Thursday, April 29, 2010

H.L. Mencken Was Right

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people... or, it would seem, the book-purchasing public.

Alphascript Publishing sells free articles as expensive books

I'd get mad if I could stop laughing.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Notes On Cornell (Grateful Dead - 5/8/77)

Well, it's happened again.

About every 4 - 5 years I get on a kick where I am intensely into the Grateful Dead for about 6 months, to the point where I want to listen to little or nothing else. I don't know why this always happens to me with the Dead; I go through similar phases with the Stones and AC/DC, but I also listen to them during "down times". With the Dead it's strictly feast or famine - I'm either listening to them all the time or not at all.

These "Deadhead periods" (if you will) are usually triggered by seeing a show or a film that features the band - this time, it was actually through discovering the live music section of the Internet Archive. Holy shit! If you are remotely interested in the Dead (hell, if you're remotely interested in live music period), you needed to check this out. I got to listen to the famous Cornell University show from 5/8/77 (embedded below) & thought it might be interesting
to post some notes on where the different songs performed come from. So... here 'tis.



(Note: if the player isn't working, you can access the page for the Cornell show at the Internet Archive directly by clicking here.)


- "New Minglewood Blues", originally by Noah Lewis, is from Shakedown Street (1978)

-"Loser" is from Jerry Garcia's album Garcia (1972)

-"El Paso", originally by Marty Robbins, first appeared on the live album Steal Your Face (1976)

- "They Love Each Other" originally appeared on the Jerry Garcia album Reflections (1976)

- "Jack Straw" originally appeared on Europe '72 (1972)

- "Deal" also appeared originally on Garcia (1972)

- "Lazy Lightning" appeared originally on the Kingfish album Kingfish (1976). "Supplication" originally appeared on this album also.

- "Brown-Eyed Women" is also originally from Europe '72

- "Mama Tried" is a Merle Haggard song. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead (aka Skull And Roses) (1971)

-"Row Jimmy" is from the album Wake of the Flood (1973)

- "Dancing in the Street" was, of course, originally recorded by the great Martha and the Vandellas in 1964. The Dead actually started performing it way back in 1966, but it did not make an appearance on one of their records until Terrapin Station (1977). It has also been covered by the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, the Mamas and the Papas, Van Halen, and about half of the other artists in the fuckin' universe.

-"Scarlet Begonias" is from the album From The Mars Hotel (1974)

- "Fire On the Mountain" is from Shakedown Street (1978)

- "Estimated Prophet" is from Terrapin Station (1977)

- "Saint Stephen" is from Aoxomoxoa (1969)

- "Not Fade Away" was originally recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1957. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead aka Skull & Roses in 1971. Much like "DITS", its been covered by about a bazillion other artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. It was also issued as the 1st single by Rush.

-"Morning Dew" was originally recorded by Bonnie Dobson. It made its Dead vinyl debut on The Grateful Dead (1967). It was also covered by Fred Neil, Tim Rose, The Jeff Beck Group, and Devo(!), amongst others.

-"One More Saturday Night" is from Bob Weir's album Ace (1972)

Many thanks to the fine folks at Grateful Dead Family Discography and Grateful Dead Lyric And Song Finder for making the researching of this post a whole hell of a lot easier.