For thirty years the Grateful Dead were the musical equivalent of a fun-house mirror. Every listener found something different, and what they found usually had more to do with who they were than with anything the band was doing. In part, that's because the band was rarely doing the same thing twice. Their revolving set lists were part of that, as were the changing lineups (the Dead's keyboard chair was a real life version of the Spinal Tap drummer's throne) and the inevitable changes that occur when an act achieves the longevity of the Grateful Dead.

For some of us, the Dead will always be Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's band. Pigpen's haunted R&B howls grounded the sound in a way no one would again after his death in 1973. There was always more than that, though, more than enough to keep the bus running for 22 more years until the death of Jerry Garcia shattered the band into competing camps. And the changes kept on coming. McKernan passed the keyboardist role to Tom Constanten from 1968-70. When Keith Godchaux took over the keyboard chores, his wife Donna came along, adding a female voice for a time. Brent Mydland brought his own style and voice when Keith died and Donna departed, to be succeeded in turn by Vince Welnick, whose arrival from the Tubes might have seemed unlikely, but turned out just fine.

There were changes in the percussion section, as well. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann was along from day one. Mickey Hart came aboard the bus in 1967 and got off for a time in 1971, rejoining the band in '75 and hanging in for the duration. While the lineups changed, and the set lists revolved, there was also an ongoing alteration in the composition of the audience. While the vision of longhaired, drug addled, tie-dyed twirly dancers has become the popular image of the Deadheads, by the time it was all over those folks were sharing space in the Phil zone or on Jerry's side with venerable gray beards who might be sharing a life long love with their kids, beer soaked frat boys who heard that those bare foot hippy girls were even better than the music and an ever expanding audience of music lovers who knew that a band that had shared the stage with guests as diverse as Bob Dylan and Ornette Coleman had something more going for them than any stereotype might reveal.

With all the changes, though, there must have been some common thread that kept it all together through all those years. Indeed there was. While the Dead set lists were in part noteworthy for the astonishing range of covers they performed over the years, and they seemed to be able to play anything by anybody, albeit in their own distinctive fashion, they amassed an equally astonishingly body of original material. Much of the best came from Garcia and his songwriting partner Robert Hunter, a musical partnership that dated back to their joint tenure in the Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers in 1962. There were also notable contributions from another team, guitarist Bob Weir and his lyrical compatriot John Perry Barlow. Everybody who ever passed through the band, though, made some contribution and got some well deserved credit, singly or in any number of combinations. The bottom line is that the Grateful Dead became one of the greatest acts in American popular music because they had some of the best material any act ever had to work with. Great songs make great performances.

Those songs are the focus of three new releases from Grateful Dead Records, and the reason I've been telling you all this. The CDs under consideration would be just as good without a thumbnail history of the Grateful Dead, but as an unabashed Deadhead (un-dreadlocked, too, but I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for that....) I can't resist telling the world that the boys in the band had a good deal more to offer than their legendary jams which have been variously described as mindless noodling and mind-expanding soundscapes. These were great songs, dammit, and here's the proof.

Exhibit A is Stolen Roses, a compilation produced by David Gans. Gans, a journalist, radio host of the nationally syndicated Grateful Dead Hour and an accomplished performer in his own right, might be the single most qualified person on the planet to take on such a project. In the process of producing his radio show and sharing stages with most of the best of the jamband progeny that the Dead spawned, has probably heard more covers of more Dead material than anyone. The idea behind Stolen Roses was to avoid the traditional "tribute album" route. Rather than commissioning a set of tracks from the usual suspects, he wanted to compile material that other artists had adopted on their own. It didn't work out exactly that way. He ultimately couldn't resist prompting the David Grisman Quintet to take on the legendary vehicle for so many legendary jams, "Dark Star." A request for a version of "Cream Puff War" from Widespread Panic, a song they had played in their own sets, came while they were in the studio, so they knocked off a new one rather than sending the live version. The Patti Smith Band's "Black Peter" was recorded impromptu on the night Garcia died and sat unreleased for half a decade, and Bob Dylan's "Friend Of The Devil" came on an audience tape filled with background noise that either provides atmosphere or interference, depending on who you talk to (there's that funhouse mirror again).

Whether it's an adaptation for the musical stage (the Cumberland Blues original cast version of "High Time"), acid-jazz from the NYC loft scene (Sex Mob's "Ripple"), or music for Pac-10 half time festivities in an alternate universe (the Stanford Marching Band's "Uncle John's Band"), the rest of the album is impressively diverse and generally satisfying. It's never more satisfying, though, than during the four or so minutes that the Persuasions sing "Black Muddy River." Producer Rip Rense had finished guiding the Pers through an album of Frank Zappa covers (Zappa had signed the acapella quintet to their first album deal in 1969) and suggested that a set of Dead covers might be a good follow up. A call to Gans resulted in "Black Muddy River" being submitted for the Stolen Roses project on spec. Gans bought the track and got to work selling Grateful Dead Records on the idea of a full album. He closed the deal, and with Rense and Persuasions lead singer Jerry Lawson, produced Might As Well: The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead.

Simply put, Stolen Roses is a neat album, full of interesting music, and something every Deadhead ought to hear. Might As Well is magnificent, and anyone who cares about music needs to own it. First of all, the Persuasions have been the finest acapella group in popular music for over thirty years and everything they do should be heard by a lot more people than anything they've done has been. Then, of course, there are the songs. This is how good these great songs can sound when tackled by great singers performing arrangements put together by people who really know and really love the music. Gans involvement can't be underestimated. Whether helping develop the set list, participating in producing and mixing the resulting tracks or making his contribution on guitar and vocals, his touch is everywhere here, but that touch is always light enough to make the whole thing first and foremost a Persuasions project.

Did I say guitar!?! Yep. And piano, dobro, mandolin and percussion. That's right, the Persuasions perform with instruments on Might As Well. Only occasionally, and with enough restraint that the players, including Gans, Peter Rowan, Eric Thompson, Pete Grant, Joe Craven, Andrew Chaikin and one actual member of the Grateful Dead, Vince Welnick, are just seasoning for the meat provided by the Pers voices. There are background voices, too. Female ones, from the Bay Area acapella quartet Mary Schmary, which add another flavor to the stew.

The tracks themselves come from the earliest days of the Dead and extend to material that the Dead played on stage but never had time to take into the studio themselves. While there's not a one that I wouldn't happily hear again and again (and this one is in constant rotation at my house), I have to confess my own partiality to "Ship Of Fools," with Persuasions' bassman Jimmy Hayes taking the lead in counterpoint to Welnick's gently emotional piano. This one should be available everyplace you go, but if it's not, get yourself over to www.trufun.com/persuasions/ immediately and get it.

While David Gans and the Persuasions were putting together one great collections of Dead songs in a style that no one might have expected, Danny Carnahan was assembling some of San Francisco's best Irish traditional players for a new band, Wake The Dead. Carnahan, who plays guitar, mandolin and fiddle, had found Grateful Dead melodies creeping into the medleys of Irish jigs, reels and airs that are the heart of any traditional session. That medley tradition is highly improvisational in character, and it's not a stretch to claim that Irish traditional music produced the world's first jam bands.

[Pictured: David Gans with Ramond Sanders of The Persuasions.]

Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter had strong roots in Bluegrass, another musical form with a strong debt to Celtic sounds, and perhaps it was thus inevitable that some of their best songs would blend perfectly with the Trad songbook. As the music on Wake The Dead proves, they do, inevitable or not. If you didn't know the songs, or hadn't read the credits, it would be easy get swept up in this music and imagine that some of the Garcia/Hunter material came from the pen of Turlough O'Carolan himself. Every segue works, and every track is beautiful. Since you probably can't be expected to listen to the Persuasions non-stop forever (although that wouldn't be the worse fate to face), you oughta snag this one, too.

This, then, is the living legacy of the Grateful Dead, great new performances of great songs. Dead songs live, and the lives of listeners everywhere are better for it.

Track Lists:

Stolen Roses: Cumberland Blues (Cache Valley Drifters) * High Time (Cumberland Blues Cast) * Brown Eyed Woman (The Pontiac Brothers) * Friend Of The Devil (Bob Dylan) * Ship Of Fools/Must Have Been The Roses (Elvis Costello) * Black Peter (Patti Smith Band) * Black Muddy River (The Persuasions) * Dark Star (David Grisman Quintet) * Ripple (Sex Mob) * The Golden Road (The Bobs) * Unbroken Chain (Joe Gallant & Illuminati) * Franklin's Tower (Wartime feat. Henry Rollins) * Pasta On The Mountain (Leftover Salmon) * Creampuff War (Widespread Panic) * Uncle John's Band (Stanford Marching Band)

Might As Well: Here Comes Sunshine * Might As Well * Lazy River Road * Loose Lucy * Ripple * Brokedown Palace * Liberty * Sugaree * Ship Of Fools * He's Gone * It Must Have Been The Roses * One More Saturday Night * Bertha * I Bid You Good Night * Black Muddy River

Wake The Dead: Banks of Lough Gowna/The Reunion/Friend Of The Devil * My Marianne/The Wheel * Christmas Eve/China Cat Sunflower/Bank Of Ireland/The Bear/Bertha/Cliffs Of Mostar * Lord Inchiquin/Sugaree * Coleman's Cross/Bird Song * Brigid Cruise/Black Muddy River * Touch Of Grey/Jack The Lad/Boys Of Malin/Trip To Windsor * Row Jimmy

© 2000 - Shaun Dale