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Grateful Dead - the Most Overrated Band Ever?


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27 minutes ago, Priaptor said:

I was fortunate enough to see just about all of them, including Jefferson Airplane, Allman Brothers, Traffic, The Band, The Doors, Dylan (with and without the Band), etc.

 

Wow, I am envious (and my son would be also) with you having seen the ABB, especially if it was before Duane died.  Wow again.

 

Bill

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Another wow.  Great.  Anxious to tell my son you were at SUNY, we have the discs (basically everything from when he was alive).  Coltrane was his favorite having grown up with me, but Allman supplanted him when he began playing (Les Paul of course).

 

And agree.  Never the same after.

 

He found another live recording of Blue Sky from The Warehouse; listened to it every day, several times, for months.  Extended Duane solo, just fantastic.  Sound quality no good (don't care):

 

 

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Not bad.  I have never heard anything by them that really grabbed me.  I am tempted to say it leans toward noodling, but I think it hangs together.  Hard for me not to think it would seem even more profound with some mushrooms or something.

 

Not sure it rises to "The Finest Rock Improvisation Ever Recorded," but that's ok.

 

I also realized that something that has always pushed me away from them is the voice of the vocalist.

 

Thanks for that,

 

Bill

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Yes, interesting video.....I could have been one of the 4 year-olds climbing on the stage supports.  Perhaps the video shows all we need to understand the music and the "scene" (not necessarily just the topless/nude ladies and the naked dude).  If I had gone to the state fair and heard/seen that I would have enjoyed it- the music fits the setting and the scene would allow for some interesting people-watching.  I certainly wouldn't have been blown away (by the music in total, the musicianship is top-notch) or become a dead head.  That's ok.

 

And @sphinxsix, your post above is good.  I too think we can discuss these things without it becoming argumentative.  I think one of the key components is to use "in my opinion," "I think," etc.  And I used the word "noodling" just because it is so descriptive to me.  I couldn't come up with a different, less pejorative word or phrase to convey it.  I actually would be pleased/hoped to get input that supported or argued against that opinion- @bluesman :)

 

"At the same time - for me the opposite is also true - it's meaningless how great a guy/band making music is, how fantastic on social or any other level his fans are and how great atmosphere both the band and the audience create during live shows - if the music isn't fully convincing for me - just forget it, I'm simply not interested."   Amen.

 

An interesting, though perhaps not unexpected comment on Country music.  I don't know where you are from, but suspect there is a folksong tradition that is analogous, that speaks to a population in an archetypal (or something) way.  Modern radio country by and large sucks (I'll say "in my opinion" to follow my rule), but there is good country also.  Something that catches the ear from a genre that came from Irish folk music to Bluegrass to Country. I have lots of "guilty pleasures" there.  If you are ever in Texas, look me up, we can go sit outside on a warm day (ok, hot), eat BBQ (or crawfish if they are in season), drink cold beer, and listen to country music.  If you have your best girl with you we can get you up to speed with the Texas two-step (and if you don't have one there all always lots of lovely Texas ladies that love to dance). :)

 

Would be a cultural experience, anyway!

 

Not my favorite song, but it shows the lineage to which I referred.  And if you don't know Jerry Douglas on the dobro check him out!

 

Bill

 

 

 

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Thank you @bluesman, just what I was after.  Nothing at all to do with "most overrated," but only the musical aspects of the discussed performers.  I respect and like to read your comments in this regard and was wondering if "noodling" applied here.

 

I agree too with the tendency to phrases, tools that you hear in improvising musicians.  Certainly understandable, though I continue to think that I have never heard Buddy Guy play a cliche' (!) (seems almost impossible in the blues).

 

And your comments re. Jerry Douglas. Amen, amen, amen in just the way you describe.

 

And @sphinxsix, Austin it would be.  Though I am not sure of the status of Antone's (Antone was fairly shady), where he cut his teeth, listened to some of the greats and began sitting in.  Though he was born and raised in Dallas.  There is a nice statue of SRV on the river.

 

I so wish I had seen him before he died, but alas.  I did see Buddy Guy in Austin in a small club right after he burst back on to the (wider) scene with Damn Right I've Got The Blues.

 

And I have been mentally combing my country collection (and listening this morning on my way to the office) so will hit you with a ridiculous list when I can sneak some time. :)

 

I was worried this morning that I am a habitual "deviating from the thread topic" dude, but realized it is your thread so felt less guilty. :)

 

Bill

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@bluesman, you remain a font of musical knowledge.  I suspect you are right about Antone.  I don't have detailed knowledge of any of it, just (probably naive) things I heard in the 80s when young (and I tend to like those eccentric cats in the music business, see Twiggs Lyndon Jr with The Allman Brothers- well maybe that isn't a great example).  I had heard the club was on the rocks at some point, nice if it is still around.

 

It is interesting to read how he emerged out of Jimmy's shadow while still in Dallas, Jimmy considered "the best around" at that time.

 

Isn't Antones where he heard and sat in with Albert King?  I hear a lot of Albert King in his playing (though of course he found his own voice).

 

Bill

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Oh, and thanks for the recs

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14 hours ago, JoshM said:

As a teen and into my 20s, I associated the Dead with old hippies and endless noodling. However, once I listened to American Beauty, I started to “get” the Dead. That initial inroads quickly expanded. Now I’ve watched Long Strange Trip dozens of times, read six or seven books on them, own nearly their entire catalog (live stuff included).

 

Nice post, @JoshM, always nice to explore artists and find something that strikes a chord.  I downloaded American Beauty and Workingman's dead perhaps a year ago to make sure I wasn't missing anything (I can't stream in the boonies- no cable let alone Chris' fiber!  Don't like satellite. We used smartphones as hotspots with a patch antenna pointed at the closest tower- now that the leaves are coming back we are going back into the season of less reception- until one of the DSL lines in our region became available a few months ago :) ).  

 

They didn't "take," but I just started playing American Beauty and will keep it going when I resume working on our deck in a bit, resisting my typical Classic R&B work music :).

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Great stuff re. Miles.  Reminded me of my second year of graduate school when I heard the news of his death and grieved.  Still comes out now.  I am jealous of @Jud in this regard, though I hadn't been terribly interested in his later years' output and didn't seek him out.  A mistake..

 

The autobiography that @bluesman noted is highly, highly recommended.

 

Re. substance use, oy.  From 1949-1954 it was heroin and he dropped completely out of sight.  Behavior was terrible, even did some pimping.  He went cold turkey at his father's house, locking himself in an upstairs room.  The Prestige label gave him a chance, thus his output on that label (concluding with Walkin', Workin', Steaming, Relaxing, Cookin', all recorded in a couple of days to fulfill his contract so that he could "step up" to Columbia).

 

In the late 70s before his return in the early 80s I think it was cocaine.

 

Re. technique, I too think he was decent, not great.  Doesn't matter; what he said speaks directly to my soul.  Also, he was tolerant of "mistakes" in his recordings, what he had to say more important to him.  This contrasts with Dizzy who I think was a virtuoso, but I don't enjoy listening to him nearly as much. 

 

When Miles joined Charlie Parker (talk about a virtuoso!!) and began recording on the Savoy label, you can hear his youth, "finding his way," searching for his voice.  He was in the studio playing with Parker in the session in which "Ko-Ko" was recorded, a bellwether tune in the history of jazz.  Dizzy played piano.  My impression is that Dizzy played on this track as the trumpet part was beyond Miles' technique.  Though I have read some counter opinions I still think it is unmistakably Dizzy.

 

If you have never heard "Koko" please check it out.  Essential for anyone interested in jazz and its history.  There was a nice story on it that gives a nice synopsis on NPR that is very worthwhile:

 

https://www.npr.org/2000/08/27/1081208/-i-ko-ko-i

 

Finally, a last idea that I have always found interesting.  Miles was tough, brash, didn't take shit off of anybody, etc. but played the most tenderly beautiful music.  Coltrane instead was the most gentle soul (my son says he was "an angel sent down to us'"), but suffered a reputation as sounding "angry," an "angry tenor."  Once you get "inside" (as I describe it) his music, though, you hear and understand that it definitely wasn't the case.

 

Bill

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45 minutes ago, Jud said:

Doing a fine job of it, but in that moment, the contrast coming right after Miles made playing music seem kind of, well, boring.

 

I use of different word in my head when faced with this.  After delving deep into one of my classical listening phases or the most-important-to-me jazz phases, other music can feel to me "silly" for a time.  It passes, then I can enjoy my classic R&B, funk, etc. again. :)

 

Bill

 

P.S. Though I would have had to stay for Herbie :).  Though was this in his electric, I think more simple phase?  I suspect so.  You aren't that old :).

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Interesting, so maybe after Head Hunters and before V.S.O.P.

 

And Miles' "electric period."

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7 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Agree on that! Although it's difficult of course to call eg Agharta, Pangaea or Live in Tokyo 'tender' albums..

 

True(!), though I have to admit my favorites are from the Prestige and Columbia years up to when he started using electric instruments in the band.

 

8 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Definitely not based on 'Ballads' or the Hartman album..

Anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)

As for creative process itself AFAIK it often comes out of neurosis:

Does Neuroticism Breed Creativity? Study Says 'Yes'

 

Definitely.  When I (rarely) try and introduce someone to him, I start with Ballads, then, based on the response, progress very slowly.  I have to admit, though, that while he may be my #1, I can't get into/understand him post-1965.  With every other album aside the obviously accessible, my first reaction was "WTH is this."  Some phrase or something would grab me though, so I would re-listen, re-listen, then AHHH!

 

He died of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), I suspect from Hepatitis B he might have contracted when he was using IV in the mid-late 50s (I haven't seen anything official on this, just speculating).  Sometimes I wonder if liver disease was affecting his playing towards the end, but it may simply (perhaps probably) be that his liver hung in there until the "rug was pulled out from under him," this not uncommon if his liver was able to remain compensated despite some degree of cirrhosis before the cancer.

 

Nice links.

 

"Suffering for your art?"  Certainly not all, but many.

 

Bill

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Yes, it was still called that until the early 90s when identified and named (so couldn’t be detected in the blood supply before then, as of course you know). 
 

I was rounding with residents once who wanted to transfuse a post-partum patient. I reminded them of prior blood-borne illness disasters. “But we can test for those now.”  I explained that early in my training we thought we could test for everything also, that they didn’t know what they didn’t know. “What about a future hep G or H” I said. HHV-6 has been added to the list since then. 
 

I wonder about the epidemiologic data re. the incidence of B and C historically (though not knowing what it was would of course make it difficult). My impression of the incidence of Hep C is much higher than the number of cases who were previously diagnosed as Non-A/non-B, though of course we are looking for it more aggressively now (it was essentially all baby boomers, but the age where testing is recommended has come down, and of course people transfused before identification and IV drug abusers). 
 

The new treatments for hepatitis C are astoundingly good, and I am cynical on “revolutions” in medicine. So far everyone I have been involved in the care of, regardless of disease stage has sustained undetectable viral loads. 
 

I was just about to note that this thread has wandered, now catapulted off-topic, then chuckled to myself that maybe it isn’t......

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