Workingman’s Dead: A Review
By Dicky Neely
Note: I recently purchased a CD version of this classic rock album on Ebay. I have bought a lot of music there and they asked me to write a customer review. The following is the piece I sent them.

Released by Warner Brothers Records in June of 1970, Workingman’s Dead was the fifth Grateful Dead album.
It marked a bit of a change of direction for the iconic Bay Area jam band. This eight cut album was more of a studio product with arrangements closely akin to pop, rock and country songs.
It worked well. For the sake of disclosure, I am not a Dead Head. I liked them but this is the only Dead album I ever owned, and is my favorite Dead work.
It may not have the spontaneous energy of most of their albums but the songs are good and one, “Casey Jones,” is my all time favorite Dead song.
Jerry Garcia had this to say about Working Man’s Dead:
"Workingman's Dead was our first true studio album, insofar as we went in there to say 'These are the limitations of the studio for us as performers; let's play inside those limitations.' That is we decided to play more or less straight-ahead songs and not get hung up with effects and weirdness. For me, the models were music that I'd liked before that was basically simply constructed but terribly effective - like the old Buck Owens records from Bakersfield. Those records were basic rock & roll: nice, raw, simple, straight-ahead music, with good vocals and substantial instrumentation but nothing flashy. Workingman's Dead was our attempt to say, 'We can play this kind of music - we can play music that's heartland music. It's something we do as well as we do anything.' "
Cuts: Uncle John’s Band, High Time, Dire Wolf, New Speedway Boogie, Cumberland Blues, Black Peter, Easy Wind, Casey Jones
The Dead were a cultural phenomenon. They developed a huge following of ‘Dead Heads’ and toured continuously during their heyday. Their shows often would go on for hours and their fans, which included a mix ranging from bikers, hippies, blue collar workers, Yuppies and others never seemed to get enough.

Workingman’s Dead;
Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, pedal steel guitar, vocals
Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh - bass, vocals
Pigpen (Ron McKernan) - keyboards, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann - drums
Mickey Hart - drums
David Nelson - acoustic guitar on Cumberland Blues