Viola Lee Blues - Grateful Dead

(Disclaimer: this one takes a while to get rolling. If the beginning is too dull, just zoom climb out about half way.)

My God, how a little age changes things. I actually purchased this LP in 1967, but I never connected with it. We were on different wavelengths. I saw them play in 1968. Jeff Beck was on the under card, and I went to see his band. I was a big fan. That was the Rod Stewart/Mickey Waller/ and, what's his name? the Rolling Stone? oh, yeah, Ron Wood (of the Birds!). At that show, I thought that the Grateful Dead were dull-witted. Their sound system was hundreds of Fender Champs, those little sixteen watt, one twelve inch speaker amps. I just thought that that shit was stupid, and that the music went nowhere, in a hurry, and stayed there.

I'm pretty sure that it was the French writer Alfred Jarre ("Pere Ubu") that said, "when the expression of an artist collides with the mind of the beholder, and produces a dull thud, it remains to be established to which of the two belongs the fault."

I'm not sure, but I think that, maybe, back then the fault was mine, with very little fault attributable to the Grateful Dead. By now, I tolerate them very well. I really like the LP, Anthem to the Sun.

Only took fifty-plus-years!