Workingman's Dead 50, Episode 7: Easy Wind

Rich Mahan (0:05)

The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, the official podcast of the Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarnow, exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the Committed And The Curious.

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We're down to the last couple of episodes about the 50th anniversary of Workingman's Dead. You can visit our website to check out all of the episodes we've already released. And there are links there to your favorite podcast platform so you can get your listen on. The newly remastered version of Workingman's Dead really is a sonic improvement over past releases. And the three CD set includes content in the form of a show from February 21st, 1971 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. It was mixed by Jeffrey Norman from the original 16-track analog reel-to-reel tapes over at Bob Weir's TRI Studios. There's also a collectible 12-inch vinyl picture disc featuring the Workingman's Dead album art. Very cool. Also pressed from the 2020 remastered mixes. Did you know we have a feature on the Deadcast page, dead.net/deadcast, where you can record yourself telling a story about anything Grateful Dead related, share your magic moments, adversity overcome, and side splitting happenings with the rest of your fellow Deadheads. You just might hear yourself telling your story in a future episode of the Deadcast. Submit your story at stories.dead.net.

Well, Easy Wind is the focus of this episode on The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast. It's one of my favorite tracks on Workingman's Dead, in large part to the live band feel, but also and more importantly, because Pigpen takes the lead vocal on this one. His vocal leads on studio albums are rare, and Easy Wind might just be the one that comes closest to the magic he delivered in the band's live sets. There's also plenty of material from the Easy Wind recording sessions included in the Angel's Share, which are the recently released studio outtakes from the original 1970 Workingman's Dead recording sessions. Make sure to check those out at your favorite streaming or download service for a deep dive into how the band worked this song out.

Well, it's time to hand this one off, to Professor Jesse Jarnow, as we take a close look at Easy Wind.

Jesse Jarnow (2:41)

Bye There are several reasons why Easy Wind isn't like the other songs on Workingman's Dead. Let's start with the most obvious. It's the only song on the album with a lead vocalist other than Jerry Garcia. Hey Pigpen!

Another reason it's different is that it's the first track on the album to feature the complete double drummer electric Grateful Dead as they sounded live in 1969 and 1970 Tales from the Golden Road host, Gary Lambert.

Gary Lambert (3:30)

I loved that piece from the first live performances I heard. And a wonderful thing about the studio version of Easy Wind is more than almost any other. It conveys the essence of the Grateful Dead in microcosm. It puts across what one of their much longer live jams might have sounded like, and they compress it into less than five minutes on a studio track.

It's incredibly successful in that regard.

Jesse Jarnow (3:57)

It's also the only track on Workingman's Dead not written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, which might seem obvious by Pigpen's vocals, but it's not by Pigpen.

Easy Wind was the first Grateful Dead song written solely by Robert Hunter. That performance was from October 13th, 1978, and My Father's Place on Long Island, accompanied by bassist Larry Klein. Robert Hunter, of course, was the Grateful Dead's lyricist, but he was also a musician. In high school in Connecticut, he played trumpet in a band called The Crescents. During the days of the Palo Alto folk scene, he could be heard playing upright bass and mandolin in Jerry Garcia's various acoustic ensembles. Probably in most cases, the division of labor between Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter was what it might seem. Robert Hunter wrote lyrics, Jerry Garcia wrote music, and occasionally provided editing. But especially during the few years they were housemates in Larkspur, the lines were sometimes blurrier. It was a small house.

In 1978, around the time of that performance we just heard, Hunter told Relics, I'd sit upstairs banging away at my three cords for days and days working something out. By the time I had it worked out, you know, through the thin walls, he'd heard everything I was doing. I'd come down and hand him this sheet of paper and he'd say, oh, that's interesting. And he'd play the whole arrangement of it right away because he'd heard what I was doing and heard where it was going off. Mountain Girl once said that Hunter might have already worked out some chord changes for a song and Jerry would say, oh no, man, that's not the way it should be. It should be like this.