Family Roots, the latest from rapidly rising star Victor Wainwright, is one of those delightful releases from an artist of significance that sort of is and isn't a new album, all at the same time. This one is a double disc set, but essentially you can view it as two albums packaged together. The first disc is subtitled Still Smokin'!, and is both a tribute to and a celebration of his past. It's a three-generation recording, featuring the trio of Victor Wainwright, his father, Vic Sr., and his grandfather Jesse. The second disc carries the subtitle Extended Stay and features Wainwright's current road band (himself, Nick Black on guitar, Will Hanlon on bass and Billy Dean on drums) just letting it loose for a "live in the studio" romp through some of the band's favorite cover material.

It's obviously best to look at these discs on their own individual merits. I'll start with a little of my own background knowledge in regards to Still Smokin'! First, having had the chance to share conversation with Victor a few times, I know that he used to play in honky tonks and bars with Jesse and Vic Sr., so the "family roots" referred to in the title are honest and run deep. I knew this recording was coming, and I knew that Wainwright was really excited about being able to do this. I honestly don't think it was just a tribute thing, though the love and respect he has for his family is very obvious here - I think it was a matter of three men who have enjoyed playing music together for a long, long time having a chance to share their joy with as much of the world as wants to join. From that (and many other) viewpoints, the disc is a rousing success. 

One of the important things to know about Wainwright is that there's the subtle element of a teacher in everything he does musically; he loves working with talented, young, unknown musicians to help keep the blues alive, and even when he performs live, there's a lot of nods to the history of his music. That teacher's instinct is one of the things I find most intriguing about Still Smokin'! This isn't really blues like you've come to expect from Wainwright; it is very much his own roots and sways back and forth between good ol' bar boogie ala Jerry Lee and slower, more traditionally country flavored ballads. I have no doubt this was the sort of stuff that was incredibly popular in backroad honky tonks back in the day, and the disc makes me wish I could have seen a performance of it back then. The teaching element works its way into the fabric of the recording when it becomes obvious on a couple of listens that the soulful gut-wrenching blues that Wainwright is currently perfecting is really not all that many steps away from the honkin' and country sounds found here. Right off the bat, I have to say that ANY fans out there of the classic era of Ray Price will no doubt love how Jesse handles the vocal chores on the ballad portions of the disc. They even cover Price's best known classic, "For The Good Times," and they nail it. For the record, Price is currently in his 80s and still keeps an active touring schedule, and I sincerely hope that somehow, he gets to hear this! 

"Lonesome 77203," "Trouble In Mind" and "Help Me Make It Through The Night" are among the other classic ballad performances presented here; of those, I'm particularly fond of "Help Me" for the superb vocal duet between Jesse and longtime Memphis icon Reba Russell; the styles and personalities of two very fine singers mesh perfectly on this track, and I can't help but think it was probably among the fun highlights of the sessions. Ballad wise, my favorite track here is "Nightlife." This is the best example here of just how close real country blues and real black blues actually are, and the band bridges that gap seamlessly. Of particular note are the quick piano highlight (both Victor and Jesse are credited with piano on the disc; I don't know for sure, but it sounds more like Victor to me) and the beautiful moaning guitar work throughout the track by Josh Roberts. Again... to students of music everywhere looking for tracks that show the strong relationships between what might seem to be very different genres on the surface, I can't encourage you enough to study and enjoy this piece.

The uptempo boogie numbers on the disc are certainly easier to identify with Victor, since he is such an accomplished boogie woogie player. Here, we're treated to "Got Me Runnin'," "Rockin' My Life Away" and "Sweet Little Sixteen." "Sixteen" is a real delight - great arrangement, Jesse's vocal is spot on, Victor's piano (again, I'm assuming it's Victor here!) is as wonderful as you expect, and the guitar lead is short, sweet and just what is called for (Vic Sr.?). Keyboard wise, perhaps the real nuggets on the disc are three snippets entitled "Four Handed Boogie." Man oh man oh man... Victor comes by it honestly! These are piano duets featuring him and his grandfather and they're nothing but pure fun. Not only that, but it gives a lot of hope for fans of Victor that we'll have the chance to enjoy him for a long time - Granddad can not only sing, but he still has the chops!

Moving to Extended Stay finds Wainwright and company in territory more familiar to his fans. Here, we have eight well-chosen covers, tunes the band simply enjoys hearing and enjoys playing... and by "extended stay," the band means these eight tunes come in at right about an hour! It's a "live in the studio" recording; that sometimes scares me, to be honest, because I've heard too many live studio recordings that were obviously overdubbed, but I'd be pretty willing to bet that this is a legit live recording, no tricks. It's easy to characterize the feel of this disc... it's fun, it's vibrant, it's a bunch of great musicians really groovin' on and with one another, it's occasionally a touch sloppy (which, to me, just adds to the fun) and it's as good a starting point for a new Wainwright fan as there might be. 

Three tracks in particular absolutely delight me. "Minnie The Moocher" is a perfect choice for this stage of Wainwright's career - the character he is and is developing on stage is truly reminiscent of the galloping fun that was Cab Calloway in his prime, and the band just nails the joyful attitude of the song. As an added bonus, though it's not listed, this is actually a medley, as about halfway through, the band slides into "St. James' Infirmary." It's such a natural transition that it will be difficult to hear "Moocher" without hearing "Infirmary" going forward. Another favorite is "Bo Diddley;" the fact that everybody has covered this at some point in their lives makes it, to me, crucial listening - that's why great musicians play standards, to show what they can offer, and what these guys offer is again loose, raucous fun... and another oh-so-natural transition, as the song segues effortlessly between "Bo" and "Who Do You Love" for the entirety of its nine minutes. See, THIS is what makes these guys so much fun to see on a stage!

The absolute cruncher of the whole package comes from the brilliant cover of the Tom Waits chestnut "Get Behind The Mule." This is, of course, a natural; again, the persona that Wainwright has been developing is a perfect vehicle for Tom Waits, both musically and conceptually. It's not at all surprising that Wainwright is a huge Waits fan (who isn't?), and believe me, he does everybody proud here. Can you out-slink and out-sleaze Tom Waits? Maybe not entirely... but here, Wainwright at the VERY least equals Waits' best efforts, no mean feat. More than anywhere else on the disc, Wainwright's vocal work here clearly defines where he is at this point in time, and the prospects for the future seem virtually unlimited when I hear a performance of this calibre. Again, we get a real treat here - the second half of the song is another seamless segue, this time into a seriously Howlin' Wolf-ish rendition of "Wang Dang Doodle." This is nothing shy of brilliant, and even for all the shining moments between these two discs, this track alone is worth the price of admission. I mean, dayam... Tom Waits AND Howlin' Wolf in one track?!?!?

I feel your best bet with Family Roots is to approach it not as a new Victor Wainwright album (there's no new material, etc.) but more accurately as an intimate and personal peek into some of the music and values that Wainwright cherishes. For me, an album like this is a gift; it provides so much insight as to what it was that bit Victor in the first place and obviously never went away. I truly enjoyed this glimpse of where he's been and where he is... and I hope it's obvious that I can't WAIT to see where he's going to go as time marches on!

So... 48 years ago, there was this hippie kid who was trying really hard to be a nice guy but ultimately wound up proving for all the world to see that without a shadow of a doubt, he was nothing but a heathen criminal unfit to serve in the United States military. His most horrific crime? Um... littering... Of course, I'm referring to Arlo Guthrie, and more of course the event I'm referring to not only kept him out of the military, but provided hippies and classic rockers and story lovers everywhere with one of the cornerstone songs of our lifetime. Thanks to Arlo's kind and helpful nature, an over-zealous cop and the ability to weave a magic tale from a pretty silly event, the world has been able to enjoy the saga of "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" for what is now approaching a half century.

Thing of it is, it would be a great story/song even if the whole thing was made up, but it wasn't! Now, even according to Guthrie himself, he "might have exaggerated a little" in the song (he's a storyteller; it's an inherent right), and the film version of Alice's Restaurant took a few liberties for the sake of making a movie, but essentially, yeah. The man got arrested for littering and, at the time, any American citizen who had been convicted of a crime could be ruled morally unfit to be drafted. Amazing!


The Truth
Alice M. Brock, a friend of Arlo Guthrie's, really did own a restaurant in a small town in Massachusetts. She and her husband Ray really did live in a former church. It was originally built as the St. James Chapel in 1829, then in 1866 was enlarged and renamed Trinity Church. Ray and Alice bought the deconsecrated church in 1964 and made it their home until sometime in the early '70s. In 1965, the Brocks hosted a "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat" for friends (though not nearly as many as were seen in the film). Guthrie was one of their guests, and since there was a lot of garbage in the church at the time, he decided to be a good guy and help them get the church cleaned up some. Guthrie had gone to school a little ways away from the church, and so was familiar with a lot of the back roads of the area, including a place that a lot of local people had used to dump their trash. Quoting from an interview Guthrie did with NPR in 2005, "...it wasn't like some pristine virgin forest that we... were screwing around with. And our pile of garbage, well, we couldn't tell the difference once we threw ours down. But there was someone who could and that happened to be the local chief of police, a guy named Bill Obanhein, who we called Officer Obie. And he confronted us that next morning after Thanksgiving with our crime."

When you're the son of a songwriter as legendary as Woody Guthrie, I'd guess it's only natural to make songs out of odd stories in your life. "Alice's Restaurant" wasn't released on an album until 1967, but part of the reason was that a lot of the song hadn't actually happened yet. After Thanksgiving (Guthrie really did have to go clean up his pile of garbage; I haven't been able to confirm if he ever paid a $25 fine or not) Arlo wound up leaving school in the midst of so much social upheaval; "all the world was changing and I wanted to be where that was happening," says Guthrie. Of course, leaving school meant that he was also eligible to be drafted and sent to Viet Nam, but upon going to the induction center, he really was declared ineligible for the draft because of littering. Guthrie was reportedly dumbfounded at his fortune, and turned the incidents into his most famous song. He says it took about a full year to put the song together; he would add things as they happened to him and keep them in the song if they were funny and true; if things weren't funny or people didn't respond, he would drop a bit from the song. Eventually, it morphed into the very familiar story we all love so much to hear, especially at this time of year. 

The song, as you might guess, hasn't remained static. Since it was over 18 minutes long, it was way too long to be released as a single (wouldn't even have fit on a 45), but two years after the album, Guthrie released a reworked "Alice's Rock & Roll Restaurant" as a single.The nearly five-minute tune incorporated the chorus and removed the entire monologue. There was a very different arrangement, and extra verses, but in all honesty, it wasn't anywhere near as charming or captivating as the real deal. Guthrie has, of course, performed the song numerous times in concert, and it has been adapted and re-recorded a couple of times since the 1967 album was released.

The Film
In 1969, the story was adapted for the big screen, starring Guthrie as himself (and I must admit... he played himself well on camera!). The real Alice makes several camero appearances in the movie, though her character is portrayed by Pat Quinn. Probably my favorite incidental bit about the movie is that police chief William Obanheim plays himself, Officer Obie, in the movie. I have to give him credit for his reasoning for accepting the role; he told Newsweek magazine that "making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool." While most of the significant plot elements in the movie were based on truth, some characters were added, events were made up and a few details changed on screen (Ray and Alice, for example, lived alone in their church, not as part of a commune as the movie depicts). The song is a more accurate representation of the real events than the film is. I found it surprising to learn that the film grossed over $6 million in the United States, making it the 21st highest grossing movie of that year.

My personal opinion of the film? I have a difficult time watching it... not because of the liberties taken (that's okay, it's a good story) and not because it's a bad movie or anything (I don't think it's bad at all). The problem I have is in the darker moments of the film; the graveside service for a passed friend... the scene where Ray goes on his enraged rant and makes me feel like his character never really believed in the whole hippie thing, but just grabbed onto it for convenience sake... I know the movie is listed as a "comedy," but I just don't see it as such... more a tragedy with some very light moments. In an odd sort of way, I strongly compare it to the film version of Quadrophenia. Arlo and Jimmy (Quadrophenia's lead character) seem so similar to me; young men who think they've found something real to believe in which they give themselves over to heart and soul, only to learn the harsh lesson in the long run that it was all a phase, a facade, and all the beauty and revolution and revelations were more posturing than lifestyle. Both films make me sad watching something so important being stripped away from people who believed so innocently and completely in the ideals.

Postscript
Alice Brock was always something of a renaissance woman. Before she owned her restaurant, she was a painter and designer and teacher, and she returned to her creative muses from the '70s onward. The Alice's Restaurant Cookbook was published in 1969 with recipes and "hippie wisdom" from Alice, and she also illustrated a 2004 children's book entitled Mooses Come Walking, written by Arlo. I found many references to her having an art gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She has a website that displays her paintings and other creative works; there is a blog on the site, but the last post to the blog was made in 2011. I honestly couldn't find any reference to Alice dated after 2007 or so... but I also couldn't find any reference to her having died, either, and I'd assume that a lady of such significance would garner some attention and some loving tributes for her life had she passed. She and Ray divorced in the early 70's, and Ray died in 1979.

Alice, if by good fortune you see this, drop me a line!

Arlo, of course, is still going strong. He still plays a lot of live shows, and in fact his Here Come The Kids tour started in October of this year and continues through May of 2014. His son Abe is joining him on keyboards and vocals for the tour. I saw Arlo in, I think, the late '80s, and Abe was with him then as well. The show I caught was during one of the periods where Arlo preferred to not perform "Alice's Restaurant," and he didn't that night, much to the irritation of a lot of the crowd. That's sad, because the show was really good; Arlo was fun and funny and personable, in good voice and with a ton of great songs that he played. I even had the chance to chat with him and his son for a few minutes after the show, and he honestly came across as being an incredibly nice and kind human being. I'm truly glad I got to see that performance.

And you know what's REALLY cool? In 1991, Arlo purchased the Trinity Church, Ray and Alice's former residence. It has been renamed The Guthrie Center, and is described in Arlo's bio as "a not-for-profit interfaith church foundation dedicated to providing a wide range of local and international services." I guess I couldn't have been much righter when I viewed him as an incredibly nice and kind human being. The services The Guthrie Center offer includes everything from providing HIV/AIDS services to baking cookies with a local service organization... from an HD Walk-A-Thon to raise awareness and money for research into Huntington's Disease to offering a place for simple meditation... From a folk music venue offering concerts and regular hootenannies to an annual "Garbage Trail Walk," which also raises money for Huntington's research...

...and yes, they also offer up a Thanksgiving Dinner That Can't Be Beat every year for the local community. If outsiders are welcome, I think I need to add that to my bucket list. I'd even be willing to help get rid of the garbage.

When you take a look at how much Laura Nyro influenced the music of the late '60s and early '70s as a songwriter alone, you have to wonder why she's still somewhat relegated to "cult" status. By the age of 17, she had already composed the classic "And When I Die," first popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary, then hitting huge for Blood, Sweat and Tears... and just thinking of the huge disparity in the stylistic approach of those two groups, it's amazing enough that the same song could be successfully interpreted by both artists. "Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Save The Country," "Eli's Coming" and "Stoney End" all did wonders to further the careers of The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night and Barbra Streisand, and that's not even considering her own recorded output, which is simply a catalog of excellence.

Laura was born on October 18, 1947. Her love of music began early and she had a huge range of music she enjoyed; John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Curtis Mayfield, Dusty Springfield, '50s and '60s girl groups and even Dionne Warwick's interpretations of the work of Bacharach & David are all cited as influences evident in her own music. Her mom exposed her to works by impressionist classical composers, and (as a very complete artist) Nyro spent a lot of time reading poetry. Small wonder, then, that the liner notes to her anthology, Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best Of Laura Nyro, describe her as drawing from soul, jazz, R&B, blues, folk and modern classical in her own compositions (I'd add gospel to the list). The liner notes go on to list an impressive array of artists who have covered her work, which completely adds to her reputation as a genre-bending songwriter; besides those already mentioned, her work has been recorded by Suzanne Vega, Phoebe Snow, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Chet Atkins, Roseane Cash, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, The Roches, Maynard Ferguson, George Duke... The list stretches on and on, resulting in an amazing legacy of respect from her own peers. 

In regards to her own recorded output, she bears at least one similarity to Leonard Cohen in that her legacy of brilliance is built on a relatively small recorded output; from 1967 until 1993, she released only nine albums of studio work, and in 2001 there was a posthumous release of an album she recorded in '94 and '95. Considering this was an era when, say, The Beatles knocked out some eighteen albums in just seven years, you have to figure that what was released had to be pretty spectacular for here to be as revered as she is.

It was.

Her first album in 1967, More Than A Discovery, was released on Verve Records (it was reissued twice after she signed to Columbia Records), and though it's perhaps not her most recognized work, it certainly shows the talent and vision she possessed. Once she signed to Columbia, her next four releases have to be filed in the "as good as it gets" category - Eli And The Thirteenth Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969), Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat (1970) and Gonna Take A Miracle (1971) are crucial to every aspiring songwriter's library. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that these four releases wrote a huge chunk of the foundation for very independent and very soulful female songwriters. Personally, I kind of came aboard a little late; my first exposure to her was her 1976 release, Smile. I sort of knew that she had written some songs for other people, but I wasn't really familiar with anything she had recorded. The cover of Smile is kind of innocuous; there's really no way you could look at that album cover and even take a hint at the power, expression and compassion this woman exhibited. I was completely blown away, and when I mentioned that to a friend who was a longtime fan of Nyro's, she suggested I listen to the previous four albums. "Just set an evening aside, and listen to them right through," I was advised. "Oh...  and be ready for your life to change." 

Truer words have rarely been spoken to me in regards to music. I have to admit, all these years later, that I wasn't able to sit and make it through all four at one sitting. There was too much depth, too much intensity of emotion, too much absolute heart and soul and sweat for me to not go back and re-listen so I could better understand and appreciate the records. Nyro fans all have their favorites, of course, but for whatever reason, New York Tendaberry is the one that hits me the hardest; it took me a couple of good, serious nights to move beyond that one, and to this day is the Nyro album I listen to most often. Laura was heavily involved in the brilliant anthology of her work (though I'd plead with you to just go get the catalog in chronological order!), and I felt something of a kinship with her when I read in the liner notes her saying, "When I was working on this anthology and listening back to that music, I thought 'Oh my God - what a madcap energy. I don't know if I can deal with this.' But it's funny because soon I started to get into it and it was very energizing and a lot of fun. I cried when I heard New York Tendaberry."

After Smile, she released Nested (1978), and then only two more studio releases in her lifetime; Mother's Spiritual in 1984 and Walk The Dog And Light The Light in 1993. Angel in the Dark was the posthumous release. It should be noted that she also released two live albums in her life, and four more live recordings have been released since her death. Of her post-Tendaberry work, Mother's Spiritual is the most moving (in my opinion, of course). It really struck me as I was reading about this amazing woman's life that she had a pretty incredible Mom. She had one son, and after appreciating Mother's Spiritual, I have to think that she carried the traits of being a great Mom forward. 

When I see any criticism of her work at all, I most often read that she was a little "too feminist" for some people's taste. I can't even begin to understand that. By her own admission, she brought "a certain feminist perspective" to her songwriting... but we're dealing with a strong, fiery, intelligent woman. Considering many of her influences and fctoring in her interest with the folk/protest movement of the sixties (and causes she remained activist about for the duration of her life), I would have been disappointed if she HADN'T lent a feminist perspective to her work. She was a brilliant songwriter first and foremost because of the honesty that shone through all her music. I wouldn't ask Woody Guthrie to abandon his crusades for the downtrodden of the world in his songwriting, and neither would I want anything less than complete honesty from Laura Nyro... and I want it to be her honesty.. 

In late 1996, Nyro was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the same disease that claimed her mother's life. She died on April 8, 1997 at the age of 49. Of all the astounding songwriters in history who we lost at a relatively young age, Laura Nyro would be among the talents I most would have wanted to hear for another thirty years. There's so much more; on the one hand, It feels like it takes so little time to summarize her career, but that's an injustice to her. She was a deep and fascinating human being, and once you begin to know her music, I'd bet most people will scour the web to learn more about the person behind the music. When you listen to her work and it hits "that place" inside you, you realize that even through the small-by-comnparison amount of work she left behind, you will have a friend and companion forever through that music.

* * * * *
The quote you see in the second picture of Laura that accompanies this post is from an excellent interview I found with her. It's from a blog call Stomp Off, which is a consistently good read (http://stomp-off.blogspot.com/). I believe the man who runs the blog is named Chris Andersen, though it's actually kind of hard to find his name anywhere on the blog! Most of the blog is jazz oriented, and he seems to be doing for jazz what I'm trying to do with classic rock - using his obvious extensive knowledge and career experience to share a very golden era of music that means a lot to him.

1970 might have been the year when The Grateful Dead upgraded their status from "cult" to "legend." June of that year saw the release of Workingman's Dead, an album that would have been classic enough for most anybody... but in the opinion of a bazillion Dead fans (including me) they topped it in November with the release of American Beauty.

It's hard to think of these two iconic albums as being "radical" in any way; they're such easygoing records, warm and friendly... but a peek at what was on the charts at the time gives a hint as to how visionary The Dead were. In June, the top 20 albums included The Beatles Let It Be, Paul McCartney's solo debut, the Woodstock soundtrack, Jethro Tull Benefit, and live albums from The Who, Cream and Iron Butterfly. The closest thing to the quieter visage of Workingman's Dead was Deja Vu from CSNY or Bridge Over Troubled Water from Simon & Garfunkel; even there, the former kicked off with "Carry On" and had several rockin' tracks, and Bridge had strayed far from S&G's folkie roots into the realm of huge mega-production. It's hard to recall a mindset where "Uncle John's Band" or "Casey Jones" were bold statements, but using country and Americana influences as the root of your work wasn't a popular notion at the time. The vibe on the album must have been strong within the band, because they did the unthinkable - they used their own instant classic as a base point, refined and even upgraded the approach and released a second defining moment only five months later. The musical climate around them hadn't changed much in those five months; James Taylor's Sweet Baby James was a strong album at the time, but otherwise, Led Zeppelin topped the chart; Santana, Creedence, The Stones, Joe Cocker, Free, The Guess Who... all of them were cranking out their superb mostly-blues based mostly-high-energy breed of rock. American Beauty must have stood out like a beacon in the dark; not surprisingly, it still does.

The Dead seemingly took everything amazing about Workingman and pushed it just a little bit more. Jerry Garcia had become less of a flash guitarist with that album and he backed off even further on American Beauty, choosing instead to fill the space with tasty and appropriate work on pedal steel guitar. The songwriting seemed to become even more focused, perhaps an outgrowth of having lived with Workingman for a while and just plain old getting better at something they were already real good at. There's ten songs on American Beauty, and five of them are mainstays to this day on even the most rigid classic rock formats - "Ripple" and "Truckin'" were both released as singles (!!), and "Box Of Rain," "Sugar Magnolia" and "Friend Of The Devil" are undeniable cornerstones of a brilliant era. Looking back on both of the albums from 1970, I'd say in retrospect that Workingman was the more daring and radical of the two albums, being the first one so heavily rooted in country, folk and bluegrass, and Beauty is the more comfortable and accomplished of the two.It was obvious the band was happy with the niche they had found, and even just the few months between albums was enough time and experience for them to show The Dead in a more complete, communal light - a stellar example of the whole being greater than the sum of even the most magnificent of parts.

For me, American Beauty is one of my two favorite Dead albums (In The Dark is the other). I think all the music people I know have a half dozen or so albums in their life that they have bookmarked as "everything is okay" records - albums that give you the perfect, warm feeling conveyed by  music which is part of the fabric of a person's life; this is way high on my list. "Box Of Rain" sets the entire tone of the album masterfully. I've looked at this track in a lot of way in my lifetime; I love the idea of having a box of rain that I can call on when I want it or need it, even if that strays a tad from the focus of the song. Come to find out, it was created to be a very therapeutic piece of music (always has been for me). Phil Lesh's father was a victim of cancer, and Lesh was dealing with the impending loss of his dad at the time. According to lyricist Robert Hunter, Phil "wanted a song to sing to his dying father," and had composed "Box Of Rain" in it's entirety except for the words. Hunter went on to say it was one of the easiest lyrics he ever wrote; Phil did indeed sing the song to his father and, appropriately enough, it also became the first Dead song to feature Lesh on lead vocal. 

"Friend Of The Devil" is as perfect a song as you can get for a variety of reasons. Easy on the ears, fun to sing along with, and the outlaw-running-from-the-police lyrics work on so many levels. They're allegorical to what the band must have felt at the time - doing things their own way, having to stand up for the right to do so, aided by the devil who betrays them in the end... and beyond that, it's just a damned fun story. "Sugar Magnolia" would have to be in the top ten all time feelgood songs from the Dead (or anyone). The gorgeous melody line is complemented with beautiful, restrained playing and one of my favorite collective vocal performances from the band ever - such a study in harmony singing! Lyrically, it's as pretty an ode to a lady as you're going to find - "She's got everything delightful, she's got everything I need / A breeze in the pines and sun and bright moonlight, lazing in the sunshine, yes indeed..." are a lovely contrast to "She don't come and I don't follow," giving a nod to both the beauty and independence of the lady. Sunshine, daydream, sunshine, daydream...

Both "Operator" and "Candyman" fall into the category of Comfortable Songs. They don't get mentioned anywhere near as much as the album's Big Five... and what an amazing record when these are the filler tracks! They're standard Dead beautiful, lush in harmony and melody, and I can't imagine the album without them.  "Ripple" is, to me, the perfectest diamond on the perfect necklace, a song that embodies everything good about The Dead, the hippies and my utopian vision of how life could and should be. "Reach out your hand if your cup is empty... and if your cup is full, may it be full again" is as simple beautiful as it gets; the vocal and musical treatment invite the listener to the porch to set with friends and laugh long into the night. "Brokedown Palace" has always hit a place deep inside of me, and when I moved to Memphis, it became even more personal (if that was possible). I left a place I had lived for decades that no longer felt like home, and the first time I stood on the banks of the Mississippi River after moving, I sang "Goin home, goin home, by the riverside I will rest my bones... Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul" to the river itself. I felt like I was home... and when I turned to walk back to my apartment, there was somebody I had never seen before (and probably haven't seen since) who smiled at me and said, "That was nice." I was right. I was home.

"Til The Morning Comes" and "Attics Of My Life" are, again, Comfortable Songs. They pair so well together, and though they go at it from different angles, they seem oddly similar to me. Both songs reach inside to play off the combination of memory and anticipation, and again, both do so with such beautiful harmonies! The Dead get a lot of credit for a lot of things, but in my opinion not enough credit for their vocal work. The album closes with "Truckin'" - and could you BE any more Dead than this? It's as close to a rocker as the album gets, and the lyrics are completely autobiographical (for an awful lot of bands who are constantly on the road). Can't help but to love Garcia's melody lines on this one, of course, and the vocals are a mishmash of storytelling and whimsy. There's a lot of trial and tribulation to the song if you look at it in a literal sense, but there sure doesn't sound like a whole lot of regret here... and, of course, we get to take "what a long, strange trip it's been" with us as one of our last memories of the album.

I've been listening to American Beauty since shortly after it was released, and I don't think there's any accurate way to measure the pleasure and joy I've taken from the record. While reading about it for this post, I learned something that I imagine most Deadheads have known for most of forever; if you look at the album cover, the wording spells both "American Beauty" and "American Reality," by design. I grinned like a fool when I read that - more than forty years on, and I can still see a little something different that I never saw before in this album. But then again... masterpieces are like that.

Lagniappe

American Beauty was at the center of one of my all-time favorite moments in my record store. It was a bit of a lazy day in the middle of a week, and Beauty had just started playing in the store; it felt right for the day, and it was in high rotation forever and always anyways. A mom and her daughter came into the store, and momma was dealing out a ration of grief. She was lecturing her kid up one side and down the other about her devil music, and how it was going to lead her down the wrong path. I rankled particularly when I heard her use The Grateful Dead as an example, as in, "And what's with listening to bands with names like The Grateful Dead? Can't you even see how evil that is?" The grief went on and on for fifteen, twenty minutes. Finally, as they were leaving (no purchase made), momma looks at me and says, "Thank you for playing such nice music in your store. I wish my daughter would take a lesson from you. What is this you're playing now?" "It's the Grateful Dead, ma'am." I snuck a peek at the daughter who was out of her skin with glee and having a hard time masking it. Momma looked at me and said, "No, really. What is this?" I took the CD out of the player and handed it to her. She looked at it, handed it back to me, and said angrily, "You did that on purpose!" Now, even though the album was playing when they walked in, you can't pass up that golden an opportunity, so I replied something like, "Sorry, but sometimes people need to have their face rubbed in their own stupidity." I never saw either of them again. A shame... I was sure hoping daughter would stop back in some day...

A few trivia bits about the album... This was the first time David Grisman and Jerry Garcia had worked together in any capacity; they bumped into one another at a baseball game, and Jerry invited David to the studio to help work on the album... It was recorded at Wally Heider's studio, which Phil Lesh describes as being "jammer heaven" during that era. The Dead, Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, Santana and CSNY all regularly hung out at the studio. Now... there HAVE to be tapes somewhere, right?... This was the final Dead album for Mickey Hart until he returned to the band in 1974... According to Deadbase X, "Sugar Magnolia" was the second most-played song by The Dead in their concert career, logging 596 performances ("Me & My Uncle" was their most played tune in concert with 616 performances)... I don't know why I find this to be so hilarious, but "Truckin'," with all the drug and arrest and outlaw references, was recognized by the United States Library Of Congress as a national treasure in 1997...