Been my life since vietnam.... just trucking from day to day... traveled much in this life time, haven't set any roots..... now I am old... no bagage, no regrets...
In some ways I envy you but I’ve put down some roots and for the most part I’ve been happy. Going through a rough patch now but life’s never a smooth ride
We're the same age and apparently the same mindset but i keep sticking to the same Mantra I've had for all these years, "Keep on Rockin', you slowdown and th' bastards'll catch ya" so far it's served me well.
In the late 60's, the Grateful Dead was scheduled to play at Modesto Jr. College. I was assigned to illustrate the Grateful Dead poster, and I did not know who they were. I was very articulate with my psychedelic lettering and made the poster with various hip curvy lettering styles. BUT...I made ONE gigantic error which none of my proof readers caught. I misspelled Grateful. I spelled "Greatful" When the gleaming black and white posters came out, I wanted to trash them. I told the director and he did not mind it. They plastered the posters all over Modesto, Oakdale and Turlock, I got my tickets and I was in the front row...next to the gong. I was so relieved that no one from the Dead even recognized the poster. Looking back, I wished I would have save the poster. La de dah, dah dah.
See them over 100 times and cherish every show, hour, and minute of all of them. One sticks out in my mind, it was at Madison Square Garden, I think, and I was sitting on the wall, which came about up to my butt, ass, whatever, and I was dancing sitting down. I don't know how good of a idea that was cause I danced my way right off the wall, went down IDK how many feet and landed in some guys lap. He asked where I came from and all I could do or say was up there as I was pointing up. I guess the guy was higher than I was cause he thought I meant heaven and really kinda lost it. He threw me off his lap and was telling the people next to him I was from heaven. I tried to explain that no I came from a couple rows up. Idk if he finally got it but I went to look for my husband and dance in the hall ❤😂
Jerry Garcia said it all ...he knew that the deads music would have no commercial potential outside of the their community ...but that was ok because the music had meaning for the community they inhabited....words of a true artist I am a jazz musician and my music will only have a limited appeal to the small community of jazz followers ...but thats ok !!!!!
This song is amazing: both as a GD self-story and as a piece of cheerful road music.... "Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings" - that's what most tired, overworked city people dream of... "Set up, like a bowlin' pin, knocked down, it gets wearin' thin, they just won't let you be" - exactly... Greetings from Poland from an old Dead fan!
1960s & 1970s-Great time to be a young man!!!!!!!!!! I miss the those days. I hate to be a young person growing up today, they will never know how great a time it was grow up during those days!!!
Im my opinion the 1960's was a true renaissance. I was born in 1967 so was too young but my own coming of age in the 1980s-90s was sweet as the world was still reverberating from that renaissance..... Keep On Truckin......
this is the song that got me into them in the first place, sitting in a beach chair in back of a VW bus after having a cookie in Humboldt. oh yeah....awesome
I was born in Melbourne Auztralia and the torch has been passed.I was born in '61.May love and peace be within you and around you always.And the stars of freedom shine forever in your mind.
My direct and personal memories of U.S. soldiers during the VietNam war was of them coming up here to Canada, all young and fresh faced, and we'd take them in and look after them. All we had to do was put ourselves in their place and it freaked us out. We were compelled to help them stay alive. I don't ever recall the public treating soldiers badly here but I did hear about it happening in the states. We wanted to end war of all kinds. But living in Canada it was easy for us.
The actual song was written in late March 1970 in the Fort Lauderdale area by Bobby (mostly) sitting by a swimming pool. The band was to have played Sunday and Monday, March 22-23, 1970 at Pirates World in Dania, FL (an amusement park 20 miles north of Miami) but the shows were rained out and finally a show was played on Tuesday the 24th (a soundboard exists). The band was then booked to play a gig between Friday-Sunday, March 27, 28 or 29, 1970 at the Winter's End Festival in Miami, FL. Bobby wrote Truckin' somewhere near Dania.
This SONG got me into the GRATEFUL DEAD.... a friend lent me AMERICAN BEAUTY the album cover was cool.. it has simulated wood grain and a very cool ROSE on it... i listened to all the songs .. diggin .. Candyman.. brokedown.. operator.. . etc... when I listened to TRUCKIN.. i loved the lyrics.. i listened the song over and over.. writing down the lyrice.. GREAT STORY.. GREAT BAND.. FUN TIMES..
the Europe 72 album was my introduction to the Dead. the whole jam from the end of the lyrics of trucking till/into/thru morning dew blew my mind. I was 14 and couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was improvised LIVE. then again blew my mind after I dropped acid and was told they did that nightly while tripping for years. was life changing. that was 1993, now 26 years later I've turned my wife on to them. she always thought they were a heavy metal band and had never heard their music. can't find acid anymore but got some good X and put trucking>morning dew Europe 72 on with headphones and let her loose. awesome reaction, a beautiful moment watching her get lost in the music. that's my trucking story.
Pigpen @ 2:53 is from about 1963 by the looks of him, with his setlist taped to his guitar, practicing in the morning light in his bathrobe. Wonderful footage! So many thanks to whoever shot it, probably his mom
That's the one he called Alligator (its a 1957). It was apparently a gift from Graham Nash to Garcia for his contribution to Nash's album Songs for Begginers. Garcia heavily modifies it and there's a pretty good article on the Fender site talking about it.
This is brilliance. It's so great to be able to hear their voices as the people they are (were), and not "just" as musicmakers, icons, philosophers, etc, that we're accustomed to from the shows, the tapes, and the vids here & from the Vault. Thank you so much for posting this, and the others that you've shared here. I know you'll know I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating, acidinurmind, when I say you're doing a real public service here.
I was born in 1950 so in 1970 I was 20. During the 60's and 70's the world was full of such positive change. There was so much love for our fellow man. We totally believed in love and our music reflected that. The Dead were embraced and have been in our hearts ever since. Human rights became an issue and changed so much in everyday lives. Please, young people, carry the torch of love into the future. It's the only thing that will save us all.
I was lucky enough to be born in 1972 and I was really grateful to see Jerry before he died. I never seen Brent but my first dead show was Deer Creek the summer tour in 1993. Wow! It changed my life and I finally found what I was searching for and found where I belong. Finally found my family!!! I miss you Jerry!!!! Hippie Niki {~}:}
After 260+ GD & Jerry Shows I never really looked forward to hearing truckin'.. Having said that, whenever they played it or when it comes up on one of the 200+ soundboards that i listen to everyday in the car at work or at home, it always, and I really do mean always, puts a smile on my face and reminds of the early shows I that I was able to see. Thank you guys for all the smiles!
Poor Rawkus and Traphikk. Hope you can bliss out on the instrumental at the end of this clip as I just did. You can free your mind with the Instant Karma it gives. Once you get a taste of the Dead you can be blesed for life. I'm getting it as I'm winding up from a long day at work. Thanks for putting this one up, Acidinurmind.
Some of us are! My family (not by blood) is constantly trying to spread love. I actually just today talked to my brother for a few hours over coffee about this very issue. The music may be different than it once was but the love is still alive!
From Wikipedia: "The making of Anthem of the Sun, Aoxomoxoa, Workingman's Dead, and American Beauty are described by former members and associates of the Grateful Dead in the 1997 Classic Albums documentary Anthem to Beauty."
BOBBY, YOU'RE STILL LIVING!!!! It's good to see you. For a while I looked but could not find you. Perhaps that little Death Scare reminded you of your Work and it's Manifestation in the World. Best of luck, friend.
Jerry said, It’s not about me. It’s about “it” The musical journey the atmosphere of the Grateful Dead environment was what mattered and always truly will. It never was a money program, it was a movement for like minded individuals that gained momentum the farther forward the dead moved. A self propelled event….. and what an event it was.
The one thing about going on tour with the dead, was the simple (and freightening) fact that there were no rules or guidelines. YOU had to make it happen. Either you enjoy the fact that it's an adventure that only you are in control of, or you go for the laid out plans of false security and get continually let down because of your expectations. To expect the unexpected and dig it! You don't need the Dead to live your life that way.
songs like truckin would never be..if not for chuck berry's lyrical influence..he influenced everyone...he told stories...he was like a novelist...lyrically he was brilliant...so when i hear truckin...i hear the lyric..i think of chuck berry...
I saw them open with truckin with pigpen at the felt forum and I was on the beginning of an amazing trip to outer space. An absolutely great night of this unique psychedelic experience comfortably cradled by Jerry and phils bach-like fugue-ing, cutting like a switchblade knife of laser beams and musical fireworks, pigpens words of wisdom, and the bands synergetic jamming perfection in the depths of the effected brain truckin, smiling, hitch hiking and traveling through the universe, period
I knew it my friends knew the people who turned me on to the dead knew it.. That we were part of something that not every one liked, and it's still going off into the future..
PinkFloydrulez Yes every time I hear it on XM radio and I hear them really jamming and sounding at their best I look to see if it’s from 1972 and it almost always is.
My "Big Uncle Ed" aka "Eddie Hell" traveled with the Grateful Dead back in the 70's. He tells unfathomable stories at family get togethers about his days of heavy drinking, drug experementation, and unprotected sex with countless random women. He now dwells in the woods in his homemade tree-fort living off cat food and PBR.
Most of Truckin' was written by a hotel swimming pool in the Fort Lauderdale area on/about March 23 1970 while the band was waiting out 2 days of rain that canceeled shows and forced a 3rd date for all tickets....see also here lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2015/04/march-24-1970-pirates-world-dania-fl.html
Hint: Nowhere in the video did anybody say it was solely the providence of young men. He spoke about it as a rite of passage for young men of the time, not exclusively of young men. Being a young man himself at the time, it was the only perspective he could speak from personally.
My parents lived through the Depression and WW II and they say that life then was so much simpler and easy compared to today. They were the last generation to earn and keep the American dream. And now, I (DOB 1960) say the same thing to my nieces who were born in the mid '80s, despite that I am nowhere near as economically stable as my parents. Young people today will probably have to live (or die) through some global cataclysm. It's anyone's guess what they'll be telling their kids.
They were Successful.That no commercial value gig is baloney. I probably spent 10,000 myself on Tix, LP's, etc...... Look now and you see American Beauty actually went platinum.
