Grateful Dead Insight?

[bigredbass]

This morning, I sat in the car waiting on Mrs. Wilson.  Flipping thru the radio stations, I ran across the Vanderbuilt University station, 'college radio' at its best.
 
They played a live 'Eyes of The World' and I was wondering about several things:
 
Were they ALWAYS out of tune with each other?  It always seems that way, though I must admit my one Dead album Europe 72 is not as bad as the other times I run across them.
 
I was struck by the guitar tones, in that they sound like they were still playing thru preamp/power amp rigs.  The tones were mighty clean and the lighter distortion they did use
just did not seem like the typical stack overdrive.  Did they stay with that type of setup thru their history?
 
I thought this particular version (I have no idea where it came from) was a very honest sounding live album, but I felt a little too honest about their vocals.  I wished their harmonies were a little tighter, mixed a little more up front.
 
Or is it just me that I'm missing the point that the Dead were so loved just for these little production/performance quirks?  
 
J o e y

[hollis]

I heard an interview with Mickey Hart talking about the harmonies of Crosby Stills and Nash.  He said something like, We can't sing like them, and they can't play like us.  I thought that pretty much summed up Dead vocals.  I don't think I ever heard them with their instruments out of tune, but then again, maybe I missed those shows.  I know that every time I play along with the Dead on DVD or CD, I'm in tune with them.  And I'm tuned to pitch.  Sorry, no help here...

[susan]

I'm a long term Dead Head with close associations to same.  After attending/working many live performances both for the PA and Live Recording of them in equally as many venues, my opinion is that they were in tune most of the time. However, that being said, no they can't do harmonies like CSNY. They are often slightly yet enchantingly off key particularly Jerry. But hey, wasn't that part of their charm? I think so.
 
And in defense of CSNY, they play equally as good as GD, just a different style. BTW- Stephen Stills since I was 14 has always been one of my fav guitarists.
 
-susan

[bassman10096]

The Dead vocals were too often painful to the ears.  Garcia's voice and pitch were inconsistent, to put it politely.  Weir typically sang on key, but had poor moments as well.  I've always suspected the prevalence of live recordings of varying quality amplified the problem.  
 
Nonetheless, they held up well enough to entertain with their vocals (usually) and their instrumental play was always fascinating, stirring and often beautiful.  I reconciled long ago (because of an unfortunate case of relatively good pitch) to make the allowances necessary to appreciate the enormous number of good things about their music.  
 
Bill, the bass one

[lbpesq]

Ah Jerry.   I sure do miss him.   I always felt the same way about Jerry's vocals as I do about Dylan's.   Neither man was born with a great musicial voice.   Yet both communicate incredible emotion through their singing.   Someone like Joan Baez is, for me, the opposite.   She has a great voice that fails to move me at all.   Listen to her sing John Prine's Hello In There    She takes a great melancholy, wistful song and sings it happy.  Jerry would take a song and tell you a story.  Listen to Wharf Rat and you can close your eyes and smell the brine and stale urine.   When Jerry sang, you believed him, he put his entire being into it.   You could hear how much he loved the music.  
 
  And don't forget about Pigpen.   Also not classically a great voice, yet I've heard few sing the blues any better.   As far as the Dead's harmonies, there were many times when they hit them and sounded great.   Around 1970 they worked some with CSN and did probably their best singing on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.   Some wonderful harmonies there.   As far as singing off-key, the only one that ever made me winch was Donna Jean, and even she hit her notes once in a while.
 
Bill, the guitar one

[zappahead]

The Dead have probably the biggest ups and downs on any band I can think of. When they are at their best I dont think theres any band who plays better. When they are at their worst, well, its not gonna be pretty. Im not too sure about them being out of tune. I know Ive seen shows where the sound was terrible and Ive always blamed that on their set up and the fact that some arenas and a lot of outdoor venues were just not built for concerts.  
 
There was always a problem, IMO, with the volume of certain instruments and Ive read comments in some of their books and it appears that the blame is simply on their crew. Ive been at concerts where you literally cannot hear anything coming from a person yet you can clearly see them playing. This happened a lot to the keyboard players, at times to Bob Weir and even to Phil Lesh. Im no pro by any stretch but I think someone was doing a poor job in the set up or the mixing of the music.  
 
I think Bob can sing, at the very least he is a great live performer when he carries a tune. I thought Brent was a good singer, I liked Vince too, but just about everyone else was up and down to me. I never liked the females in the various bands much, even the recent ones and Ive never been big on Lesh singing either. He has a very hard time carrying a tune. Jerry could sing when he wanted too, much like Dylan, but neither are obviously gonna bring the house down with stirring vocals. Still both are effective and have their moments for certain.

[lbpesq]

Russ(zappahead):
 
    Your comment about ups & owns reminded me of a piece I read many years ago.   I think it was an interview with Weir where, in response to a question about the ups & downs, he said something to the effect of When you go diving for pearls, sometimes you come up with clams.  This illustrates what, to me, is one of the main attractions of the Dead.  They were willing to dive for pearls and chance the clams in front of an audience.  Very few bands are willing to take chances on stage.  The Dead, at their best, were almost allergic to playing it safe.
 
Bill, the guitar one

[susan]

Bill (TGO)
 
I couldn't agree with you more regardng how Jerry could put a tune across to an audience and somehow make an emotional connection with each person. It was his special talent. Same thing for Dylan. Neither of their singing styles ever made me wince.
 
Pigpen vocals: true grit Lovelight Live Dead album. Not to mention his physical charisma.
 
Regarding: Donna & Joan Baez as vocalists, I have one word Snore ZZzzzzzz......
 
-susan

[hollis]

Hi Susan,
I too am a huge Steven Stills fan.  I first saw him live with Buffalo Springfield, his guitar work is now and always has been as tasty as it gets. His first solo album is right up there in the vicinity of an ever increasing list of favorites.  
 
Jerry may not have always hit the correct note, but he always got the feeling of the song across.
He did that as well as anyone I've ever heard.  I just loved watching him play and sing his heart out.
 
 

[dadabass2001]

Nobody has mentioned that, as far as I could tell, the GD never used effects on conceert vocals (no reverb, no chorusing, just dry). And given their push for pure concert sound (The Wall etc), they truely were letting everything hang out. I still love that karma! Kinda like friends playing around a campfire with wooden music (a nod to Crosby). Only they could groove, scream, jive, and rock like there was no tomorrow.
 
I miss Jerry too.
Mike

[zappahead]

Hey Bill, as far as the ups and downs go, Ill take my lumps for the ups that the Dead could manage. Honestly Ive seen a great many shows and Ive only seen a small handfull of shows that were in the downs category. The good shows by far outweighed any bad ones and their best shows that I saw made any kind of lowlights a faded memory. I have never seen another band who was as capable of being as good as the Dead were so naturally you could get let down because of your own expectations at times.
 
Whats a bit wierd though is that I found the Jerry Garcia band shows that I saw over the years to be consistently great. I used to see him whenever he came anywhere near DC and sometimes further out and his band was persistently amazing to me personally. I think it was in that format that I also saw most vividly the point Susan was making about how he could connect to you as an individual. Its not that he couldnt do that with the Dead, he did for sure, but he did it night in and night out when I saw him with the Jerry Band.  
 
 
Mike, I have heard effects in the recent Dead vocals, Bob specifically. Only on CDs that I have downloaded. Cant recall whether I ever heard any in the Jerry era. Off the top of my head I think you are right though.

[tom_z]

I've been to shows where the Dead played and everyone danced (good old rock and roll) and I've been at shows when the Dead absolutely transformed the whole place - sent the crowd reeling into aesthetic arrest. Moments of madness and joy. In the end I always thought the Grateful Dead played it out on the edge - a very honest approach. The open communication they had with band members, the crowd, the cosmos, and the gods was a great thing to witness. Sometimes they rolled along like a bike with seven wheels and other times there was FUSION. With the Dead it seemed the whole was always far greater than the sum of it's parts, so Jerry's soulful crooning or a risky chord voicing from Bobby never bothered me in the least.  
 
Speaking of Stephen Stills - I remember an interview he gave in which he said that the Dead were  . . . the greatest damn garage band in the world . . .  Incidentally, some of my favorite guitar work of Stills' is on his Manassas recordings.
 
Tom
 
(Message edited by tom_z on October 12, 2004)

[jalevinemd]

Guitar World was a little bit harsh on Jerry this month. They listed (in their opinion) the 100 Worst Riffs, Licks and Solos Of All Time and said that Jerry's solos always served up more noodles than lunchtime in Chinatown... I don't know, maybe more noodles than the take out place down the street...but all of Chinatown? Please!
 
Jonathan

[bigredbass]

Thank to you all, and I really appreciate Susan coming in to speak from her experience with the Dead.  Yes m'am, I've always admired SStills and Tom, I thought the Manassas project was fabulous and had a LOT of unfufilled potential.
 
While no DeadHead, I ALWAYS admired their uncommercial attitude and their great grace with their fans.  One of my deepest connections is the live Allmans/Fillmore recordings, and while that ABB came from a different direction, they had a similar attitude to the long improvs.
 
Thank You All,
 
J o e y

[palembic]

I' ve always been a S Stills fan. When I was 16 I used to look around for Steven Stills shirts (in fact this were plain light blue shirts with white lining ans button down collar) because we saw pictures of him -solo and with CSN&Y- in magazines. (Oh yeah ...and my addiction to American Football shirts is also thanks to him and the picture on the back of his first solo-album).Me too I was/am a Manassas fan. The bassplayer (Calvin fuzzy Samuels)had a big influence on my playing. I only saw them on a DUtch television show when they performed in Amsterdam. We didn't have television at home that time and I begged a neighbour of ours -who had cable so Dutch televisionstations- to see the show, what he as happy to grand.
In that time I was surprised when I discovered that SS played also the bass on his first solo-album.
 
Gratefull Dead ...nope ...never heard them and what I heard I didn't like a lot. Mayeb I listend to the wrong tracks. Anyway ...I heard so much about them that it is on my TO DO LIST for this year ...mmmmmmmm ...or next year ...whatever.
 
Paul the bad one