There was a time when I would have found it interesting if the Grateful Dead had turned their 1970s output into a double album. Workingman's Beauty would have been a good name, but I honestly wouldn't skip a single track from American Beauty these days. After combining the first season of the Good Old Grateful Deadcast with some extra spins for Workingman's Dead, I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't skip a single track from this album either. I might still lean slightly more towards American Beauty, though that might also be because it was my first purchase, but songs like New Speedway Boogie, Casey Jones, and Dire Wolf… They are truly classics in the band's oeuvre, and I've found a renewed fascination for tracks like Black Peter and High Time. These are tracks that haven't resonated with me for a long time, but now it suddenly clicks. Life can be strange sometimes. That being said, this is also an album where everything seems to fall into place perfectly. I'm definitely an album listener (meaning I like to listen to an album from start to finish rather than singling out specific songs), and it feels like I've come full circle when Casey Jones ends and those first notes of Uncle John's Band start again. It's still impressive that they released these two albums in just one year. There was definitely something good in the water in the '70s; it's by far my favorite decade musically.
Tracklist:
- Uncle John's Band
- High Time
- Dire Wolf
- New Speedway Boogie
- Cumberland Blues
- Black Peter
- Easy Wind
- Casey Jones
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