Workingmans Dead

Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g LPs at RTI, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered limited edition of this period-defining recording renders the stripped-down fare with immense detail, rich airiness, and reach-out-and-touch-it realism. Longtime Deadheads and newcomers alike will hear significantly more information, experience wider and deeper soundstages, and become swept away by incredible tonal and vocal balances—traits made possible by the format’s wider grooves. Instrumental melds and refined accents, such as guest David Nelson’s nimble fills on “Cumberland Blues,” are part of a larger whole that gives the impression you are witness to the world’s coziest campfire session. Frontier tales and refined performances further this feeling.

The first Grateful Dead album to eschew cosmic jams and complex signatures, Workingman’s Dead stakes its existence to great songs, homespun warmth, and bare essentials. Its wistful, relaxed state—immediately apparent via the innocent album-opening invitation “Will you come with me?” on “Uncle John’s Band”—owes to the circumstances and conditions surrounding its creation. At the time, the Dead owed a considerable financial debt to Warner Bros. and were hobbled by a recent drug bust and financial scandal. Most significantly, the band was recovering from—and reacting to—the tragic events of the Altamont Music Festival and symbolic end of the peace and love era.
As such, Workingman’s Dead acts as a retreat from chaos and uncertainty, its songs emblems of simpler times and pleas for compassion in the face of hardship. Lyricist Robert Hunter said he aimed to capture the vintage elements of late 1940s country-and-western jukebox singles as well as old blues classics. In that vein, fare such as the Bakersfield-leaning “Cumberland Blues,” pastoral ballad “Dire Wolf,” and bluesy “Easy Wind” hit the mark.