Quote:
Originally Posted by Railroad Bum
I have had some time off work lately, so that's plenty of time to play guitar and make videos. This is an old traditional that I got from Jerry Garcia. It's a fun blues in 1-4-5 in E, and I don't like to play blues because I do not feel that I bring the right feel to it. I am more of a folky, bluegrassy singer and picker. This tune kind of has more of a folky, jug band sort of feel, so it works for me, I guess. Anyway, this is my fun, very sloppy take on the good, old Deep Elem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVoUEHB0ws |
It's funny, with Dead related tunes, I almost never think of them based on what album they appeared on, but when I first heard them (subject to the limitations of my memory, which are significant!). I first heard this one the first time I took my then girlfriend (now wife) to a Dead show, in Seattle in the summer of 1984. They played this with its bouncy intro and I've loved it ever since. You do it pretty faithfully to their version and quite well. It's interesting to me that you have a really strong vocal signature / style and on a lot of songs, it takes me a minute to get used to it and hear how well it fits the song. On this one, you sing it pretty much straight in line with how Jerry sang it. It didn't take me any time at all to fall right in with it.
As you'd expect, I play this one a lot too. I've never recorded it as I just do it as kind of a straight blues, because I never got all that comfortable playing the bouncy riff that they do. I'm not crazy about my version, but I enjoy doing it, so I keep playing it. BTW, my wife never got into the Dead. I took her to one other show, 10 years later in 94 (which is really hard to believe is 30 years ago). She didn't much care for either of the two I took her to, but she was a good sport both times.
-Ray