Grateful Dead's Workingman's Dead by Buzz Poole
- Jim Cotter
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Published 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing
These songs, when heard and understood as a unified narrative arc, serve as the band's acceptance of having created a self-sustaining musical microcosm that financially supported their crew and in less tangible, but no less meaningful, ways became a touchstone for their fans to emotionally support themselves.
Those familiar with the 33 1/3 series of pocket-sized books (numbering over 200), each about a specific album, might've noticed that they vary widely in style and approach. Some authors examine the songwriting and recording minutiae in forensic detail, while others take a more memoiristic approach, waxing on about how such-and-such an album rescued them from their desperate teenage doldrums. Buzz Poole, writing about the Grateful Dead's seminal Americana downshift Workingman's Dead, manages to include a good deal of information regarding the writing and recording of the album, as well as a dash of autobiography. He's most interested, however, in placing the band and album in the cultural context of its '69/'70 germination and creation, as well as tying the songs' themes to the external and internal upheavals the band experienced throughout its history. It's a creative and ambitious approach, a bit academic at times, but always rewarding.
After a couple of introductory chapters to catch the reader up with the Dead's pre-Workingman's history -- as well as Poole's (his first show, 6/5/93 at Giants Stadium) -- the remaining chapters use each of the album's eight songs as a jumping-off point to explore themes suggested by the lyrics. So "Uncle John's Band" digs into the Dead's relationship with its fans, "High Time" discusses the downside of their success, "New Speedway Boogie" delves into Altamont and its aftermath, "Casey Jones" covers the drug angle, and the miner's lament "Cumberland Blues" chronicles the band's evolving business model, which famously tethered them to a heavy touring schedule in order to fund their gargantuan operation. As Poole puts it: "The band went from being the workers to becoming the mine from which others benefitted."
The author has done his homework, having interviewed, among others, album co-producers Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor-Jackson, as well as cover illustrator Stanley Mouse. Voluminous footnotes include references to over a dozen GD books, most often citing Dennis "Scrib" McNally's A Long Strange Trip, which Poole calls "the best book about the Dead" -- no argument here.
Many intriguing detours are taken throughout the book, and I found it handy to have the internet nearby for further exploration. I visited Wikipedia to read more about Nixon's bizarre pre-dawn visit with protesters at the Lincoln Monument in May 1970, as well as the shameful Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster that took place in the '30s. I know a thing or two about modern art, but I wasn't familiar with American painter Charles Burchfield (1893–1967). He certainly means a lot to Poole, who uses the "Black Peter" chapter to find parallels between Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's masterful deathbed ballad and a Burchfield painting called "Garden of Memories." Some readers might think the connection between the song and painting is a bit tenuous, but it helps to approach this with an open mind. In any case, Poole also retells the harrowing genesis of the song's lyrics, wherein Hunter inadvertently takes an extremely high dosage of LSD, and hallucinates his death several times over. Good stuff.
"Easy Wind" is the only song on the album neither sung nor co-written by Garcia. Hunter wrote it for Ron "Pigpen" McKernan to sing, and this chapter appropriately focuses on the Dead's original frontman. A highlight is the inclusion of a tender prose poem written by 16-year old Ron entitled (or addressed to) "Kathy." It begins: "She makes me feel so warm in the cold, November motorcycle afternoon when she asks me what's wrong..." Seek it out -- it may pull on your heartstrings.
It's nuggets like this that most appeal to me. The book slows down when Poole makes heavy, what-it-all-means proclamations about the songs, the band, the fans, life. These long-winded pontifications are scattered throughout the book. About "Uncle John's Band," he writes "the song identifies an arduous but potentially fulfilling odyssey that we are all a part of but can only navigate by the compass of our individual wit and endurance." Nothing wrong with that interpretation -- it just doesn't do much to enhance my enjoyment or understanding of the song.
For the most part, Poole focuses more on the lyrics than the music. As an example, Poole states early on that "for this album, they relied heavily on the Bakersfield sound," then provides a brief description of the guitar-driven California country sound that Buck Owens and Merle Haggard made famous. I expected a deeper dive into this connection later in the book, but the Bakersfield sound is barely mentioned again. If a reader wants help connecting those dots, they'll have to go elsewhere. (Which I did: Compare the first few bars of "Cumberland Blues" to Merle's 1969 hit "Workin' Man Blues" for the most blatant homage. And perhaps his song influenced the album's title.)
Of course, a 130-page book is unlikely to include every tidbit my little heart desires. Overall, this is an engaging, thought-provoking read. Did I occasionally find myself engaging in a silent, one-way debate with its postulations? Sure, and that only proves my point. I don't need to agree with every interpretation, or grab onto every profundity that Poole presents. Between those silent debates, I found this book chock-full of valuable information and insights that deepened my appreciation of this monumental album, created by a band just hitting its prime, during a tumultuous era that continues to fascinate all these years later.
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