The Grateful Dead Workingman's Dead by Buzz Poole

Released in 1970, the Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s
Dead is cold-water-shock departure from the Acid
Test feedback madness of the late ‘60s material,
exemplified by songs like “St. Stephen” and “Dark
Star.” Rather than relying on chemicallyfuelled
guitar
licks and spacey improvisational explorations, this
album is the first listen to what would become an extensive songbook
informed and inspired by dusty, rough and tumble American history and
world mythologies, charting the long, winding path to self-discovery and
individual empowerment.
The eight songs that comprise Workingman’s Dead will serve as points of
entry from which will form a fully-rendered portrait of an exceptional
musical recording, both in terms of the songs but also, and perhaps
more importantly, how these songs speak to late twentieth-century
America, and the attendant cultural and political anxieties that resulted
from the idealism of the ‘60s giving way to the uncomfortable realities of
the ‘70s, making a case for the relevance of this music nearly forty-five
years after it was recorded. Based on research, interviews, and
personal experience, the book will probe the paradox at the heart of
the band’s appeal: the Grateful Dead was about much more than music,
though it was really just about the music.