Album Challenge - 1970 pt. 4 - Dead Heads

Another Album Challenge from 1970 and this time it's the Grateful Dead. They released two albums in 1970 and they both influenced my taste in music. There really was something special about Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. Their previous three albums were pure psychedelia experimentation but these two were an amazing introduction to country flavored Americana. They sounded great and I heard those albums a lot while cruising around the world. So many wonderful classic songs. I would buy both vinyl albums shortly after getting out of the Navy. Then a little later I would get Skull & Roses, The Wake of the Flood and Blues for Allah but that would be it for many years.

The first time I saw the Grateful Dead perform was at the Electric Factory in 1968 along with the Amboy Dukes. Later that year I saw the Dead again at the Quaker City Rock Festival along with Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Sly & The Family Stone. I saw them one more time at the Electric Factory in 1969 in a San Francisco Jam along with Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Moby Grape. Then in a park concert in Chicago in 1970. I would not see them again until 1973 along with The Allman Brothers and The Band at Watkins Glen. 

I was always weirdly fascinated by folks considered "deadheads". The people who traveled along with the band and attended so many of their shows. I didn't think it was particularly strange in the 70's but later on into the 1980's and beyond it was definitely odd in my perspective. Now I've always loved going to see live music and see different bands perform but to be so obsessed about one particular band who spent so many hours noodling long seemingly incoherent jams was very strange. I saw them a bunch of times in their early years but never understood the "deadhead" thing including the whole sub-culture of collecting fan recordings of the band. Then there were the bars in the 80's that specialized on playing Grateful Dead music and especially those fan concert tapes. There was that bar on Main Street near the UB South Campus that had a lot of Dead nights. All Dead all the time. 

When I worked spinning records at the Pastime Lounge on Grant Street near Buff State during the 80's I was often approached by deadheads wanting to have Grateful Dead music nights at the bar. They wanted to play all of the live music tapes they had collected. I would only play songs in the bar from these two 1970 albums and maybe occasionally from one or two other 70's albums. I never played any of their long live jams.

Much later in my music collecting days I did begin to get some of the live Dead albums that were coming out on CD including the Dick's Picks series. It did make for some nice background music around the house. 

I was reading up on some info about "deadheads" and came across a list of famous people who were deadheads in their youth. The list included Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Steve Bannon, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Steve Jobs, Andy Cohen, Al Gore, Tipper Gore, Al Franken, John Belushi, Harry Reid, Bill Walton and many many more.

Grateful Dead albums in my collection:

• Grateful Dead, 1967
• Anthem of the Sun, 1968
• Aoxomoxoa, 1969
• Live/Dead, 1969
• Workingman's Dead, 1970
• American Beauty, 1970
• Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses), 1971
• Europe '72, 1972
• Wake of the Flood, 1973
• Blues For Allah, 1973
• What A Long Strange Trip It's Been, 1977
• Grayfolded - Transitive Axis, 1995
• Dick's Picks Vol. 4 - Live at the Fillmore East 1970, 1996
• Dick's Picks Vol. 8 - Live at Harpur College NY 1970, 1997
• Grayfolded - Mirror Ashes, 2007
• Dick's Picks Vol. 28 - Live in Nebraska & Utah 1973, 2009
• Dick's Picks Vol. 30 - Live in NYC 1972, 2009
• Spring 1990 - So Glad You Made It, 2012
• Sunshine Daydream - Live in Oregon 1972, 2013
• 30 Trips Around The Sun: The Definitive Story 1965-1995, 2015
• Live at Cornell 1977, 2017