For Your Monday Listening Pleasure: Robert Hunter Comes Alive at Poor David's in 1986

• Brendan, I tip my yarmulke in your general direction for that entire comment, which deserves much more than a mere "like."

• I always considered Workingman's Dead and American Beauty as a single Album. There is one of two songs on Amoxomoa I really like but on balance it's an overproduced, disposable album, same with almost everything else they did. Geeze, I've gotten so reductivist. I hate people like me.

• Actually, in a pinch I can listen to <I>Workingman's Dead</i>, but song for song nothing compares to <I>American Beauty</i> -- it's the one Dead album I can listen to without hitting the "skip it" button. But I'll take the first two Band albums over both. Or anything else ever, mostly.

• Rob't, so are you out on Workingman's Dead and Amoxomoa? Both those albums have songs that seem to have a similar vibe to American Beauty. I'm an album guy so I cherish the off tracks, Workingman's is strong while Amoxomoa is much more hit and miss, though wonderfully whimsical. I agree that American Beauty is a transcendent album, though for me Workingman's is a close, mellower second.

• Any goodies from Mother Blues?

• I sure do miss the original Poor David's.

• That Garcia '72 album has some of the best of the Garcia/Hunter compositions.

• I wonder if that's where the picture's from. I'll scan and send to you.

• Dallas author and journalist Brendan McNally's second novel, Friend of the Devil, is now out on Kindle. Follow the adventures of atheist jazz musician Herbert T. Barrow as he manages to piss off both God, the Devil, Bonnie & Clyde, Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, Goat Gland doctor J.R. Brinkley. Fun, twisted, reefer-addled, and enriched with goat scrotums. Buy this e-book for only $7.99 on Amazon, and we virtually guarantee, you will become the Ram that am with every lamb!! Make sure you buy before midnight tonight because quantities are limited. From the author of GERMANIA (Simon & Schuster, 2009), which dared ask "Who Was Hitler's successor and why should you care??

• No argument here, 1970's "American Beauty" was a masterpiece as the band evolved from the psychedelic era to the country-rock of groups like New Riders of the Purple Sage. It included one of the Dead's best loved tracks,“Box of Rain,” bassist Phil Lesh’s song to his ailing father. Lyricist Bob Hunter says the song’s title means “the world we live on.” On my Rockaeology blog at http://bit.ly/j20zF4 Jerry Garcia describes how Hunter pairs his writing with the band’s music. Hunter says, "I'm able to translate peoples' scat. I hear English in it, almost as though I write down what I hear underneath that."

• Stipe and Peter Buck came to the Theater Gallery in Deep Ellum after the REM show with True West at Bronco Bowl.

TotalComments: 11