I HATE trying to decipher Grateful Dead chord progressions!

[Rickenjangle]

One minute, you're playing what sounds like a nice, down-home country blues (like New Speedway Boogie) and then Jerry and the boys take an abrupt left turn into weirdsville.

One of my students is really into the Dead - and because I've got a Steelie tattoo'ed on my leg, I think that he thinks I should know a lot of their songs, but the truth is I like to listen to them but I just don't Grok Jerry's guitar playing...

Are there any GOOD online resources for GD tabs and lead sheets? I suspect that I could find lots of them out there - but then again a lot of the tabs I see for more difficult stuff have tons of mistakes in them.

[Kap'n]

Grateful Dead Volume 1 is Workingman's Dead and American Beauty in one book, handwritten, no less. Everything I've looked at seemed accurate at the time.

[Rickenjangle]

I'll have to look that one up on amazon. Sounds like just the ticket. Thanks!

[Cogs]

I couldn't really wrap my head around Jerry's playing (like I can now, lol) until I took the perspective that he's really a banjo player. It sounds to me like he approaches all his chords & soloing from that mindset. Some of his fast runs are more right-hand stuff than left hand. And that's throughout his career w/the Dead. Even his solo in Touch Of Grey (which I happen to be listening to & playing along with a lot lately) are just a bunch of arpeggios strung together w/some single note runs.

[Franklin]

Check out:

http://www.jdarks.com/

http://www.rukind.org/

There a discussion forum on rukind that is interesting too, many discussions on the tunes.

I'm doing a full Dead show tomorrow, here are the tunes from the list I've never played before:

Alabama Getaway
Peggy-O
Little Red Rooster
Minglewood Blues
Lost Sailor-> Saint Of Circumstance
Ship of Fools
He's Gone
Stella Blue
I Need A Miracle
Brokedown Palace

I love the Dead, but ugh.... :)

[Rickenjangle]

Franklin, that's a great set of tunes. Stella Blue is one of my faves.

And thanks for the resources. The tab on that jdarks guy's site looks very detailed and very well researched.

I think I'm going to set a goal to learn 1/2 dozen solo acoustic versions of GD tunes by the end of summer. It's almost criminal that I only know Friend of the Devil...

[Franklin]

I love Stella Blue too! You should hear the Phil Lesh version with Warren Haynes singing, pretty sweet! I have a version with him and Derek Trucks both playing slide, simply amazing stuff!!

Here is tomorrow's whole setlist:

Alabama Getaway->
Greatest Story Ever Told,
Peggy-O->
Little Red Rooster,
Bird Song,
Me & My Uncle->
Big River,
Tennessee Jed,
Minglewood Blues,
China Cat Sunflower->
I Know You Rider
Lost Sailor-> Saint Of Circumstance->
Ship of Fools,
He's Gone->
Truckin'-> Drums-> The Other One->
Stella Blue-> I Need A Miracle->
Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad->
One More Saturday Night,
E: Brokedown Palace

[Kap'n]

Thank you for not doing US Blues as the encore.

I remember being at a dead show - Alpine Valley, c. 1980 or so, where they encored with Brokedown. At the end of the show, I overheard one burnout say to another:




wait for it.....




"it was like they knew they were leaving."

[Rickenjangle]

I see you've got my favorite in there...China Cat Sunflower.

With a name like Franklin, you should be doing Franklin's Tower!

I've got a Warren Haynes album, live at Bonaroo, which has a beautiful solo version of Stella Blue on it.

[Kap'n]

I see you've got my favorite in there...China Cat Sunflower.

How the hell was Jerry able to play and sing that at the same time?

I suppose he had some assistance making his voice and hands disassociated.

[Rickenjangle]

Kap'n, do you remember Bob Prong? I played with him one long, disassociated summer about 11 years ago, in his Salt of the Earth Band. Then, after that, I would guest on some of his gigs whenever I could.

Well, he was a decent singer, but an amazing guitarist, and we used to do CC/S -> Franklin's Tower a lot...and the really hard thing about doing that song is that he would play BOBBY's part and sing at the same time. That cascading, ascending line that starts on the 12th fret B? Heck, I can barely play that when I'm NOT singing.

[Kap'n]

Kap'n, do you remember Bob Prong?

I do not, sorry.

[Franklin]

Yeah, Bobby played the melody riff on that tune so it was easier for Jerry to sing. I have trouble with keeping the timing of the riff myself and I'm not singing! Well, I don't really practice it either!!

[Cogs]

"it was like they knew they were leaving."

Killer thread w/a lot of memories flying around. I haven't been to rukind for a long time! The last time I went there I noticed a bunch of song they had charts for had been removed. Coincidentally, they were all the songs the Dead covered!
Franklin, I'd be grateful (lol) if you hipped me to the dates of the Phil/Warren version of Stella Blue. It's probably on the Archive, but it would save me some time searching.

[DanTheBluesMan]

I love Stella Blue too! You should hear the Phil Lesh version with Warren Haynes singing, pretty sweet! I have a version with him and Derek Trucks both playing slide, simply amazing stuff!!

Here is tomorrow's whole setlist:

Alabama Getaway->
Greatest Story Ever Told,
Peggy-O->
Little Red Rooster,
Bird Song,
Me & My Uncle->
Big River,
Tennessee Jed,
Minglewood Blues,
China Cat Sunflower->
I Know You Rider
Lost Sailor-> Saint Of Circumstance->
Ship of Fools,
He's Gone->
Truckin'-> Drums-> The Other One->
Stella Blue-> I Need A Miracle->
Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad->
One More Saturday Night,
E: Brokedown Palace

oh, great set list. where are you playing? I need a dead fix.

[ES350]

I see the NRPS are touring around again in some sorta reincarnation; I played some gigs with them a long time ago.
Jeeeezus, talk about disassociation...

[Doc W]

Maybe you're not high enough.

I have to recycle the old joke about a guy at a Dead fan at concert who forgot his weed and says "Wow, this band sucks."

[Gris]

We are doing a botaload of Dead tunes at our gig tonight, including a 'new' one for us - 'Deal.' Try soling over those changes.

Best Stella I ever heard was a Ratdog version (live in my city) WHERE kIMMOCK WENT OFF ON a lap steel solo that soard to the rafters and beyond.

I should able to channel Jer tonight. I tweaked my back loading band gear this am and our drummer gave my a double dose of Oxy instyead of Flexeril by mistake ... :-)

[Franklin]

I love Stella Blue, and would love to hear that version for sure!!

Maybe you're not high enough.

I have to recycle the old joke about a guy at a Dead fan at concert who forgot his weed and says "Wow, this band sucks."

As funny as that joke may seem, it is an insult to all sober and straight Dead fans who enjoy their music. I'm not one of those people, but still.... :)

[Kap'n]

We are doing a botaload of Dead tunes at our gig tonight, including a 'new' one for us - 'Deal.' Try soling over those changes.

Not a problem. An A major scale will suffice, but you can get fancy.

[guitars247]

I have always been a fan of the gorgeous intro to Weather Report Suite....smooth, tasty niiiiice

this guy does a nice job:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN2eJ...eature=related

[Gris]

Ended up closing our elec set at 3:30 a.m. with an unscripted impromptu 'Stella' w/ just me on elec and a flute player soloing over me - twas sublime. Flute works great on this tune

Also did a pretty good job on our first stab at deal, but i chickened out and did the long solo over the G>D>A coda and only wanked thru two bars of the A>C#7>F#M>E>etc verse

We butchered 'Touch of Grey' as out opening number - riddum man didnt sober up til later

the second night the rig i was using (Tele into homemade fat boost>wah>micro delay into homemade 1x12 15 watt dual SE 6V6 amp miced into PA) somehow started producing true 'hall of fame' tone. it was sick, no one could believe it. sadly this BEAUTIFUL chick who's hidden identity was world's worst harp player jumped up on stage, grabbed my mic and proceeded to ruin all our recording from that point forward.

so now we have this 'tape' of the world's sickest guitar tone with a layer of this 'what inn the world is that god awful noise' on top of it... :-(

[DanTheBluesMan]

the second night the rig i was using (Tele into homemade fat boost>wah>micro delay into homemade 1x12 15 watt dual SE 6V6 amp miced into PA) somehow started producing true 'hall of fame' tone. it was sick, no one could believe it. sadly this BEAUTIFUL chick who's hidden identity was world's worst harp player jumped up on stage, grabbed my mic and proceeded to ruin all our recording from that point forward.

so now we have this 'tape' of the world's sickest guitar tone with a layer of this 'what inn the world is that god awful noise' on top of it... :-(

Its like when you drop your car keys in a river of molten lava, man, let it go. Its gone.

[Gris]

Southern NH - whoa we were playing right outside Ludlow VT - all night Fri & Sat at a huge private ski party. Maybe you heard us - LOL!