The Vinyl Countdown # 95
The Grateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead (1970)
I am a Grateful Dead fan but I don’t own much of their stuff on vinyl; maybe it’s just too much of an undertaking – there’s too much so I never really wanted to get started. But I’ve always wanted this and one day I must get American Beauty – I think I prefer American Beauty, it’s the one I’ve played more, but what a one-two to deliver in the same year. This is peak “The Grateful Dead is just country music for people that love LSD” or whatever that quote/meme is – and it’s probably hard to argue with, but it’s also Grateful Dead for people that don’t even like The Grateful Dead. And it’s also Grateful Dead for people that love The Grateful Dead. These albums were my studio-introduction to the band – I already had and loved a few live albums. It’s the 50th Anniversary year for this (and American Beauty) and so it must have been on my mind when I saw it in an antique store recently; there’s been a few retro 
reviews and articles around the anniversary appearing and I found this nice copy in a wee store. I’ve always liked it a lot and figured I one day had to have it and it turned out this was the day. The store owner marvelled, told me I had chosen brilliantly, said it’s a nice original copy and that it used to belong to someone from the Hamilton Country Bluegrass Band. They had taken the record in and sold it on to this guy. He was really pushing that to me as being the icing on the cake, the best reason to own this particular copy. Well, whatever. I have it now at any rate. Read More
In the battle of the bands between 
There was a time when I had a hundred or more 
I always kinda hated 
I was in $1 Heaven. And let me tell you one of the pilots to take you straight to $1 Heaven is 
the song called I Write The Songs. I mean after all 
Look, I’m not really one for these bootleg recordings – but I am one for bargains. So when I found a brand new copy of this, for dirt cheap, with time to kill and browsing, there was no choice but for it to accompany me home. You could say my 
better live gigs and albums by Bob and his band but I’m not ashamed to have this one in my collection at all. The price was right. And the songs are superb. 
As a kid all I knew of 
A few years back I was in Las Vegas and I booked to see 
When I first heard the 
of the Lord). So I was just so into finally hearing the Blind Faith album – all this mystique; short-lived supergroup, etc. Well, alright, now I think it’s just a so-so album actually. I still like the strong opener, I still like the two songs I knew best but there’s a feeling of some filler to it – but it still feels like a pretty good time. So when I saw this copy of it just recently I had to get it – to hear it again, to have the sort of discovery with it that I had the first time I heard the CD. And it is a good thing to add to the collection. I’m glad to have it. I’m glad too to not have the original cover. I used to think that things like that deserved to be preserved as being of and from their time. But that cover is creepy. And I’m not in any rush to get the “proper” version for my collection. This’ll do nicely. 
A Facebook chum messages. Says he’s found a double-up in his collection and would I like to have it. It’s only 
quintessential moment in the British blues boom. There’s something that the purists will never understand about the British blues; this deep reserve of Englishness the floods through their channelling of grief and wisdom and heart and soul from the songs they found solace in from a far off – and then great – land. Anyway, what a treat to have this on 45. I am collecting up anything I can find to do with Fleetwood Mac on vinyl. Which is a long, dusty, weird road indeed. But my life was made a little happier when opening the mailbox today. And straight onto the turntable it went. And three times through on first play/s. Magic. This really is the stuff. 
I like this album – it’s always been one of my go-to 
I was so into #/media/File:Split_corrob.jpg){kind=link}