Grateful Dead Workingman's Dead 45RPM (2 LP)
TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Informal
Grateful Dead Workingman's Dead on Numbered Limited Edition 180g 45RPM 2LP Set from Mobile Fidelity!
Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 409/500!
Rolling Stone 2015 Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Jam Bands: The Grateful Dead Rated 1st!
Sublime, Stripped-Down 1970 Americana Classic Steeped in Country, Blues, and Folk
You've Never Heard This Roots-Based Marvel Sound Better: Mastered from the Original Master Tapes and Given Extra-Wide Grooves on 45RPM LP!
Airy Harmonies, Simple Structures, Concise Arrangements, and Burnished Tones Anchor Songs!
"Workingman's Dead" is proof to the contrary that the Grateful Dead can't produce brilliant recordings in the studio. Always praised for its natural sound, the album is now becoming an audiophile reference disc with this remastering. Remastered by Krieg Wunderlich for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, the 1970s recording is bursting with detail and airiness on a wide and deep stage. The incredible tonal and vocal balance will blow away even long-time Deadheads.
"Workingman's Dead" is the Dead's first album that is limited to great songs, simple warmth and pure essentials. So the album begins with the relaxed "Uncle John's Band" and the innocent invitation "Will you come with me?". The new restraint probably stemmed from the turbulent times in which the band found itself. Financial problems, drugs and, above all, the tragic outcome of the Altamont Music Festival and thus the symbolic end of the "Peace & Love" era marked the creation of the album.
The reflection on simplicity and simply beautiful vocal harmonies inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash make "Workingman's Dead" a timeless album. The double LP with 45 rpm on 180 gram vinyl will be released in a limited edition gatefold cover with a sequential serial number. Highly recommended for any collection!
Workingman's Dead defies the erroneous belief that the Grateful Dead never attained brilliance in the recording studio. Forever prized for natural sonics, Workingman's Dead attains audiophile reference status courtesy of this first-ever 45RPM version. As flawless as any rustic album ever released, the 1970 set now brims with soaring harmonies, organic execution, intertwined textures, and uncomplicated structures that furnish the songs a transcendence associated with timeless American music. Colorful, relatable characters seemingly torn from working-class histories and old-time fables inhabit the narratives.
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. Leader Jerry Garcia's occasional pedal-steel underpinnings arrive as a bonus.
Of course, aside from the economical concision and thematic consistency, the genius of Workingman's Dead resides in the group's expressive harmonies. Taught by Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Dead produce live "air blends" of multi-part vocal harmonies that provide the foundations of nearly every track. "Uncle John's Band", "High Time", "New Speedway Boogie" (with the iconic refrain One way or another/This darkness has got to give referencing the ill wind that greeted the new decade), and the radio favorite "Casey Jones" practically float on the ensemble's communal vocal beds.
Mobile Fidelity's 45RPM edition renders these invigorating, refreshing, and engaging characteristics in three-dimensional sound that transports you to the event. Recordings don't get more lifelike. Workingman's Dead an iconic, ageless record that drew countless listeners to the band's unique style because of its accessibility and charm deserves nothing less. Neither do you.
Features:
- Numbered, Limited Edition
- 45rpm Speed Edition
- Mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
- Specially Plated and Pressed on 180 grams of High Definition Vinyl
- Special Static Free - Dust Free Inner Sleeve
- Heavy Duty Protective Packaging
- Mastered from the Original Master Tapes
- 1/4"/15 IPS/Dolby A Analog Master Direct to Lathe
- Pressed at RTI
Selections:
Side A
1. Uncle John's Band
2. High Time
Side B
1. Dire Wolf
2. New Speedway Boogie
Side C
1. Cumberland Blues
2. Black Peter
Side D
1. Easy Wind
2. Casey Jones