The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968ā1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971ā1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971ā1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972ā1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979ā1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990ā1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, "[Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial". According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures.
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers of activity where fans could buy and sell anything from grilled cheese sandwiches to home-made t-shirts and recordings of Grateful Dead concerts.
In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music, and health care to all. It has been said that the band performed "more free concerts than any band in the history of music".
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts together, the Grateful Dead performed many concerts every year, from their formation in April 1965, until July 9, 1995. Initially all their shows were in California, principally in the San Francisco Bay Area and in or near Los Angeles. They also performed, in 1965 and 1966, with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as the house band for the Acid Tests. They toured nationally starting in June 1967 (their first foray to New York), with a few detours to Canada, Europe and three nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt in 1978. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Festival Express train tour across Canada in 1970. They were scheduled to appear as the final act at the infamous Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969 after the Rolling Stones but withdrew after security concerns. "That's the way things went at Altamontāso badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play", staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event.
Their first UK performance was at the Hollywood Music Festival in 1970. Their largest concert audience came in 1973 when they played, along with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band, before an estimated 600,000 people at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. They played to an estimated total of 25 million people, more than any other band, with audiences of up to 80,000 attending a single show. Many of these concerts were preserved in the band's tape vault, and several dozen have since been released on CD and as downloads. The Dead were known for the tremendous variation in their setlists from night to nightāthe list of songs documented to have been played by the band exceeds 500. The band has released four concert videos under the name View from the Vault.
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia. In a 1991 PBS documentary, segment host Buck Henry attended an August 1991 concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and gleaned some information from some band members about the Grateful Dead phenomenon and its success. At the time, Jerry Garcia stated, "We didn't really invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead, you know what I mean? We were sort of standing in line, and uh, it's gone way past our expectations, way past, so it's, we've been going along with it to see what it's gonna do next." Furthermore, Mickey Hart stated, "This is one of the last places in America that you can really have this kind of fun, you know, considering the political climate and so forth." Hart also stated that "the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it's what it can do to your consciousness. We're more into transportation than we are into music, per se, I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation." One of the band's largest concerts took place just months before Garcia's death ā at their outdoor show with Bob Dylan in Highgate, Vermont on June 15, 1995. The crowd was estimated to be over 90,000; overnight camping was allowed and about a third of the audience got in without having purchased a ticket.
Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended musical improvisations, having been described as having never played the same song the same way twice. Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next, often for more than three songs at a time.
Tapes
Like several other bands during this time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. "Dick's Picks" is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial contributor to increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
Cumberland Blues
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The sun is getting high
I can't help you with your troubles
If you won't help with mine
I gotta get down
I gotta get down
Gotta get down to the mine
I can't stop here no more
Little Ben clock says quarter to eight
You kept me up till four
I gotta get down
I gotta get down
Or I can't work there no more
Lotta poor man make a five dollar bill
Will keep him happy all the time
Some other fellow's making nothing at all
And you can hear him cry
Can I go, buddy, can I go down
Take your shift at the mine
Gotta get down to the Cumberland mine
Gotta get down to the Cumberland mine
That's where I mainly spend my time
Make good money, five dollars a day
If I made any more I might move away
Lotta poor man got the Cumberland Blues
He can't win for losing
Lotta poor man got to walk the line
Just to pay his union dues
I don't know now, I just don't know
If I'm coming back again
I don't know now, I just don't know
If I'm coming back again
I don't know now, I just don't know
If I'm coming back again
The Grateful Dead's "Cumberland Blues" is a song that speaks to the plight of the blue-collar worker, the miners in this case, who have to work hard to make ends meet. In the opening verse, the singer Melinda is always in trouble, and the singer can't help her if she won't help him. He has to get down to the mine to work, but Melinda keeps him up all night. He can't work in the mine if he doesn't get his sleep.
The second verse is about the faithful clock that tells time and its relevance in the singer's life. How it shows him that if he doesn't go to bed, he won't be able to wake up in time to go to the mine. The line "Little Ben clock says quarter to eight, you kept me up till four" emphasizes this sentiment. He's running out of time and needs to get down to Cumberland Mine to work. He ends the verse with "Or I can't work there no more", which shows the urgency in his voice.
The last verse of the song talks about the union dues the miners have to pay, to keep their jobs, and it makes them live paycheck to paycheck. It talks about how a meager five-dollar bill is all they need to stay happy with the song's underlying message being that they all have the Cumberland Blues. The idea behind the song is that sometimes you have to suffer to make a living.
Line by Line Meaning
I can't stay here much longer, Melinda
I need to leave soon, Melinda
The sun is getting high
The day is progressing
I can't help you with your troubles
I am unable to aid you with your problems
If you won't help with mine
Unless you help me with my issues
I gotta get down
I need to go
Gotta get down to the mine
I must travel to the mine
You keep me up just one more night
You are keeping me awake for too long
I can't stop here no more
I must leave now
Little Ben clock says quarter to eight
According to my clock, it is almost eight in the morning
You kept me up till four
You prevented me from sleeping until four in the morning
Or I can't work there no more
Otherwise, I won't be able to continue working there
Lotta poor man make a five dollar bill
Many poverty-stricken individuals are content with earning $5
Will keep him happy all the time
This amount keeps them satisfied
Some other fellow's making nothing at all
Another person is earning nothing
And you can hear him cry
You can hear him weeping
Can I go, buddy, can I go down
May I take your place in the mine
Take your shift at the mine
Work your shift at the mine
Gotta get down to the Cumberland mine
I need to go to the Cumberland mine
That's where I mainly spend my time
It is where I usually spend my time
Make good money, five dollars a day
I earn well, $5 per day
If I made any more I might move away
I would consider leaving if I received a higher salary
Lotta poor man got the Cumberland Blues
Many impoverished men are sad because of their situation in the Cumberland mine
He can't win for losing
They are stuck in a never-ending cycle of loss
Lotta poor man got to walk the line
They must follow strict regulations to keep their jobs
Just to pay his union dues
With the sole purpose of paying union fees
I don't know now, I just don't know
I am uncertain
If I'm coming back again
If I will return again or not
Lyrics Ā© Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JERRY GARCIA, ROBERT HUNTER, PHILIP LESH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@soundscapes4619
I love this song. My girlfriend did keep me up till 4:Am. I couldn't stay with her anymore, I had to clock in at 5:30 Am LOL! That was a long time ago.
@flashwashington2735
Squeeze Box by The Who. Ideas have their time.
@jeffloos243
Workingmans dead š great harmonys great šø playing layer ed banjo playing and acoustic playing.
@damonjackson8997
Absolutely
@RedGoldGreen-Dub
Great song š
@ezekieljudah2780
I grew up very near Cumberland. Love this. For the past 40 yrs
@matthewolson5189
Cumberland blue line?
@bobobob1230
might be a day late but this feels like the right july 4th song for 23
@doctorivan
I grew up in Appalachia. This song sounds like coal country. The only difference is that most mountain groups don't have drums.
@scottminton925
The actual Cumberland coal mine is in Greene County Pa. along the Mon River. I'm sure there are more but was in it's heyday biggest in America