An intimate portrait of the 1970 Grateful Dead album, Workingman's Dead, charting its influences and historical importance.
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.The albums eight songs will serve as points of entry to discuss the recording process and how these songs speak to late twentieth-century America, and the attendant cultural anxieties that resulted from the idealism of the '60s through the uncomfortable realities of the '70s. 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.
