Dead Cowboy

Back in the day, I went to a whole lotta of Grateful Dead shows. Ventura County Fairgrounds, Irvine, a bunch in Oakland. As far as I was concerned, The Dead was a shitkicker band. Jerry Garcia had a deep appreciation for bluegrass and old-time music and Bob Weir was often known to bust out a bit of Merle Haggard or Marty Robbins. Waylon Jennings opened for the Dead in 1973 in San Francisco.

The Dead did pretty much the definitive version of the outlaw song “Me & My Uncle,” written by that talented-but-sordid freak John Phillips.

Lyricist John Perry Barlow, who mostly wrote with Weir, is a fascinating guy, and a frontiersman at heart: The scion of a Wyoming ranching family, a libertarian activist and pioneer on the electronic frontier.

Back in 1970, The Grateful Dead released their seminal album “American Beauty” — which was originally supposed to depict them in Wild West outlaw glory.

“Originally the back cover of American Beauty was to have a picture of the Grateful Dead carrying guns like cowboys. (At the time, they considered themselves to be much like wild-west outlaws.)

But Robert Hunter vetoed it. He said:

“When American Beauty came out, there was a photograph to go on the back which showed the band with pistols. They were getting into guns at the time, going over to Mickey’s ranch, target shooting…they were just enjoying shooting pistols. (For example, we got a gold record and went and shot it up.) I saw that photo, and that was one of the few times I ever really asserted myself with the band and said ‘No — no picture of the band with guns on the back cover.’ These were incendiary and revolutionary times, and I did not want this band to be making that statement. I wanted us to counter the rising violence of that time. I knew that we had a tool to do it, and we just didn’t dare go the other way.”

Like I said, they were a shitkicker band. A weird, sloppy, hedonistic, glorious shitkicker band.

All that adds up to no surprise at the recent news that Bob Weir is coming out next month with an album of cowboy songs.

From Jambase:

At age 68 Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir has showed no signs of slowing down. Following a recently-completed, cross-country Summer Tour with Dead & Company, Bobby will return to the road this fall for a series of solo shows dubbed the “Campfire Tour.” The solo tour marks Weir’s first of the sort since 2013 and first non-Dead & Company jaunt since 2014. “Ace” has also revealed details of his new “cowboy album” titled ‘Blue Mountain,’ which was written with Josh Ritter and produced by Josh Kaufman. The National’s Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner and Scott Devendorf are featured performers on the 12-track record.

‘Blue Mountain,’ which will be released via Columbia/Legacy on September 30, is Weir’s first solo album in over 10 years and his first album of entirely new music in over 30 years. Bobby’s new effort is said to be, “a deeply personal folk music tribute to the ranch stories and fireside songs of Bob’s youth, told new with amazing wisdom and heart.”

Josh Ritter. Oh, yeah…

And from Relix:

“Cowboy songs have always been an aspect of what I have done. The idea is to draw them down to the essence of where they came from. Why did I start singing cowboy songs? Well, that’s because — when I was a kid — that’s what I did. I worked on a ranch. I worked with cowpokes, and I learned a little of that culture. I spent time in a bunkhouse with guys who had grown up before radio had made its way into people’s lives in that neck of the woods. The culture was such that they would sit around at night and tell stories and sing songs. I picked up a little of that, so I’m sort of chasing that down a little bit right now.”