The Grateful Dead's 100 Essential Songs: The Music Never Stops

by Barry Barnes, Bob Trudeau

Overview

In the studio and more than 2,300 concerts between 1965 and 1995, the Grateful Dead performed more than 400 different songs. Their music continues to be tremendously popular as surviving band members and countless tribute bands memorialize the legacy the band left us upon the death of lead guitarist and singer, Jerry Garcia.

The Grateful Dead’s 100 Essential Songs examines the band’s remarkable musical journey, pairing song analyses and memories with an online list of recommended recordings. Beyond a mere summary of each song, the descriptions here compare individual performances as they relate to the evolution of the band’s style and the waning health but vibrant spirit of Garcia. Welcoming readers into the unbroken chain of the Dead’s legacy, this book is indispensable for Deadheads, students of popular music, rock musicians, and anyone marveling at how the Dead’s appeal continues today.

With linked performances and studio recordings to allow readers to listen along with the book, as well as other song analyses and first-hand narratives of the authors’ experience at hundreds of Dead concerts, the book will appeal to Deadheads, students of popular music, rock musicians, and anyone marveling at how the Dead’s appeal continues today.

The online song list may be accessed under the features tab at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538110584.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538110577
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/15/2018
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	309,585
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Barry Barnes is author of Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead: The Ten Most Innovative Lessons from a Long Strange Trip, as well as numerous book chapters, case studies, research articles, and concert reviews all focused on the Grateful Dead. Barry is a member of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus.

Bob Trudeau has been an avid listener of Grateful Dead music since 1971. He has published an analysis of Playing in the Band and has researched (with Scott Deetz) Deadhead responses to Grateful Dead music, using Q-Methodology. He regularly teaches a “Grateful Dead 101” course to senior citizens. Bob is a member of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus.

Table of Contents

Title Page
Frontispiece
Preface
Deadication
Table of Contents
Introduction
Quick Start Guide
The 100 Most Essential Songs
Alabama Getaway
Althea
And We Bid You Goodnight
Attics of My Life
Beat It On Down the Line
Bertha
Bird Song
Black Muddy River
Black Peter
Black Throated Wind
Box of Rain
Brokedown Palace
Brown Eyed Women
Candyman
Casey Jones
Cassidy
Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)
China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
China Doll
Cold Rain and Snow
Comes a Time
Crazy Fingers
Cumberland Blues
Dancin’ in the Streets
Dark Star
Days Between
Deal
Dire Wolf
Dupree's Diamond Blues
El Paso
The Eleven
Estimated Prophet
Eyes of the World
Feel Like a Stranger
Fire on the Mountain
Foolish Heart
Franklin's Tower
Friend of the Devil
Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad
Good Lovin'
Greatest Story Ever Told
Hard to Handle
He's Gone
Hell in a Bucket
Help On The Way > Slipknot > Franklin’s Tower
Here Comes Sunshine
High Time
I Know You Rider
I Need a Miracle
Iko Iko
It Must Have Been The Roses
Jack a Roe
Jack Straw
Lazy Lightning > Supplication
Lazy River Road
Let It Grow
Looks Like Rain
Loser
Lost Sailor > Saint of Circumstance
Lovelight
Me & My Uncle
Mexicali Blues
Might as Well
Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodleloo
Morning Dew
The Music Never Stopped
Not Fade Away
One More Saturday Night
The Other One
Peggy-O
Playing in the Band
The Promised Land
Ramble on Rose
Ripple
Row Jimmy
Saint of Circumstance
Saint Stephen > The Eleven
Samson & Delilah
Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain
Shakedown Street
Ship of Fools
So Many Roads
Stagger Lee
Standing on the Moon
Stella Blue
Sugar Magnolia > Sunshine Daydream
Sugaree
Supplication
Tennessee Jed
Terrapin Station
They Love Each Other
Throwing Stones
To Lay Me Down
Touch of Grey
Truckin
Unbroken Chain
Uncle John's Band
US Blues - (Wave That Flag)
Viola Lee Blues
Weather Report Suite > Let It Grow
West LA Fadeaway
Wharf Rat
The Wheel
Bonus Tracks
Online Resources
Bibliography and Sources: For Further Reading
Acknowledgements and Thanks
About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

10/29/2018
Grateful Dead fans and academics Barnes and Trudeau, members of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, provide illuminating if overly detailed profiles of what they deem the band’s 100 greatest songs. Each profile lists the number of times the band performed the song, memorable performances of the song, and elements that make the song essential listening. For example, the band debuted “Lazy River Road” on February 21, 1993, and they played it 65 times, including during the band’s final show in Chicago on July 9, 1995. According to Barnes and Trudeau, front man Jerry Garcia “was still in fine voice and plays it beautifully... it is a great window into what the Dead sounded like in their last years on the road.” The Dead performed “Casey Jones,” the story of a train engineer who wrecks his train, 312 times beginning in 1969 through 1992. “Truckin’,” arguably the best known Dead song (a “rocker that gets the crowd on its feet dancing and singing along”), made its debut in August 1970, and the band played it 519 times between then and 1995. Barnes and Trudeau’s entertaining book provides a useful introduction to the Dead’s representative music, offering first-time listeners a starting point and encouraging fans to pick up the songs and listen to them again. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

In The Grateful Dead’s 100 Essential Songs, Barry Barnes and Bob Trudeau—both members of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, which is a section of the Southwest Popular Culture Association meetings—provide fact-filled profiles of the one hundred songs they believe are essential listening for, in their words, “a serious appreciation of the music of the Grateful Dead.” Of course, Deadheads are bound to quibble about which songs make the cut for this book, and so that conversation, like the music, will go on forever. In many ways, the book serves as a nice guide for first-time listeners who might wonder why people devote their musical lives to the Dead and what about this music keeps them listening to it. After all, the attraction that many find in the Dead’s intractable jams and musical explorations simply bore many listeners who can’t hear the reasons anyone would want to listen to the music, let alone listen to it obsessively. This book won’t convince those listeners—there are simply too many facts about which first-timers won’t care—but it will give them a starting point for finding the songs that might take them down that road.

No Depression

The Grateful Dead left an immense trove of recordings—live performances and studio takes—all tied together with improvisation in a manner that amounts to a musical genre all its own. New arrivals to this cultural banquet are going to need some help navigating this mountain of music; in The Grateful Dead’s 100 Essential Songs, two longtime fans of the music offer a delightful road map to help you get started.

David Gans

An in-depth look at the Dead’s great American songbook, informed by the authors’ many decades of thought, analysis, and participation in the Grateful Dead phenomenon, this book takes up the question of the band’s finest songs with a compelling, refreshing, and thought-provoking look at these time-honored classics.

Nicholas G. Meriwether

In a stimulating overview of the band’s performing repertoire, these authors blend their personal concert experiences with the evolution of performances of the band’s most memorable compositions. An indispensable element of their publication is a vast online repository of their favorite live versions of the songs, including many taped personally by Barnes.

Michael Parrish