American Beauties
A video album and EP by Dead to the Core celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s landmark albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.
Featured on Tales of the Golden Road on SiriusXM, hosted by David Gans and Gary Lambert.
Uncle John’s Band
New Speedway Boogie
Mason’s Children
Casey Jones
Operator
Attics of My Life
Truckin’
Watch the complete playlist above or on YouTube. Download the EP exclusively on Patreon.
About the album
One of my most eagerly awaited musical projects of 2020 was a series of shows with my friends in the acoustic collective Dead to the Core, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s beloved albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. We were set to play two nights at Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts, performing the complete albums with a full acoustic band, and we had tour dates on the calendar or in the works around the Northeast.
Except, of course, none of that could happen as planned as live music shut down everywhere.
As an alternative way to collaborate, ten of us put together a quarantine video and single of “Touch of Grey”—an anthem of survival that certainly felt appropriate for the times.
And then we got working on an online version of our Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty tribute. A group of us tag-teamed all the songs in album order, from solo versions through full band performances. You can watch the full series on YouTube.
For my contribution, I seized the opportunity to gather my band for a live outdoor video session. This is the same tight, versatile acoustic band featured on my Live and Listening album of original songs, with Wendy Sassafras Ramsay (flute, clarinet, accordion), Josh Dekaney (percussion kit), and Jason Fridley (bass). We set up in Jason’s yard, with a backdrop of his spectacular garden and new chicken coop.
On hand to capture all this was Jeremy Johnston, the exceptional engineer who also recorded and mixed Live and Listening.
What you hear and see on American Beauties was recorded in a few hours, as the sun went down on a summer afternoon. We didn’t fuss over anything. Jason’s dog, Smoky, wandered in and out as we played. You can hear the birds and wind. I flubbed some words and notes. We just played, and wow, did that feel good.
I hope these performances feel good for you too.
About the songs
Uncle John’s Band
In terms of groove and feel, this arrangement stays fairly close to the original on Workingman’s Dead, though rather than strumming, I play with my fingers in what I call a pianistic style—picking clusters of notes simultaneously with my fingers. This is one of several arrangements that I teach in my Homespun video series on Grateful Dead songs for acoustic guitar. The flute picks up some of the melodies and adds a dreamy little solo.
Words by Robert Hunter (with a nod, perhaps, to the New Lost City Ramblers and “Uncle John” Cohen), music by Jerry Garcia.
New Speedway Boogie
My take on this tune in many ways sparked all the Dead-related projects that have been such a fun complement to my original music over the last decade. An off-the-cuff YouTube video of “New Speedway Boogie” back in 2008 led eventually to making the Homespun video series…recording the solo EP Dead to the Core…founding the collective now also called Dead to the Core…and teaching countless guitarists this arrangement in dropped-D tuning, which is very accessible and just a blast to play. And the whole thing really takes flight with the band.
The words are by Robert Hunter, commenting on the tragic turns of the 1969 Altamont Festival, set to a primal blues groove by Jerry Garcia.
Mason’s Children
Never heard “Mason’s Children”? It was intended for Workingman’s Dead but didn’t make the cut, and the Dead hardly played it live either. You decide if they were wise…
I’d never played this song until a couple of days before the sessions, and no doubt it’s a weird one. The lyrics tell a twisted little story that makes me think of the dark imaginings of Edgar Allen Poe (as far as I can tell, Mason’s children do cook him up in the end). But I wound up getting a huge kick out of playing this song, with its pure ’60s rock ’n’ roll drive—it brought out my inner Pete Townsend.
Words by Robert Hunter (who said that this song also addresses Altamont in an oblique way), music by Jerry Garcia.
Casey Jones
This ever-popular tale of the continuing adventures of the folk hero Casey Jones closes out Workingman’s Dead. Using dropped-D tuning, I incorporate lead and rhythm lines into this arrangement—also taught on volume 2 of the Homespun video series.
Operator
Written and sung by the Dead’s gone-too-young blues maven Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, “Operator” was a real sleeper tune for me. I’d never played it before these sessions but was excited by the possibilities of bringing in clarinet to accentuate the song’s ragtime flavor. Wendy’s clarinet echoes some of the electric guitar lead lines on American Beauty and adds a bunch of other sweet twists and turns.
I play in standard tuning with a capo at the fourth fret, and use hybrid picking (flatpick plus fingers) to play some of the melody lines along with bass notes and rhythm.
Attics of My Life
To me, “Attics of My Life” (and “Brokedown Palace” as well) has always felt like a hymn, and one of the Dead’s most sublime songs. Written by Hunter and Garcia, “Attics” also has the distinction of being the last song that the Grateful Dead played billed as the Grateful Dead.
On guitar, a partial capo (covering strings five, four, and three at the second fret and leaving the others open) is the secret to the lush voicings. If you’re curious to learn more about how that works, check out this video.
Truckin’
So of course this session wound up with the iconic “Truckin’.” Sturdy as ever. Always a challenge to get through those rapid-fire lyrics in time. I cracked myself up by accidentally skipping the verse “What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?”
My guitar arrangement, also taught in the Homespun videos, brings together elements of the rhythm and lead guitar, bass, and drums. So it’s double the fun to play with actual rhythm guitar, bass, and drums.