring such deadhead staples as uncle john's band, cumberland blues and casey jones, this disc is pure gold. with other great songs as black peter, pigpen's easy wind and the story of the altamont disaster, new speedway boogie. all the songs on this album are incredible with the bouncy and very musical uncle john's band to the heart wrenching high time and everything in between, this album cannot be passed up, a great pair with american beauty, this should be in every deadheads collection. an amazing experience!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please Don't Dominate The Rap Jack, December 12, 2000

By 

"marleyscott" (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Workingman's Dead (Audio CD)

"Please don't dominate the rap Jack, if you've got nothing new to say". Heeding the advise of long-time dead lyrisist, Robert Hunter, I'll try to be brief and to the point. This is the album that converted many a skeptic, myself included into diehard Dead-Heads. From the sublime harmonies of Uncle John's Band to the rollicking good humor of Cumberland Blues the Dead cover all the bases. Here is where they clearly turned the corner from psychedelic jugband to America's foremost cult phenomenon. What truly makes Workingman's Dead a classic is the way each song segues into the next, forming a seamless thematic path-quilt, paying homage to America's workingman. Finally, there is the masterful cover art by Kelly Mouse. Those marvelous ink drawings on the back cover stare out through the ages, giving further testament to this masterpiece.