Monday Music - Shady Grove: My First Impression Leading up to Discovering The Grateful Dead

In my last Monday Music post, and in its subsequent comments, I kept mentioning The Grateful Dead. This unusual rock band may not ring any bell at all if you're from outside the US, or for many Americans it may immediately conjure up images of its vast Deadhead following. I'm quite familiar with both, having come from the former situation, then becoming completely intrigued by the music I got to know through the Deadheads. Looking back, The Grateful Dead are still among my favorites, and I think they deserve to be mentioned here. Of course, getting to know them all happened very gradually, and Shady Grove was just the first step.

Dead, but Very Much Alive

My introduction to The Dead happened in a weird roundabout way, kinda like how you open up a magazine at the end, and start flipping through it backwards. It was hearing the accoustic album Shady Grove, when felt like I needed some more of this type of music. It was folky, it was bluesy, it felt old, but it came so much from the heart.

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Shady Grove was recorded in 1990 by Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist, vocalist, and banjo player from The Grateful Dead, and his long time friend from bluegrass days, banjo player and mandolinist David Grisman, known for combining bluegrass, folk, and jazz music. The album was released in 1996, a year after Jerry had passed away, and The Grateful Dead disbanded. As a result, there was a huge hole in the circle of their followers, which all the bootleg tapes could not fill. So bringing out this acoustic side project was going to be a hit among faithful followers. For me, it was much more than that. It was the start of an exciting journey, or I guess I could call it a long strange trip, to use the Grateful Dead reference.

Traditional Appalachiana

Right away the album opens up with an amazing favorite. The song, giving its name to the entire album, is a beautiful bluegrass tune with the lyrics about a young man courting a lady. Its origins go back to Kentucky of at least a century ago, and since then it has become a popular song among folk and bluegrass musicians. Some quotes from it are so famous today, that even people who are not deep into the bluegrass scene will recognize it:

Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall,
If I can't get the girl I want, I don't want one at all.

My other favorite banjo tune on this album is The Sweet Sunny South. It fills my mind with various images of cotton plantations, massive oak trees, and mint julep, but otherwise I was unable to find much information on it. Still, it sounds lovely.

Old Sea Shanties Given New Life

This album, as well the the standard Grateful Dead repertoire included not only hillbilly music, but old and revived sea shanties from Ireland, Scotland, and England (and thus from the other side of the Atlantic too). One example of this is Off to Sea Once More, a ballad about a sailor accepting work on a whaling ship after a prostitute steals all his money.

Though this song was not typically played by The Dead, it fits just as well into this collection as Jackaroo, another traditional sea shanty, which was so typical at Grateful Dead shows, that many Deadheads could swear it was written by The Dead. In fact, both songs go back to merchant marines of the 19th century, and have been widely performed by numerous folk / rock bands in recent decades.

The Ballad of Casey Jones - No Cocaine Here!

When hearing the name Casey Jones many Deadheads immediately think of "driving the train, high on cocaine", one of the most (in)famous Grateful Dead originals. Despite the controversial drug reference, it's sad that many of them are unaware that Case Jones was an actual railroad engineer, who more importantly was turned into a type of folk legend, inspiring dozens of folk songs with numerous different versions. In this light, the cocaine song doesn't really do justice to either the man, or the myth.

The Ballad of Casey Jones on the Shady Grove album, on the other hand, provides a much more interesting insight into this mystical character, his demise on the locomotive, and his family's reaction to it. For me, this Casey Jones song surpasses the famous version by The Dead by far.

All Other Songs Are Just As Recommendable

Without detailing each song on this excellent album, I can only say, each one has its own merits and reasons to listen to them, from Stealin' to Whiskey in the Jar.

So once I'd been listening to everything on Shady Grove for many days and weeks, I was ready to immerse myself in more Grateful Dead. That's when I discovered that their musical spectrum reaches much wider and deeper than I'd thought, so I took my time discovering it. But I think that story I'll relate in a separate post.

Take a Look at the Previous Posts in my Monday Music Series:

The Sound of the Hungarian Zither
Obligatory Line-Dance at Mexican Parties - El Payaso del Rodeo
Floating Into the Night by Julee Cruise
Classic Canadiana - Stan Rogers
Party Like There's No Tomorrow, Cry Like Everything Is Lost - Hungarian Gypsy Music
The Harder Sound of the Middle Ages - Corvus Corax
The First Hip-Hop I Actually Liked - Things Fall Apart by The Roots
No Prophets in Their Own Land - Rodrigo y Gabriela
Beyond the Boundries of Styles and Genres - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Accordion-Rock You May Not Know (But Really Should) - Los Tabascos
Songs of the Mexican Revolution - La Adelita
Memorable Weirdness - What Do You Want A Japanese To Do Again?
Gloomy Sunday - The Hungarian Suicide Song
Party Tunes from the Wild East - The "Russendisko" Experience
Folk Songs from Your Home Village - Hungarian Regional Sound Archives
Polynesian Salt Water Music
Images Conjured up by Tom Waits' Music
In Country: Folks Songs of Americans in the Vietnam War
Somebody Tell Me - Translating a Hungarian Song Into [EN] and [SP]
Somebody Tell Me - first trial & live performance [HU] [SP] [EN]
Horst Wessel in Mexico
Playing for Change - Old Favorites Played Around the World
Soothing Tunes and Gentle Rhythms of Mali Music
What Is It About Music? [Ecotrain's Question of the Week]
Halász Judit, Memories from my Childhood
Discovering Rocksteady
The New Generation of Banda
Horrible Music From Hungary: Dáridó or Wedding Rock
[ENG - ESP] 3 Songs From My Youth / 3 Canciones De Mi Adolescencia
Surfer Tunes from the 60's: Dick Dale
Tiny Desk Concert with the Kronos Quartet
Ghymes, Palmetta, Deep Forest: The Love-Hate of Hungarian Crossover
Crossover Styles : Cooking With Many Ingredients