Grateful Dead - Cumberland Blues (REACTION)
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- Опубликовано: 25 дек 2023
- @AirplayBeats reacts to The Grateful Dead - Cumberland Blues
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Phil was trained classically and with a jazz background. No one plays bass like Phil. He started on violin and trumpet. He studied avant garde and free form music and jazz. He STARTED playing the bass when he joined the Grateful Dead.
I spoke with a classically trained professor who asked us to review a live music show. He was against anyone in the class doing a review of a rock concert as he had no taste for the genre. I was seeing Phil in concert at the Beacon and knew that was going to be a performance worth reviewing. I brought to him a copy of a Lesh show and he was blown away. He was excited to see my review of the show at the Beacon. He became a Head.
Fantastic!
His bass is a custom made 6 string fretless with controls on it that he can push his output to different speakers. He's his own soundboard :)
He didn't listen to existing bass players to learn the instrument. He approached it from a purely musical standpoint
I believe he learned to play bass to a professional level in two weeks. Talented guy (plus he could already read music, knew loads of theory, etc)
Nice! The entire Europe '72 Album is Fire.
My favorite Dead LP!
A no skip album. It's live, but a kind of greatest performances from the tour. Would be worth covering more from this one.
Europe’72 is a MUST!
@@Krust_Aceantotally agree. No skipping.
Except that Cumberland Blues is on Workingman's Dead album.
Jerry said in one interview "When Phil's happening, that's when the band is happening"
Thanks for doing Cumberland Blues. One of my favorites.
Many of my favorite Phil moments are when you hear him very clearly and effortlessly transition the band from Scarlet Begonias into Fire on the Mountain...there are many magnificent examples of this in live, well-mixed recordings.
You guys are right on the money. The Grateful Dead are like an abstract painting for the ears, all awesome observation.
One of Jerry Garcia’s side projects was a bluegrass band called “Old and in the Way.” A lot of people credit that band with revitalizing bluegrass music and bringing it to a whole new audience.
If you’re interested in expanding to other genres they are really worth a listen.
Vassar Clemmons on that fiddle...
Great album.
Jerry’s collaborations with Doc Watson also need a listen.
Those Old and In The Way albums are a treasured part of my teenage memories. So amazing. They did indeed help keep bluegrass music alive, along with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s amazing album, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” where they gathered many of the bluegrass greats and played their hearts out. Doc Watson RIP
Yeah what he said
Another interesting fact is the grateful dead would play at the acid tests, which were parties in the mid 60s in San Francisco , when LSD was not yet illegal, and they would be tripping and playing, and they learned through that heightened state to listen to the other instruments, and to jam and make it all work. Much of their creativity and ability to have their music flow and morph came from those experiences.
my very first concert was the Dead in 1986. was tripping on
2 hits of gooney bird acid. was great show still have the ticket stub
@@waynejohnson8065what's the word? Goony Bird. I still have all 56 of my ticket stubs.
The Dead had and still have such dedicated fans. I got to see them in them in '93, Sting opened for them. It was my girlfriends birthday present to me. She was an old school Dead fan. I knew people who worked temp jobs just so every summer they could pack up and follow the band on tour.
Please tell me it was Buffalo 6/13/93!! That was my first show and one of the most magical days of my life!
Sorry man, it was Buckeye Lake in Ohio. lol@@billlaurence7555
That was the last time I went to Buffalo for a show. I took the greyhound from NYC, with all my equipment as I recorded it. Then, I had to make it back to the terminal just in time to make it back to the Penn Station in the city. Then over to work as it made no sense for me to make it home, first. I was wired the rest of the day because of all that happened on that trip - good and bad. Seeing Jerry jam with Sting in the great north was awesome.
The Workingman's Dead (one of their very best studio albums) original is excellent. For an electric version, Stanley Theater 9/27/72 is tops.
“Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty” are two great albums and essential Americana. Both need to be consumed whole. If you dug the vocals on this live track, these albums have some of the most intricate and amazing harmonies.
Brilliant insight into The Phil Zone!! He really was the glue that let everyone soar to outer space! Of course he could soar with the best of them, but you're right on, he was the compass. The Grateful Dead had the best psychedelic rhythm section in the biz.
That whole album is fantastic. Controlled chaos.
It’s a double album 💿
The bassist, Phil Lesh, just did a show with Stanley Jordan sitting in on guitar check that out
Two thoughts. One, The Dead have a line in a song that encapsulates what they were about, ‘The music plays the band’. Along with pulling from bluegrass, country, rock, psychedelia, soul, funk etc etc, and components of jazz collective improvisation all that music dictating what the band shall play makes for an eclectic, totally original musical sound. Also, don’t remember if it was Miles Davis or some other jazz great said, when in doubt, whenever lost, want to know what chords being played etc etc, listen to the bass player🙏🙏. Lot of other great live tracks on that album, Tennessee Jed, Ramble On Rose, Brown Eyed Woman. That’s one of their finest albums 👍🙏🙏
“It’s like everyone is soloing”
Yeah. That’s the dead in a nutshell.
🎄🎄🎄❤️interesting choice
The Cumberland Blues from The Spectrum in Philadelphia 9-21-1972 would be a worthy second listen. It really cooks.
While I’m tempted to agree, I’d like to see them choose a killer version from a different time, like this ‘89 Alpine Valley that also comes with great video:
ruclips.net/video/REM_Safq3QU/видео.htmlsi=ny8hQIhlKAg4kBfz
that alpine show was fun.
"It's like everyone's soloing". That was live Dead, boys! Every song was an opportunity for each member to have some fun and go to town. Every performance was vastly different from the last.
Ok, you two "reverse Deadheads" as someone who saw them 70 times over 25 years, I can say this is my favorite live album by them. Also, members of the band like to say that when the band plays live it's total anarchy on stage and they each had to listen to ALL of them because any of them could move the play in a different direction. And from your reverse Deadhead perspective, you might listen to the studio recording of this one because it's quite interesting. In the middle of the song, they move from electric to acoustic in such a totally smooth way that you almost missed that it happened. Thanks for posting this.
Awesome banjo...
Welcome to The Phil Zone! Happy New Year!
Always loved the Europe of 72 album and the great album cover. Jack Straw my favorite tune on the album.
Bluegrass on LSD, one of the many sub-genres the Dead explored with authority. Your comments about the role of the bass in music like this is spot on! Ironically though, Phil Lesh has been one of the least “traditional” bassists in the history of rock music. This song is a perfect example. He plays the expected genre defining 1 to 5 bass patterns to set the tone for a country feel…but as the jams unwind he leaves that behind, even straying into near dissonant territory, before coming back to earth with the band. Musically, the Dead had no leaders, beyond which of them sang lead on any given song. They tried anything/everything!
Phil Lesh is the best bass guitarist in rock and roll. There I said it. When you realize everybody in the band plays something different every day and Phil Lesh is still able to smoke yet somehow keep the song together with every other guy just jamming is truly amazing. I've listened to it for 50 years and itt still amazes me.
Gonna say Phil Lesh, Berry Oakley (Allman Brothers) and Chris Squire (Yes) I would hate to pick a favorite between them. But you are right ;)
@@urupiper2Two Lol. I used to toss around names like Jack Bruce (Cream) John Entwistle (The Who) and Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna) but one day I was listening to the Dead and I just thought to myself nobody does what Phil Lesh does. Sometimes it doesn't seem to make any sense, But it always works. Thats when I decided he's the best.He is a class unto himself.
Garcia once said something like, Phil plays bass like he invented the instrument and nobody had ever played bass before him. But maybe the most succinct explanation for his style came from Phil himself when he said he thinks like a composer.
I'm sure the Deadheads will correct me but bassist Phil Lesh had a club, Terrapin Crossroads, an hour drive from Sac which just closed a couple years ago. If you ever get the urge to see him, at 83 years young, he'll be touring again with his new project Darkstarathon in NorCal soon
Jer Dog is ABSOLUTELY SHREDDING!
Jerry Garcis said about going on stage without a set list - "It's like running up to the edge of a cliff, jumping off and believing that it will still be fine" (or something like that). They played this song 223 times in concert with 55 recordings. I'm pretty sure that if you made a compilation tape of them, they would each stand out in a special way.
Right on! Touching on the live stuff! Try a 1970’s Scarlet/Fire (Scarlet Begonias into Fire On The Mountain).
I’m 70 years old. Some night, I just might find, standing next to me, Young Men sharing smiles ❤😊
Well I'm on a 67 but we were playing in the sandbox together so I know where you're at
New Christmas clothes..1st time that I saw the Dead I'd never heard any of their albums. It was their last show in the States before they went to Europe and recorded this live album. The New Riders opened and Jerry played the pedal steel with them..and they cooked on Good Lovin' for like 25 minutes...
Thank you, David Crosby for teaching the Dead to sing proper harmony! Some of those jams are available on RUclips. Also, the live Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses) album from the year before has many classic bangers! Have you tried, 'Bertha' yet?
They used to have 2 drummers. I don't know how they played so well and fast. My grandpa came from a mining family, so my dad and I like this song. This was their critical peak, with the albums Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. You guys will dig both those records. I especially like the songs New Speedway Boogie
Great working man's song. The Dead is nothing without their lyrics.
Europe '72 is probably my fave Dead album(s) that has so many great tracks, that really showcase the more americana leanings of the band, and especially Bob Hunter's great story songs. I highly recommend Brown-eyed Women or Jack Straw.
Album is pure 🔥. Excellent reaction fellas! Appreciate you 🙏 💙
I saw my first Grateful Dead concert on 6/18/83. I knew nothing about them, but my brother had an extra ticket, so I went with him. It changed my life. When I got home, the first thing I did was but the Europe ‘72 album. When I dropped the needle on side 1, song 1, and heard Phil Lesh laying down the opening notes of Cumberland Blues I could NOT STOP SMILING! The album has some of their best tracks. Here is something that I recently found out this album. Although it was recorded live during that tour, almost every song was overdubbed with additional vocals and instrumentation added, including having Merle Saunders add keyboards to some tracks. About the only songs that weren’t overdubbed were Pigpen’s songs because by the time they got home from the tour, he was too sick to do much other than try to recover, which unfortunately he wasn’t able to.
This is my #1 desert island album. ✌️☮️
4:52 nailed it
15% of their shows were transcendent!! But it was hit or miss live. I was lucky enough to see 30 shows as a travelling Aussie backpacker from 1989-92 so I got to see them in Europe too.
Xx
Love all your Dead reviews I'm a huge long time DeadHead and it feels my soul with Joy seeing people discovering this Great one of a kind Music ❤ (~);}
Fun Fact. Both
Jerry Garcia & Tony Iommi( whom couldn't be more different) were influenced by the gypsy Jazz stylings of Django Reinhardt which has a lot to do with the improvisatory elements in both
I suggest reacting to
Django Reinhardt performing live
1945( You Tube).
All 3 are also extremely heralded guitarists who are/were missing fingers due to some pretty grizzly injuries. Jerry's (chopped off while holding a log for someone splitting wood) was on his picking hand, but Tony (accident in a sheet metal factory) and Reinhardt (badly burned in a fire) had injuries on the hand they hold the strings with. Iommi had to make "fingertips" out of bottles he melted and leather to grip the strings. And, of course, Django came up with his own unique two-finger fretting style that inspired both of them.
@@NoNameForThisGuy Wow I knew about Tony, did nit realize about Jerry. I guess both were told about Django for that reason...Wow then my point unintentionally has even deeper meaning. Thanks !
Robert Hunter said the best compliment he ever got on a lyric he wrote was when he was eating at a diner and this song came on the jukebox. The guy sitting next to him, who had worked at the Cumberland mine, leaned over to him and said, "I wonder what the guy who wrote this song would say if he knew an outfit like the Grateful Dead were going to play it."
This song is from Workingman's Dead studio album which should be heard in it's entirety.
Phil and Jack Bruce my two favorite bass players ❤
Great review, gentlemen. Thank you!
A great catch guys, to realize that in many ways Phil's bass playing is what leads the band. That's not always the case with other bands to the same extent. Another thing you should pay attention to or notice in future reactions with the Grateful Dead & with The Allman Brothers is how much the overall sonic experience is widened and made flexible by having two drummers rather than one. It allows for so many more layers & polyrhythms that single drummer bands just don't have access to. :)
Grateful Dead is unique because some of the hundreds of songs that they played, were covers of other artist's songs. If it got to a record or cd, they would credit the original artist Those other artists came from different genres. So at a concert they played songs from different genres and their songs sometimes had the flavors from those other genres. I hope that helps explain that they don't just one sound. They have many sounds.
Phil's the glue
Yeah. This is a great one.
You guys are my favorite
Chris Squier the bass of Yes was all what you said.
Grateful Dead Anthem of the Sun and Live Dead albums are from the Acid Test days.
From the very start, the song I Can't Come Down has a young Jerry Garcia voice prolly trippin!
These cats 🐈 are right on it.. Very astute..
Merry Christmas fellas.. love the dead. how about that piano work my friends?
.. God bless.
When it comes to the Real deal. Reacting is a Good Journey. This whole album is a Treasure.. Hello Cumberland Gap Kentucky 🌄🦌🏁
You guys are so insightful
If you are gonna do this again, do the version on Dicks picks volume 8. It’s an acoustic version so it’s a very different feel. Also one of the more famous Dead shows ever played
You know, if you looked you could probably find a recording of the next night online. Glad that you're enjoying The Dead. Peace!
Every show from the Europe ‘72 tour has been officially released ..
Jerry started out playing bluegrass and played in a bluegrass Side project in the 70's called 'Old and in the Way'. Phil almost played a 'lead bass' bouncing line for Jerry to play off of. Some peak Phil should be on your list this recording of 'Morning Dew' from Oct 74 at the Winterland is an epic.
ruclips.net/video/-GgKkqsenqg/видео.html
Perceptive, as always. Phil indeed holds it together. Bill Graham once introduced him as the "erudite backbone of the band."
Oh so good. And you guys are right, Jerry Garcia was HEAVILY influenced by Bluegrass, especially Bill Munroe. And he played in a few Bluegrass bands during his career, including the famous band Old And In The Way, and his pairings with Mandolinist David Grisman. The video "Downhill From Here" has a killer version of "Cumberland Blues", just to watch 60,000 folks dancing away like crazy.
I think I remember you guys talking about how you like to hear the studio cuts first…this is one that would have been perfect! You mentioned bluegrass…the studio version is crisp clean and banjo by Jerry. Better than any live version imho. Enjoy your reactions very much
Hey La and Chi, thank you for continuing to explore the music of the Grateful Dead. Perhaps you are ready to do a complete album review like you have done for Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan. Terrapin Station would be a good album to experience. It was released in the summer of 1977 and the recording quality on it is fantastic and the drum work on it is magnificent too.
People debate Jerry Garcia's abilities, but when you hear him play bluegrass or country, you cant deny his prowess.
Check out: "Big River" - One from the Vault 1975.
You guys -- the next best Cumberland Blues is from Alpine Valley, WI, 7/17/89. There is a cut of it on their official youtube.
. ruclips.net/video/REM_Safq3QU/видео.html&ab_channel=GratefulDead
You were on to something in your bass discussion. The GD studied all types of music and often called themselves conversational like bluegrass. The bass does 'lead' but their strength was in the fact that they all 'lead' bc they all listened to each other and changed direction accordingly. If and when you get to the juicy 20-60 minute jams the group listening/conversation becomes apparent.
"They are the standard of being different". As a looooong time Dead Head, I don't think I've heard a reactor describe it better. As the legendary music promoter Bill graham said "The grateful Dead aren't the BEST at what they do. They're the ONLY ones who do what they do".
You name the musical genre, they've incorporated it into their music somewhere.
You two should try and catch Phil playing live sometime. He is still actively playing.
I’ve heard this song dozens of times and never recognized or acknowledged the Bakersfield influence until now.
The Bass Is The Glue😊
please check out branford marsalis with the dead live playing eyes of the world. if you want to hear their versatility terrapin station will blow your mind
Bass Great,
Lesh Philling!
Rainbow full of sound
but they kept on dancing …
seeing you guys get into the Dead is great. Welcome! Maybe check out the Scarlet>Fire from 5/8/77... you wanna hear some bass.... holy cow!
Possibly the one and only psychedelic bluegrass song ever written. It’s very own genre
phil lesh is from another planet...sorry dimension. he is bouncing joy in music
You want some interesting reading go check out the wall of sound that the Grateful Dead designed I think there was 47 Macintosh amps anyway I saw it live it was incredible makes good reading thank you gentlemen
Jerry loved to play bluegrass.
Bass great, Lesh Philling!
More Dead!!!
It makes me happy that you have an open mind and enjoy this music not everybody gets it.
If you’re serious about checking out another version of this great tune, I recommend you choose one from a different era of the band. Here’s a relatively short but smoking version from Alpine Valley, 7/17/89, which has great video too:
ruclips.net/video/REM_Safq3QU/видео.htmlsi=YJAWaMBIJiS1apOP
Jerry and Phil wrote the music, Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics
Bluegrass Boogie. Just another shade of The Grateful Dead.
In Phil We Trust
Awesome reaction!! I dont know y'all's names, but the dude on the left said some super musically intelligent stuff. If a band is going crazy as fuck with some distorted guitars and scary sound melodies, it can still be given a bluegrass sound and feel if the BASS player is thumping around like how a bluegrass bass would sound. Just like how you can turn a bluegrass sounding guitar melody and chord progression and make it way more rock and metal if the BASS plays arpeggios and sixteenth note melodic lines and doesn't hang around traditional motific elements of bluegrass.
You are so right. Phil was the compass of the band. Right on observation.
A Suggestion - The Dark Star chronicles.
"Dark Star" is one of the Dead's musical highlights; a deceptively simple 2-verse song, which became the loose framework for many of the Dead's greatest explorations. I would suggest that you start with the original studio version (a mere 3 minutes long), before moving on to the Live/Dead version (17+minutes of interstellar exploration). Those were the two initial versions released, and are possibly the nearest to the initial idea. Then, I'd suggest opening up to the viewers which versions to go for:- polls to select years, etc...
Listen to the versions of
Truckin'
Sugar Magnolia
Chinacat Sunflower/I Know You Rider
He's Gone and
Morning Dew
From this Live TRIPLE record album!
Bass drives the bus.
51 yr old recording of a live show....da-m!😊😊😊😊 want some of that ice-cream....yeah.
I thought this was just another Hunter/Garcia number. Will have to look at the credits again. This does have the sound of a few people getting involved, because there are so many distinct parts to this song. It really goes on a bit of a journey.
BTW: This album isn't a single night. They had. quite a lot of recordiings from the Europe 72 tour, and they picked their favourites for the album. They had a remarkably consistent sound for that tour though, so the sound was remarkably similar night to nigh - same engineers and equipment.
WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL 1971 THROUGH 75, TWO OF MY CLASSMATES WOULD ARGUE CONTINUOUSLY AS TO WHO WAS THE BEST BAND, THE GRATEFUL DEAD OR THE ALLMAN BROTHERS!! IT WAS BECAUSE OF THEIR ARGUMENTS THAT I ACTUALLY WENT OUT AND BOUGHT THE RECORDS OF EACH BAND AND BECAME FANS OF BOTH!! BACK IN THOSE DAYS, IN THE SEVENTIES, THE GRATEFUL DEAD WOULD PLAY CONCERTS FOR HOURS AND HOURS, SOMETIMES THROUGH THE NIGHT!! THEY WOULD JAM ENDLESSLY!!!!
How do you two have such grown up daughters?
Franklin's Tower, or Morning Dew are great ones to sample different nights from different years. They seemed to evolve into a new sound just about every year, but more broadly there were big differences in 60s/70s/80s and 90s dead playing and sounds - as well as differences from year to year and night to night.
Great band. Great tune
Great reaction. I like your open minds.
Welcome to the Phil Zone!
Good song by one of my favorite bands (after Nightwish lol). Please check out "Althea" soon if you can. You'll want the live version off the "Live Without a Net" album, though. Great song.😁
Although, I find the whole 'Dead' scene a bit overblown, this is a great tune. Good job
In my opinion the Grateful Dead are the greatest and quintessential American rock band. They infused so many American styles of music with a mystical American mythology songbook. They removed all the preconceived expectations of what American entertainment should be and made it their own.
Happy New Year❤❤❤❤❤
Happy New Year!!
☝☝☝