The Great American Rock and Roll Band


In America we don’t really produce great rock and roll bands. Great rock bands are more of an English thing.

The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, The Smiths, U2 (–ok, so U2 is Irish, Americans don’t know the difference anyway). In fact, next to men dressing in women’s clothes, creating (and anointing) great rock bands is Britain’s greatest national fetish. Oasis built its entire career on slavish devotion to the fetish. And the British rock press trawls the pubs like pedophiles trawl the Internet for fresh young meat, desperate for the next next big thing (The Libertines! The Fratellis!).

You have to get pretty far down the list before bumping in to the American contenders. The Allman Brothers, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, the MC5, the Stooges, the Doors, Parliament-Funkadelic, the Monkees, Nirvana. At best, it’s a quirky list (with Buckingham-Nicks era Fleetwood Mac straddling both worlds).

The Brits produce twin engined bands powered by the tension between cooperating core figures–Lennon&McCartney, Jagger&Richards, Townshend&Daltry, Morrisey&Marr. We produce great solo artists with bespoke bands–Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan & the Band (they really ARE a Canadian band you know!), CCR–or, because we’re driven by commerce, we produce great studio bands: The Funk Brothers at Motown, the Wrecking Crew at Gold Star in LA, the Sugar Hill records house band in New York.

It’s not surprising really. American music, like the rest of American culture, has been suspended from the start between the polar forces of rugged individualism and egalitarian populism. We revere the heroic loner who can’t follow the rules–Bruce Willis’ John Maclain is a classic American pop hero–AND the heroic teammate who sacrifices himself for the good of the whole. Our cultural constructions illuminate the dichotomy–our national sport is baseball, a team game built around the solo encounter of hitter with pitcher, for example.

I’ll never have anything bad to say about the Ramones–probably the most underrated band America has ever produced. For sheer, breakthrough genius the Velvet Underground will always be our most important rock band. And the MC5 will forever be my personal favorite. But the greatest, most American of American bands, the band I find myself listening to every summer, not coincidentally as the 4th rolls around, is the Grateful Dead.

Like the nation itself, the Dead is a grand, shambolic, ambitious, profligate, half-assed, entrepreneurial, naive, idealistic, hucksterish, deadly earnest enterprise. It was a band without a leader, the most democratic band America has ever produced with all the members writing material and voting on the group’s business decisions.

Sometimes, of course, this made the band seem rudderless. But most often the band seemed to me like the crew of the Pequod if lunatic Ahab, after nailing the doubloon to the mast, had jumped overboard–committed by blood oath to an uncertain quest each member defined differently: should we find the white whale, just fill the hold with oil, go hunting something all together different?

If ever there was a leader it was that Keseyan, acidhead chimera known as “group mind,” a unity of thought among the players achievable, so the idea went, through substantial quantities of acid. Dead bass player Phil Lesh describes it:

That eternal consciousness is the same in you as it is in me and the same in the guys in my band as it is in me. It’s a subliminal and subconscious process but when the nodes of that eternal consciousness link together and become one consciousness then that’s the group mind, the eternal universal archetypal consciousness.

The concept is pure Emerson (from The Over-Soul, 1841):

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.

The idea of the Dead, like the idea of America itself, was a reality and a dream that diverged as often it converged, but which exploded transcendentally when it all came together.

Unfortunately that explosion never occurs on Three from the Vault, the Dead’s latest archival live performance release–a February 1971 gig from the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY. (The concert, like every other Dead show, has long circulated among fans.)

I’ve stopped hunting for the perfect Dead concert release, giving in to the hippie notion that the quest itself is the prize, the transcendental notion that the seer and the thing seen are one. But even so, among the Dead’s hundreds of commercially available concert recordings, Three from the Vault ranks near the bottom of the list. It’s not surprising to discover that it was mastered for release 15 years ago and shelved until now.

The horrible singing of which the band was capable is on full display. Rod “Pigpen” McKernan–keyboard player and spiritual center of the Dead’s East Bay biker band days–was in the final throes of drinking himself to death. Drummer Mickey Hart had quit the band the night before (after his father, the band’s then-manager, ran off with the group’s money); and, although the group was always better with one drummer–jazzier, more subtle, more agile–it sounds like it’s feeling its way through the gig. Normally guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir together with Lesh formed an interweaving front line–improvising narrowly on melodic themes in support of the vocals the way the front line of trumpet, clarinet and trombone did in old time New Orleans jazz. Here they just seem to be riding the tonic, hoping to hit the changes, unsure of how to fill all the newly cleared space.

Part of the reason may be all the new material. The Dead introduced some of its most famous material during the February 71 Port Chester shows– Playing in the Band, Bird Song, Bertha, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Loser, Deal, and the titanic down-and-outer’s monologue Wharf Rat. The repertoire is what has inspired continuing interest among collectors in these performances.

The songs the group wrote in 1971, particularly those composed by Garcia with his long time lyricist Robert Hunter, should have cemented the band’s reputation as one of the great pioneering bands of Americana rock, up there with Bob Dylan and the Band (alone, btw, on the list of great Canadian bands).

Garcia and Hunter came to their influences the same way Dylan did–absorbing 100 years of American music and churning it out nightly on an early 1960s collegiate folk scene (Dylan’s in Minneapolis, Garica’s & Hunter’s in Palo Alto), where the test of ones mettle was how many Child ballads you knew. In fact, before turning to electric blues and then psychedelic rock, the proto-Dead had been a jug band.

By 1970 the group had turned from the baroque psychedelia of its early records towards a country-tinged folk rock (Garcia switched from Gibson guitars with thick-sounding humbucker pickups to Fender Strats with their twangier single coils) recording two excellent studio albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty which clearly bore the influence of the Band’s first two albums (which had appeared in 1968 and 1969) and the basement tapes tracks that were circulating as songwriter’s demos among industry pros.

During the course of 1971, Hunter and Garcia wrote a string of songs that deliberately evoked the kind of timeless Americana that Dylan and the Band had summoned during the summer of 1967– a world populated by hobo murderers, confederate soldiers, singing brakemen, honky tonk pianists, patent medicine tent show con artists and the like, not just the titles mentioned, but over the succeeding months new songs too–Sugaree, Tennessee Jed, Ramble On Rose, Brown-Eyed Women, Comes a Time, and an arrangement of Big Railroad Blues a song which Garcia had learned from a 1920s jug band recording.

This was great stuff and Hunter expected the material to form the backbone of a studio follow-up to American Beauty. As band biographer Dennis McNally describes it, the lyricist was “bitterly disappointed” when no studio session materialized. Instead, in typical Grateful Dead fashion, the songs dribbled out piecemeal on a string of live albums (Grateful Dead, Europe 72) and side projects (Garcia).

There ARE great performances of these songs from live concerts later in the year. After Pigpen left the group in a failed attempt to recover his health, the band when into rehearsals (all too infrequent) to break in new pianist Keith Godchaux and came out burning on a fall college tour. I’m particularly fond of the shows from Texas Christian University in November 1971 thankfully available in streaming format on Archive.org (November 14 is my favorite, homecoming at TCU with the hippies playing for co-eds in gowns and blue tuxes!). But Hunter’s dream of a grand classic album built around his 1971 tunes with Garcia remains unrealized, and Three from the Vault doesn’t even get listeners into the ballpark.

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Viewing 69 Comments

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    I especially liked Donna Godchaux. Whatever happened to her? Bob Weir and The Rat Dogs get an A+ also
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    Am I the only one to believe the Grateful Dead's best work was Aoxomoxoa and Anthem of The Sun? After that they just gave in to pot-induced laziness and got "laid back." I felt this right at that moment and never cared for anything they did from that point on, despite being deluged with it by stoner friends throughout high school. Aoxomoxoa is a brilliant record full of really well-crafted songs.
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    For all writing about the Allmans - yes they were good but after Win Loss or Draw they did nothing.

    Of the original band they were very limited.

    Everything was Schlock rock after Win Loss or Draw.

    In a way they created Southern Rock. Brother Duane would be sad.

    Every foolish Southern band that followed them followed their late 70's sound not there cool Blues 60's sound or their Jazzy Lamar/Leavell sound.

    The 90's Allman's you could say were rescued by Warren & Woody. It was a different band totally.

    Besides that Greg & Dickey were not nice at all screwing Lamar bad to the fact he died on Welfare with no help at all.In it for the green.

    And in the end Greg wanted the name for himself just like Axl Rose and tossed out the real leader of the Allmans - Dickey.

    Dickey rescued the Allmans when no one could write but him.

    Then he finds a guitar prodigy and brings him in to save the Allmans - then eventually (blaming it on Alcohol) Greg oust's Dickey.

    I rather see a Dickey show at a Funky theater rather than the Allmans at some lame cement/cookie cutter amphitheater.

    With a history like that the Allmans can't be the #1 band in America.

    And for all of you guys saying all these other bands (besides the Ramones) those bands had no longevity and were not groundbreaking.

    THe sound system you hear today is from Albemic - a company that the Dead's people made to create the ultimate sound. Every group who ever toured including the Stones // the Who - anyone that mattered learned from Albemic in the late 60's and bought from them.

    Unlike bands of the day in the 60's the Derad put their money into their sound & instruments not into cars or wardrobe.

    They were the ones that made sound what it is today.

    Besides that the Dead invented the tour machine that every big act follows now.

    The Stones copied there touring ideas - as well as Pink Floyd.

    Pink Floyd got the Deads idea of having two stages and sound systems bunny hopping the next venue in order to set up the next one was used by Pink Floyd for their crazy set ups and then by the Stones in 75 (tour of America) and after.

    The Dead's fans started the Gypsy camps outside shows that now a lot of fans do.

    The Dead were the first band to MAIL ORDER.

    The Dead were the only band to play 3 Sets.

    The Dead were the first band to have their own t shirt printer - Winterland Products which eventually by the 80's morphed into a major company that sold posters, t -shirts and anything else to do with music for all bands until being sold in the mid nineties.

    The Dead were the first band to purposely pull back and play small theaters instead of Arenas just to have a better vibe - MIck would never do that.

    And for those of you who don't know the Dead were not hippies.

    If you guys were so cool you'd understand that was just the press's way of painting them.

    Garcia when younger wore pumas and engineer boots not Birkenstocks. He never wore tie dies.

    In his later years he wore a t shirt, jeans or chinos with comfortable sneakers - like Rockports.

    Bobby Wier was a playboy with expensive clothes and even more expensive haircuts.

    The only band member who wore tie dyes was Phil and that was in the mid to late 80's and he wore it tucked into his pants with a belt and he had short hair.

    The besides for one album (Anthem of The Sun), all their LP's were not psychedelic.

    But folks who claim to know music and feel they are so UNDERGROOUND listen to the very people they hate - the media - and say oh their just hippies, playing psychedelic tunes.

    Listen Europe 72 or Skull & Roses - come back and tell me how the Dead are and if you still say they are Hippies you don't know music.
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    I am a young man, not a hippie, got a job in finance, I have never seen a show. I wasn't sold on them until I hear some of the orchestral glory that is Scarlet > Fire, and I saw that light. There is NO MUSIC better than any given Grateful Dead show.

    1978-02-05 changed my life for the better. Mind-blowing, beautiful, unbelieveable.
    1974-7-31 is unbelieveably beautiful, holy Lord... rock song segues into jazz breakdown into bouncy melodic mournful jam into hardcore, devilish Flamenco jam segues into redemption ballad. 40 minutes of seamless, operatic glory.

    1978-04-24 set my soul on FIRE. Mickey Hart rocks the "Fire on the Mountain" hard. Jerry and Bobby duel each other for supremacy.

    1978-11-17 is a classic, all-acoustic folk show of classic songs.

    1984-12-31 is just one hardcore rendition of all the Dead songs after the other. A brutal "Shakedown Street". Excellent stuff.

    GOD BLESS THE GOOD OLD GRATEFUL DEAD!!!!!!


    Re: Tom Watson
    Tom, I read your comment and I just imagined you being so bored with the Dead's transcendental rollicking musical peaks that you crapped your pants, and then ran red-faced from the room. Hilarious picture.
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    You are so right on the money with that call. The Doors & Hendrix maybe but there run was so short lived. The Greatful Dead where around for 30 years name a band that comes close to that (2,300 Shows). And with all the people slamming Jerry Garcia your fools. He has influenced bands like Janes Addication, Tool, Black Crows the list is endless....and name another band that created a culture as large as Jerry or a band that can sell out soldier field (65,000) 3 nights in a row...nobody!!! Allmans is a good call but when dwane died to me the band died with him. Thats not there fault but can they fill football statiums now? How about Aerosmith a great band but when they got clean name me one great song???

    Anyway you ROCK!!
    Stone Malone
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    Mitchell Wilson knows the Dead. His time periods show me that.

    Tom Watson, alas, doesn't know the Dead. His references to Casey Jones and the Summer of Love, blah, blah, show me that.

    Why is anyone arguing about good rock 'n' roll and separating it by national borders? (Except for the fact that rock 'n' roll is as American as jazz. Bo Diddley. Say no more.)

    And who was that who ranked on someone for "using too many words" in a 400-plus word post?

    Original post by Jason was very good. Comments varied, from just plain silly to just plain silly and clueless.

    How many words is that? Oh, I suppose I should stop. Oh, wait, I'm American so I get extra, right?
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    Type your comment here.
    Fascinating thread. There is no doubt the Dead could be deadly, and they were increasingly so as the years wore on. With the exception of a resurgence from 1989 through 1990, they were often terrible from 1979 on, which was around the time Garcia was fully into opiates.

    But, when he was fully present, Gracia was often astounding in his guitar playing. Unlike the vaste majority of rock players, he heard all 12 tones in the scale, and when he soloed, you can see/hear/feel him thinking his way through each muscial figure and phrase as he clearly articulates every note. He was expecially brilliant in 1971-72 and 1977. Check out: Hollywood Palladium August 6, 1971; the Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead CD's from Europe in '72; or Dick's Picks #10 from WInterland 12-29-77. No one on the planet could play as intensely, ferociously, and creatively as Jerry Garcia at his best.

    As far as singing goes, Garcia was often great not because of his voice, but because he fully inhabited the character or landscape he was singing about. He was a dramatic character on stage, and he moved people emotionally because of the way in which he put himself in(to) the song he was singing.
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    and Tom Watson, stick to golf will ya
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    Tom Watson, you are a fool and a philistine, the Dead were the best band that ever has played music---stop it now with your ignorant nonsense

    by the way, garcia was not just a 'good" guitarist, he was a genius guitarist--lets just make that real f.... clear shall we?
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    Top of my head ;

    The Byrds
    The Doors
    The Band [ok - mostly Canadian, but c'mon]
    The Decemberists
    American Music Club
    Soundgarden
    Nirvana [grudgingly, as they are SO overrated]
    Love
    Ben Folds Five
    Blood Sweat & Tears [mach 1- the Kooper band]
    Husker Du
    The Replacements
    The Minutemen
    Buffalo Springfield
    Chicago [until Kath's death]
    Edgar Winter's White Trash
    Grant Lee Buffalo
    The James Gang
    Jefferson Airplane
    Moby Grape
    Jellyfish
    Live
    Loggins & Messina
    Living Colour
    P-Funk
    PE
    Trip Shakespeare
    Mountain
    Pere Ubu
    Slint
    Sly & The Family Stone
    Spirit
    Steely Dan
    The Talking Heads
    Television
    The Pixies
    The Mars Volta
    The Shins
    The Tubes
    Tortoise
    X
    Minor Threat
    Pearl Jam
    The Beastie Boys
    Fishbone
    King's X
    Crack The Sky
    My MorningJacket
    CCR
    The NY Dolls
    The MC5
    Aerosmith
    Mission of Burma
    The E-Street Band
    The Patti Smith Group

    Yeah - not too many good American bands, I guess.
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    You either "get it" with regard to the dead, or you don't. You Don't.Sure, loved the Allmans, Dylan, etc., but if you didn't experience the feeling of a true live dead show (or 10-20), you can't actually comment on this letter with any credibility..From the 70's until now, I've heard a lot of bands, a ton. The dead was different, a different feeling, music, experience. Like I said, I love a lot of the bands mentioned, and others, and have been to the Capitol theatre in NEW JERSEY( I think passaic), but if you tripped at a dead show, you'd KNOW..
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    WW-

    I don't think the Tempts;Beach Boys analogy holds up.

    The idea of the Boys as a singing group, session musicians, and studio-only guru producer really only applies to the last two of their glory years.

    Carl Wilson's 12-string parts, Brian's bass parts, were crucial to the influential sound of songs like "I Get Around," which--like a lot of the great early songs (Fun, Fun, Fun; Be True to Your School)--was co-written by Brian and Mike Love.

    By contrast I'm not sure a single Tempt has a single songwriting credit and we know the Funk Bros were responsible for the influential music of the records.

    As great as they were the Tempts really were a singing group in the hands of writer/producers. The Beach Boys really were something else.
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    Jason, could you mention a few Dead songs where they only have one drummer? I'd like to compare how the band sounds, with two and with one.

    I was thinking about this long thread of comments this morning driving in to work and one thought struck me: take a group of exceptional harmony singers, put them in the hands of a very special songwriter/producer, and back them with the cream of their city's session musicians, and you've got the Beach Boys, who've been mentioned here several times. You've also got the Temptations, who haven't been. It seems to me there are more similarities than differences between the two groups. Brian Wilson was ostensibly a member of the Beach Boys, while Smokey Robinson (and later Norman Whitfield) wasn't a Temptation. But the difference seems more one of semantics, as opposed to the actual role that each man played in their respective group's success.

    Having considered all that, why not the Temptations as America's greatest group? Not only do they have a list of great songs as long or longer than anyone's, they're one of the few who managed the transition from romance to social commentary over the course of the Sixties. If the Beach Boys, with their non-[erforming writer/producer and their sessionmen, can be a legitimate candidate, why not the Temptations, with pretty much the same approach?
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    WW...

    I've heard all the arguments about the Byrds but I don't hear the greatness in the albums. The first two are special, the one w/ Gram Parsons is good and interesting but kinda anamolous.

    You may be right about The Who, but you're wrong about the Dead's drumming. I used to think the same thing, and certainly the two drummer back end didn't serve them as well as it did the Allmans. But the Dead w/ just Krutzeman rocked and swung and w/ two drummers they could really groove. Good drumming.
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    The Byrds are a lot more than their first two albums. Even before their first official album, they'd recorded about two albums-worth of good material as demos. With the original line-up (or at least four-fifths of it, after Gene Clark left) they recorded three more good-to-great albums after the first two, plus about another full album-worth of unreleased or B-side-only material. The influence of the original line-up's sound can still be heard all over rock music. (This doesn't even take into account all the country rock they recorded, beginning with "Sweetheart of the Rodeo." That's not the Byrds music that appeals to me, but it was certainly influential, as "Workingman's Dead," among others, attests.)

    There's a bootleg DVD of Creedence playing live in Oakland around 1970/71 that provides pretty convincing evidence that they could match up with anybody anywhere any time, kick-ass quotient-wise. For my money, the greatest American rock band. I can't see how the Who qualifies as a two-headed "band," while CCR is merely "great man with back-up band," given that Townsend wrote all of the Who's material, with only a handful of exceptions (and those were by Entwistle, not Daltry). Daltry wrote exactly one song for the Who, and that was a B-side. (Stu Cook and Doug Clifford each wrote more than that for CCCR, not that that proves much, one way or the other.)

    I like some Grateful Dead music. Not being a fan of jams, I prefer the relatively short, tight songs from the "Workingman's Dead"/"American Beauty" period. My problem with rating them very high as a rock band is that their drumming was lousy, and I don't see how a great rock band can have a lousy drummer, much less two of them.
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    Bill - you play any hoops back in the day?
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    The Grateful Dead are the best band of all time.
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    The comment about "unqualified adoration" reminds me of an appropriate Emerson quote:

    "I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies."

    From "Compensation"
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    Kit, don't be surprised, Watson always argued like a little girl. ;)

    Interestingly, I think it was Bob Weir who make some comment about the negative impact when the fans stopped pushing the band in one of Dennis McNally's books.

    Rare is the artist who is able to push him or herself in the face of such unqualified adoration and financial success. Although there were a small handful of shining moments, the group's final 20 years did nothing to add to its legacy.
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    Enjoying the argumentation, though I'm a little shocked that a fine critic like Tom Watson would resort to a "they have more hits" kinda argument for Creedence. In the context of bands more influential with other bands than the public, who cares? ABBA probably has more "hits" than all these groups put together.

    But Chervokas raises a good point when it comes to the Dead and their fans, who would accept the weakest kind of noodling from them in performance -- for hours. A big reason why I wearied of the Dead. It's true, maybe if their fans hadn't been so adoring, the band would have continued to grow, instead of peaking in the 70's, before entering a long decline.

    Or maybe Garcia's drug consumption, which apparently turned to heroin in the late 70's or early 80's, would have made that kind of growth impossible.
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    Kevin,

    I never found the Dead forced at all. They were an improvising band, they were pre-hippies really, taking cues more from the Ginsburg (and thro him Whitman) school of excess and lack of self-editing, sponteneity as the primary virtue. When it came together, great, when it didn't, well, it was a lot of fun trying to get there. But they never tried to force it, perhaps to their detriment.

    But Garcia's, and more especially Hunter's songwriting circa 1971 definitely was intended to mine the vein of Americana. I don't hear it as self-conscious in a negative way, just self-conscious in that they had a clear intention which is usually a good thing for an artist. Lucking into good work happens, and certainly that's the romantic notion of creativity, but more often the best stuff is the result of a clear intention and inspired execution. That's what I hear in the material I'm talking about.

    In any event, no point trying to get someone to like or dislike some particular art or artist, just laying out what I adore about the Dead and why I think they reflect America, for better or worse, better than any other rock band.
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    Kevin,

    When I walked into the room.
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    Jason, it's precisely that "deliberate, self-conscious Americana" that turns me off, I think. I find the GD almost completely uninteresting musically (they're far more interesting as a cultural phenomena). Their rep was always as this free-floating band/fan "happening" but I found the whole deal ridiculous and, again, self-conscious. Even Deadheads would tell me of the many times this forced musical be-in wouldn't coalesce but it never mattered to them because they'd just go see the Dead over and over again until it came together. The whole thing struck me as false somehow. (As stated in my first comment, I am perhaps less enamored of Dead fans than of the Dead.)

    Who knows? Maybe there's some "hook" that'll get me into them, but so far I've not found it. I'm not one-quarter as impressed with their originals as you are, which presents a real problem.

    And when did Tom Petty take over this thread?
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    Jackson, believe it or not, you're not the first person to call me verbose :)

    I understand what you're saying about Sonic Youth, but I also know I never really gave them a second chance esp. after they went a little more hooky, and we all change. Believe it or not, I too eschewed the Dead when I was a snot nosed teen...so I'll give a listen.

    At the top of my criteria for the purposes of this post was American-ness..whatever that means, and the process of defining that was my interest. Like I said in the post I could certainly make the case that the Ramones or the Velvets are the greatest rock band that's American...but just as w/ searching for the great American novel, the American-ness was the thing I was after more than the greatness. If you had finished reading the original post you'd know that my topic was the deliberate, self-conscious Americana of the songs Garcia & Hunter wrote from 1970-1972. Commenter Peter D got it.

    My interest in writing about culture is almost always more the nature of America, American culture, and the American national identity than it is anything else.

    But wherever the coversation goes the coversation goes. And I always have the biggest tent definition of "rock" I can have.

    Also, I explicited exempted bands that were back-up groups for a single creative dynamo leader. I'm talking about bands that ARE the act, not bands that support the act. That's what the Brits create (tho we could probably exempt the Kinks on that score). That's why no Heartbreakers, E Street Band, Mothers, etc....If there's a single guy generating all or nearly all the material, singing the songs, with his name out front, his band was off my list.

    I know you and Tom and other folks whose ears I respect dig Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers...and I don't think Tom Petty is a bad songwriter or anything of the sort, I have respect for Tom Petty like I have respect for Billy Joel, but I still change the radio station almost every time any of Petty's records come on and I don't buy his records. Unlike Aerosmith or Sonic Youth, who I can honestly say I haven't listened to all that much, I've heard a LOT of Tom Petty. I've also seen Tom Petty. I'm bored by Tom Petty and I find myself especially bored by his band. I'm never going to think all that much of Tom Petty. There's that famous story about Tom Petty backstage at No Nukes set to go on in front of Springsteen and one of the producers said to him "If you hear something, it's not booing, they're just yelling 'Bruce.'" And Petty said "What's the difference?" I'd be one of those guys yelling "Bruce" or taking a leak during Petty's set.

    I'm not surprised to hear a cross over of Petty fans and REM fans. They sound pretty similar to me--the kind of midtempo AOR that generally goes in my left ear and out my right one. Hell, I like Buckingham-Nicks era Fleetwood Mac better.

    BTW, "bespoke" means custom made, it's a British word associated w/ menswear, as in "bespoke suits." Taxonomy means a system of classification, it's a scientific word. Neither is terribly obscure. You know, nowadays, when you don't know a word, you don't even need to open a book, you can just Google it. ;)
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    This is all very interesting. As you know, rock music was invented in Britain (as distinct from rock n roll, which was invented in Ghana) so I feel I can help you out here. The best American Rock band ever is Iggy & The Stooges. The second best The Band. The third best The Velvets (and, having listened to Icky Thump way too loud on the way to work this morning, I reckon The White Stripes might make it onto that list at some point). Do let me know if you need any more help in this area.
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    So many people I know never thought much of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers until they witnessed my zeal, and Jason, I'd like to do the same for you.

    Here's basically every thing related to TP and the HBs that I've written:

    http://thiskids.blogspot.com/search?q=tom+petty

    If that's not enough, well, how about Steve Ferrone?

    Steve Ferrone!

    You gotta check them out, they have come a long way from the one-tempo band you saw.

    Oh, and Mike Campbell has been with Tom on evry LP including the solo stuff, which isn't really all that solo when all the HBs show up at least twice on the record.

    Statements like "The appeal of REM completely escapes me." work for me. I'd much rather someone say that they don't get it instead of saying it sucks when, in fact, they just don't get it - and yes I'm calling you out Tony Alva, though the 'Uncle Salty' mention garners you much favor with Jackson.

    I love REM. So does Tony.

    Proof of their worth as a band lies in the backing tracks for Warren Zevon's 'Sentimental Hygiene' record.

    Is that what were talking about? A band. What's the criteria?

    Songwriting? Not many bands write as a band. REM, the Chili Peppers....

    Hits?

    I thiks that's a start.

    Longevity? Yep.

    Influence? Sure.

    The X Factor - coolness, attitude, charisma, charm.....Yep.

    Talent? Hmmmm, tough one that, I'll say no only because it's debateable as to what 'talent' is, and with each definition, there's an exception, so, again, no.

    I find it shameful that nobody has mentioned ZZ Top. Longest running line-up in Rock; 38 years.

    Jason, let me help, don't follow through with your intention to give Sonic Youth another listen, it's not worth it. I'm not saying they aren't good, I'm saying they aren't a 'grow on you' band. Either you dig 'em, or you don't, or like me, you respect them, but don't buy their records.

    Do get an early Aerosmith record, and insted of the Sonic Youth get Tom Petty's 'Wildflowers' record.

    I don't know why CCR/Fogerty get's so little respect. I saw him w/ Tony Alva two years ago and it was a non-stop party - hit after hit after hit. The guy was f'in' hit machine. Great singer, great performer, earnest dude. Where's the love.

    The Allmans? If you call resting on your laurels for three decades greatness, maybe. The Allmans, like Skynyrd, are a cover band.

    What does 'taxonomy' mean?

    How about 'bespoke'?

    And, finally, I kid because I love, you go on with your verbose self. I hope my cruel words bounced off of your studded leather biker jacket.
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    Also, I gotta speak up for Petty and the Heartbreakers - they lay down some serious blues-country-LA-rock. Have seen 'em in every decade from the 70s to the 00s. Petty took Byrds, CCR, some e-street, some Dylan, some southern rock and sifted into it a great guitar-driven sound. And Mike Campbell may be the most underrated guitarist in rock. I'd have to say the Hearbreakers are a unit...
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    Fred, I burst a seam on that one - still chuckling...he's one verbose mofo...hee-hee
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    Fred-

    Yeah, you and Tom both seemed to get a kick out of that one.

    What can I say, the nickname "the great pontificator" wasn't a gift someone gave me, it was a title I earned!
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    this is an incredible comment thread. i just read it end to end.

    jackson's comments about jason's verbosity had me laughing so hard the gotham gal was concerned i might be having a heart attack.

    i gotta spend more time hanging out here at newcritics. it's a good time.

    fred
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    I'm a little late to the show, but there are way too many superlatives floating around here. There are in fact great Canadian bands Cowboy Junkies for one. and, befitting the population difference, more great American bandsthe equal of the Dead or Allmans. But how about X, Sly Stone, Uncle Tupelo, The Buckaroos, Nirvana, Wilco Television as well as everything already mentioned and dozens more-- its all good. The Dead almost recovered from Pigpen's demise but handed a mic to the horrific Donna Godchow and, well, that was that.

    I saw the Dead alot. They were great. I saw the Allman Brothers alot. They were great, too. I saw them together. Twice. That was great. Neither survived the death of key figures.


    But here is the thing about the Dead. They really are more than a band. They really are American Life and we should admire them for that. I thought the post captured this intriguing part of the Dead.

    As to the LA vs. SF thing, I just saw The Pennybaker "Monterey Pop" movie. Talk about dated! The beautiful J'Akleen, 15 years my Jr. advised early on that if she saw anyone who was well-dressed, she would advise. No one caught her fancy. But then, she is a Blasters, Buzzcocks kind of girl. How did I get so lucky? Good Clean Living. Hendrix (Seattle with English Band) and The Who (English Band) still steal the show. Otis is fabulous but as between SF and LA? Its pretty ugly. Mamas and Papas vs. Country Joe? Wow that is bad. J Airplane (even with Skip Spence) vs Canned Heat? OMG as the kids say. You also had Cropper, Washington, Dunn and Dixon in Memphis and the Muscle Shoals players at the same time as the Funk Bros and the Wrecking Crew. I guess I would go for San Antonio and Doug Sahm over all of them but, you see, its all good.

    The Dead as 20th century Emerson. Good place to start a conversation.
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    Have you seen Standing in the Shadows of Motown?

    Yeah, and it was good, but made me wish they had done something years ago, you know what I mean? Plus, whenever they do these things, I'm always at odds with their choices of the "guest" artists. Seems like they get whoever is available, rather than who would make sense.
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    Viscount, maybe I'm wrong, but you'd never get me to admit it <g>.

    Mostly it's a matter of subjectivity--and certainly we all have our quirks of taste (for example, I've never been able to understand all the fuss about Al Green), tho' I have to agree with Jackson, Kit's characterization of CCR as a band w/ one good riff and a good singer is just inaccurate.

    I love all the discussion about studio bands. We might have to take that up in a separate post. Raises a bunch of questions about taxonomy...how much does the house band have be be a standing one, or how many revolving players may it have and still be considered a band?

    Have you seen Standing in the Shadows of Motown?</g>
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    yeah, I mentioned the Funk Bros @ Motown

    Indeed you did.

    Great post - I'd never tell you that you were wrong and really mean it - only that I disagree.
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    Yeah, I love these discussions. They drive my wife nuts when I try to get her sucked into them so I'm glad there are some folks out there willing to have them.

    But my theme was really "American-ness" and my jumping off point was the Garcia-Hunter compositions of 1971 because of the news peg of the release last week of Three from the Vault. The whole issue of what is rock, who rocks, who doesn't, etc. isn't so much my interest. American culture is more my bag than rock per se or even which band is better on a less culturally specific scale.

    Whatever my personal reaction to the Heartbreakers' musical charms, dispassionately I still am very comfortable categorizing them as a solo artist's backing band. Like Springsteen, Petty's had hits w/o his bespoke band (in fact, probably his biggest hit!) and those songs would slip into a playlist w/ the band-backed stuff w/o a casual listener noticing the difference though I know Mike Campbell in particular has some co-writing credits.
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    Jason, I admit to tweaking you with the Crickets. Unlike a previous commenter, I offer no thanks but a tweak for Brad Paisley--I listened to the album three times and remained absolutely unmoved.

    Sonic Youth? Sonic Youth? I love comments like that.
    Yes, Sonic Youth. So what?

    The great thing about these discussions are watching the criteria get fleshed out. The definition of rock and 'groupness', longevity, popularity, influence or just the assertion that your guys rock better.

    I like Tom Petty in the Heartbreakers as well, I consider them a band, their popular and have been around a long while. The jury would be out on influence. I see no reason to argue against them.

    Of course, Sonic Youth rocks better.
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    yeah, I mentioned the Funk Bros @ Motown, the Wrecking Crew at Gold Star in LA, and the Sugar Hill records house band but forgot Booker T & the MGs at Stax, to which you could also add the Muscle Shoals crew (Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins, David Hood, and
    Barry Beckett), and the session guys who did all that work for Chet Atkins at RCA in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s too. They were awesome, but that was more of a revolving cast of characters--Hank Garland, Floyd Cramer, Pig Robbins, Buddy Harman, Pete Drake...the recently deceased Boots Randolph, that whole crew...
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    Allman Brothers, hands-down. Not even debatable, and I like The Dead. Moreover, the current line-up with Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes on the guitars is arguably as good as the original Filmore East configuration. Their most recent Hittin' The Note is one of their best studio efforts and well worth the $15, and their Live At The Beacon Theater DVD is fantastic.

    I'd also add that the Waiting For Columbus incarnation of Little Feat belongs on this list.

    Most often forgotten in these fun-yet-futile discussions is the original incarnation of Steely Dan. The only official live recording is Bodhisatva from 1974 which was originally released as the B-side of Hey Nineteen and can be found on various compilations. That was a kick-ass rock band.

    The invisible house-bands for the Mowtown and Stax/Volt labels (comprising various musicians over time) also belong on any best American band lists.
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    Jason, your post is so interesting it almost makes me wish I liked the Dead. I don't really, though it has less to do with the fact that they just don't move me and more to do with their frequently obnoxious fans. It's like a religious cult, and I don't do religious cults.

    Dead vs Allmans? No contest at all, in my view.
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    Jackson-

    Yr just as unlikely to get economy of words from me as you are to get a 45 minute set from the Dead, that's just the way it is. Like Neil Young told Quincy Jones when the Q said he was singing flat during the "We Are the World" session--"Hey man, that's my style!"

    What Emerson has to do w/ is American culture, which was as much or more the subject at hand on the 4th of July than the nature of rock. In fact, the nature of rock wasn't really the subject at all.

    What can I say, I just don't dig the Heartbreakers in the slightest. Saw 'em once when TP was on tour w/ Dylan and I though it would have been a good Dylan show if the backing band didn't play everything the at the same plodding midtempo. Arrangements? At least on that gig I thought every arrangement sounded the same, tho' they did rock on "Shot of Love"...turned it into almost a Street Hassle-era Lou Reed sounding song. We're always gonna diverge on the Heartbreakers. I think they're a yawn, reminded me of Billy Joel's band--professional but dull. I'm not a Tom Petty fan to begin with, but I'm even less of a fan of his band. If I were a Playboy centerfold, the Heartbreakers would be listed as one of my turn-offs.

    And btw, I never said they weren't a rock band, just that they, like lots of midtempo AOR rock bands, don't rock all that hard, if hardness of rocking is a qualitative criterion for you...(it's not for me...I'm fine with rock anywhere along the hard-soft axis).

    Garcia was an expressive singer, I'll give him that, I would have chosen that word, not soulful, myself. But he was pitch challenged. Had he put 25% of the time he put into learning how to play guitar into learning how to sing he might have become a decent singer.

    And why doesn't CCR get its due? Record for record they're as freakin' good as any rock and roll band I've ever heard. Maybe its an SF vs. East Bay thing, but I think CCR and Sly & the Family Stone are probably the two most underrated bands of the 1960s.
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    Forst off, I'm only here at the insistance of Tony Alva. Like Tony I respect Jason's knowledge, but rarely do I get to the end of anything Jason writes as I'm usually sound asleep.

    Jason, economy of words dude. What does Ralph Waldo Fucking Emmerson got to do with ROCK?

    Garcia's soulful voice? What? Mavis Staples has a soulful voice, Garcia has a nasal whine.

    The Doors? Poet? Jason, please refer this guy to an actual poet.

    CCR, one good riff? That's just offensive.....and wrong.

    REM, thank you! Hello....

    Sonic Youth? Sonic Youth?

    Okay, now the topic at hand. To paraphrase Alice Cooper, I love the Dead. Really. I saw them on numerous occasions, and the best show I saw was the Dylan/Dead show at RFK. The reason it was the best had nothing to do with the Dead, who were great, but because of the stupendous backing band Dylan had.

    That's right, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who, sorry Jason, are very much a rock band.

    Much like Canada's (except Leon) The Band, TP & the HBs are a full tilt live band that works up arrangements together in a room - like a band (Hello Chili Peppers). There is no better live act working today, and that includes the world's greatest rock band - the Stones, who retain the title due to overall greatness.

    Tom Petty would not be the household name that he is without Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench.

    The Heartbreakers are THE American Band,as well as the Greatest American band.
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    TA-

    The Dead rocked more often than you think. But I'm a big tent guy when it comes to the definition of rock music (as opposed to merely the rhythmic notion of rocking). The arguement parallels one that goes on alot in the world of jazz, ie, is it jazz if it doesn't explicitly swing rhythmically.

    Folk rock is still rock and it still rocks in my book (and some of it rocks pretty hard). I think you can take a lot of AOR midtempo rock bands and quibble about whether or not they rock. (Tom Petty doesn't rock all that much more often than the Dead, the Band, etc.)

    I'll go back and listen again to the Aerosmith and the Sonic Youth that has come up here. I'm always open to revisiting previously cherished notions.

    Really glad you're digging the Brad Paisley. I love the album myself and he does rock. There's a video floating around YouTube of his live show's set closing band jam on Folsom Prison Blues, its and audience vid and pretty low quality, but shows off him and his band, and it's amazing how comfortable he is w/ the guitar, he almost plays it unconsciously as he's singing. Tremendous talent.
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    I was trading e-mails with Frodo on this before heading out with the family for 4th festivities and I told him that Jason is right on with so many things that this post at least proves that he is in fact human, of this earth, and therfore subject to defect and flaw.

    I don't think I'll ever again agree with Tom Watson more than on this topic, and let's be real hear: the pre-rehab Aerosmith (self titled debut thru Live Bootleg) stomps a boot heal into ANYTHING the GD ever did. The operable word in the title of your post is "Rock" and folks, with the exception of a few flares of it popping it's head above the surface amongst the Dead's body of work, one can hardly claim those bong water guzzlers ever รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œrockedรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย.

    Although you didnรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขt mention it, I was betting Fred that you would toss out the รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œAerosmith as poor manรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs Stonesรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย thing. I know itรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs in there, go ahead and say it. Proves you havenรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขt listened to these records in years, if ever. Do this one thing for me and check out รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œOne Way Streetรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย off the first record. Yes, the productionรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs imperfect (NO recording budget) and the lead work shows some of Joe P.รƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs and Brad W.รƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs youthful novice, but the songs are SOLID and they are the very definition of the word รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œrockรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย. Iรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขve purchased a TON of music on your recommendations my man, do me this one favor and go hit the used vinyl/CD store and pick any of these first five records and listen without prejudice. S. Tyler is one of the forms greatest singers, and when it comes to the American made factor, heรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขs certainly comfortably in the top 5.

    ABSOLUTELY canรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขt argue about the post clean up records. While Iรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขm mildly entertained by a handful of the Bruce Fairburn collaborations as decent top forty pop fodder, they just donรƒยขรขโ€šยฌรขโ€žยขt come anywhere close to something like รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œUncle Saltyรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย or รƒยขรขโ€šยฌร…โ€œRats in the Cellarรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ย.

    BTWรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ยฆ Enjoying the Brad Paisley disc immensely. Come to think of it, I think he may rock more than the Grateful Deadรƒยขรขโ€šยฌร‚ยฆ
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    BTW, I saw the Smiths a couple of times, most impressively on their second US tour (promoting Meat is Murder)at the Beacon w/ Billy Bragg opening. They rocked.
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    Jason wasn't trying to sell you on P-Funk--I was reminding the rest! And yes Public Enemy deserves a mention. They've been thru so many incarnations, and still there's SOMETHING going on (though their sound is starting to date some.
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    Sean, I'll give another listen. I must admit to having been turned off early, and like a teenager puking after drinking apricot brandy, I've never had a taste again for Sonic Youth. And hell, I like funny, smart noise. I mean, I like "Kyoko, Don't Worry".
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    There's far more to Sonic Youth than "intellectual novelty" whatever that means. Noise (and innovation) is only part of the package; hooks (see pretty much anything from Daydream Nation on) and genuine beauty show up too. They've done it for a quarter century, and what's more they rock harder than The Smiths or U2 ever could. And unlike the latter they actually have a sense of humor.
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    Sean, I adore PFunk and spent a lot of my life either researching and writing about the groups' early years for the likes of Goldmine, or producing and hosting a nine hour radio documentary on the group for WKCR-FM in 1989. (I also did a little liner blurb for the most recent reissue of Up for the Downstroke). Hanging out backstage w/ GC talking about obscure Detroit R&B; singles of the 1960s at the Chestnut Caberet in Philly is still some of the most fun I've had outside of the bedroom. You don't need to sell me on PFunk.

    I just don't know what to make of the band in the context of the current discussion. There are so many different PFunk bands. If you want to tell me the original Funkadelics backing up the original Parliaments circa 1968-1972 was the greatest, I'm not gonna argue (if you haven't seen the TV performance of them from the Boston PBS show Say Brother recorded in 1969, you haven't lived). If you wanna make the case that the whole messy conglomerate on down to today's PFunk Allstars is one entity and not a band w/ GC at the helm, I think you could make that case. Certainly the Clinton-Collins-Worrell composition team, which was together more or less from 1973-1980, about as long as the Beatles were together as a recording band, stands as one of the greatest writing/performing units of the rock era. And PFunk is certaintly the kind of grand ungodly godlike group that makes the grade. On another day I might well have made that case instead of the case for the Dead, no doubt.
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    I like Workingman's Dead, American Beauty and I think Live/Dead is beautiful but I never cared much for their traveling roadshow. I'm with OOC on Sonic Youth (25yrs and counting), Velvets, Television, etc. And what about P-Funk? "One Nation Under A Groove" not American enough?
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    PS, Public Enemy might deserve mention as a great American band too, if that's not stretching the definitions of both "rock" and "band" too much
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    Beach Boys, jeez, sorry I forgot to mention them... not only a contender but impossible to forget that in England in the mid 1960s the Brit rock press considered them real threats to the Beatles' throne.

    I also forgot the Byrds, tho I'm not sure about greatness beyond their first two albums. Great singles band tho'.

    Also, speaking of LA, I should have added Zappa and the Mothers as a prime example of genius w/ bespoke band. Also Captain Beefheart and the Trout Mask Replica/Lick My Decals era Magic Band.

    Watson for some reason continues to tie the Dead to the Summer of Love, but that's all hype--like basing a critique of the Beatles on Love Me Do and Please Please Me, or saying the Stones were overrated because swinging London wasn't really all that. The Dead had a 35 year career and after Tom Constantin left in 1969 the group was not so much a psychedelic band at all (or a SF band, more a Marin County band) which is why I think they don't at all sound dated as someone observed, I think eroneously, at least the post 1970 stuff doesn't sound dated--furthermore I think Jerry Garcia remains the model for today's emo depressive singers--for worse, not better (btw, I love the early psychedlic Dead stuff too). You want dated, dig the Doors (whose first album I still adore, but jeez does that sound exclusively of its time and place).


    US jazz musicians are the best because jazz is purely American...rock, like the American population, is a mongrel w/ plenty of Anglo influence present from the start. But there were, and are, a bunch of world class European jazz musicians. Django Reinhardt and Dave Holland spring immediately to mind and there are certainly others. Of course the Dead were also the jazziest of the great rock bands(tho' the Allmans could swing like hell, witness Les Brers in A Minor).

    Manny, have you heard the David Murray Octet album of Dead songs? Incredible arrangement and performance of Dark Star...the rest of the album is blah...stiff, what too often happens when players who swing try to rock (like when opera singers try to do jazz)...but the Dark Star is out of this world. Also you should give a listen to Dick Picks Vol. 2, half a Dead show from Oct. 71 that's super jazzy, or any of the 1974 shows. This was a top flight improvising band with real skills and knowledge. Don't forget Garica was a Django acolyte, invited Ornette to play w/ the Dead and appeared on Ornette's Virgin Beauty album. And Lesh studied composition w/ Luciano Berio. This wasn't just a blown out garage band.

    Kit, let's give CCR its due. Great oeurve. Honest to God greatness...Bayou Country, Cosmos Factory and Willie and the Poor Boys are all great albums and I listen to each of them fairly often, more often than I listen to any of the studio recordings of the Dead. And nothing in the Dead's oeuvre approaches "Fortunate Son."

    OOC, although I can't get w/ Sonic Youth--never cared for them, always sounded like noise as an intellectual novelty, when I want noise I want Kick Out the Jams or Funhouse (gimme "I'm Loose" played w/o irony, or the 5, cocks out, playing "Come Together" over brainy noise any day)--Television is one of my all time favorite bands. But two albums, only one of which is great, does not a "greatest American band" make. Interestingly I think Television bears a real resemblance to the Dead--extended modal soloing, churning two guitar front, both great live improvising bands. The TV live recordings from the 1978 tour are stunners. Listening to one band often leads me into a jag of listening to the other.

    The appeal of REM completely escapes me. Talking Heads were real competition for the Clash as the best band in the world circa 1979 or 1980...one of the Remain in Light shows w/ the enormous band w/ Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell at Radio City remains one of the great rock shows I've ever seen (tho nowhere near as titanic as the three shows I saw of the Clash's legendary run at Bond's in NYC including a final weekend matinee at which I and about 30 others from the audience wound up on stage singing "London's Burning"). But Talking Heads burned out quickly...I found their last couple of albums essentially forgettable, or worse--annoyingly, willfully clever. Keep the baby up late and all that....blah blah blah...Amazing tho' how audible their influence is suddenly however w/ the likes of Modest Mouse.

    Oh, and OOC, I'm not giving you the Crickets any more than I'd give you Elvis' TCB band. Elvis and the TCB band at the International in 1970 was as good as rock gets...better than the Stones of that year if you ask me, I'll take Live at the International over Get Yer Ya Ya's out 10 times out of 10...but that's a leader plus back up band and so is Buddy and the Crickets.

    The Dolls, well, I know Watson adores the Dolls. And both of their albums are great (forget the latest incarnation), which puts them ahead of Television in terms of the audible artifacts. But again, the career is too short and slight to put 'em up there w/ the real contenders for the title.

    Oh, and Kit, you bring up an interesting point about the Dead and its audience. Actually I think the sycophantic audience was the worst thing that ever happened to the Dead, never challenging or pushing the band. When audiences stop pushing performing artists, then the artists need tremendous internal will to continue to push themselves. The Dead never displayed that, which is why, after the mid 1970s, greatness was only occasional from the band.
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    Dated!?
    Try timeless.
    The Grateful Dead span too many styles and so many years to be locked in a box.
    There is much to discover within the Dead.
    Many folks aren't willing to attempt such a grand leap. Too daunting. Zappa has a similar wide scope. Most music fans give up.
    They need bands that make 25 hit singles. It's easier to inderstand.

    Sans souci.
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    I'm a huge fan of Jerry Garcia, but as a band, I tired of the Dead rather early on. As an idea, they are fascinating and I enjoy reading about them, but I'd rather listen to The Jerry Garcia Band or Garcia/Grisman any day.
    As for my choices, I cannot attempt objectivity: Sonic Youth and Television for me. Lower in the pantheon, Velvet Underground, REM, Stooges, Buddy Holly and the Crickets (I say the Crickets count), Talking Heads (ok, this one may push the rock thing), and The Beach Boys.
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    The picture of Manny Maher above is grossly misleading. He's my husband, and looks nothing like that woman beside his comment. And unless Alex Sirota is a woman, the responses here are men talking.
    My brother was one of those "Dead-heads," who until Jerry Garcia died, traveled around "taping the genius jams."
    Once when I was in my early twenties, my younger brother was driving me somewhere in Chicago and indulging in his self-professed "religion." He had kindly turned it down when I requested. But to each his own, guys! I truly couldn't stand it. At the next red light, though it was late at night and I knew only that we were near Chicago somewhere, I jumped from the car. It was that or give up what tenuous hold I have ever had on sanity. One or two girlfriend years ago (claimed) to appreciate the Dead, but I highly doubt they still listen to them very often.
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    Manny has a point there - the Dead are insanely dated (though he didn't say it exactly like that) - further, the whole SF summer of love scene was overrated at best. LA was the superior rock scene.

    Now Kit, easy there - steady now. Creedance had a wild roll of hits, though perhaps Chervokas is right that it was a Fogerty vehicle. Nonetheless.

    The Dolls vs. the Dead - interesting case. One was too much, soon soon. The other was too little spread out over way too many years. You could easily make the case that the Dolls were more influential, I think. But I'm NY!
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    To take a slight detour here, isn't it interesting that in jazz, the American bands are/were unquestionably the greatest in the world (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc) and so were the individual players (Coltrane, Bird, Miles,etc). No other country even comes close. I think Jason is right that the British own rights to the greatest rock bands, but America's legacy to the world is jazz (and that, not coincidentally, is why my Dead albums are gathering dust in the closet and Cannonbal Adderley is on my stereo right now)
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    Suspect this may be a West Coast/East Coast argument. Out here on the left coast, not much doubt about the Dead's worth. I'm not a huge fan, personally, but they are an honest-to-God band, and yes, Emersonian to boot. Their faith and their audience kept them afloat, despite rampant drug abuse, when countless other East Coast/Nihilist bands crashed and burned in short order. Not to mention -- Creedence better than the Dead? The New York Dolls? Hell, the New York Dolls only had two good songs, and CCR only had one riff and a good vocalist!

    Jeez. I thought everyone knew that.
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    For me, The Doors are definitely one of the greatest - I've always been a sucker for poets :)
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    I just listed two dozen Garcia-Hunter songs, that doesn't include Garcia-Hunter-plus other writer songs (like St. Stephen, Friend of the Devil, Cumberland Blues) or Weir songs w/ any of his collaborators (Sugar Mag, Playing in the Band, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Truckin, One More Saturday Night, Throwing Stones), or whole band songs like Dark Star each of which I'd take ahead of almost any Allmans song. But I've never been a big Allmans fan...

    I'll give you Blue Skies, Whipping Post, Melissa, Jessica, Ain't Wasting No More Time, Revival, and, barely, Rambling Man and Elizabeth Reed...I'll even give you Les Brers in A Minor, which I think is over "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" changes....the rest of the stuff is forgettable to me...in one ear and out the other and the best of it doesn't come close to the best of Garcia-Hunter--Ship of Fools, Bird Song, Attics of My Life, Mississippi Half-Step..., Loser, Stella Blue, and my favorite, Wharf Rat.

    One thing interesting about those Fillmore East shows...it was Love, the Allmans and the Dead on a triple bill, not sure what the door price was but probably 3-5 bucks, and the Dead and the Allmans each probably played 2.5 hour sets. That's bang for your buck!
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    I can give you the touring man's rolling Americana outfit, even though they're not to my taste, I really can.

    But orginals?

    There's barely enough to string together a single side....compared to the Allmans' greatest? C'mon man!

    Dreams
    It's Not My Cross to Bear
    Every Hungry Woman
    Ramblin' Man
    Whipping Post
    Blue Sky
    Revival
    Midnight Rider
    Elizabeth Reed
    Jessica
    Melissa
    Hot 'Lanta
    Ain't Wastin' Time No More
    Stand Back
    Wasted Words
    Louisiana Lou
    Just Ain't Easy

    etc...vs. what...US Blues, Uncle John's Band, Sugar Magnolia, the insanely-overrated Casey Jones and some bits and pieces...

    Further, the Allmans' collection of covers is also far superior.
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    Dan-

    Garcia and Hunter don't need us to defend 'em. I mean, just look at that list of songs:

    Bertha, Bird Song, Brokedown Palace, Brown-Eyed Women, Casey Jones, China Cat Sunflower, China Doll, Comes a Time, Deal, Dire Wolf, Eyes of the World, Franklin's Tower (which Kruetzmann actually does have a credit on), He's Gone, High Time, Loser, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Ramble on Rose, Ripple, Row Jimmy, Ship of Fools, Stella Blue, Sugaree, Tennessee Jed, Touch of Grey, Uncle John's Band, Wharf Rat...just to cull some of my faves from the alphabetical list.

    And some of the Weir songs are good too (especially the ones written w/ Hunter like Sugar Magnolia).

    I'll still take the live recordings over the studio recordings, warts and all...like I said, the process of becoming is its own reward, I'm in touch w/ my inner hippie, I can accept and even ocassionally cherish the process.

    Have you ever heard the recording floating around w/ Ryan Adams & the Cardinals plus Phil Lesh playing Wharf Rat? Great stuff.
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    I gotta help you out here, Jason. The songs and the performances on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, in my humble opinion, to me (and after all, it all comes down to what I like, ha ha), are timeless and great. Garcia and Hunter were one of the great songwriting teams in popular music, and Jerry was not only a great (and sloppy and frequently stoned) guitarist, but one of the most soulful singers ever. And this opinion is coming from a guy whose favorite all-time rock album ever is the Stooges' Funhouse, so this isn't just some peace 'n' love hippie talking here. Now when you get to the subject of live performance, that's where you and I know we're on tricky ground talking to non-fans of the Dead. It's hard to tell them, "Look, you gotta put up with a rocky first half-hour here and a couple of lame Bobby Weir songs, but just wait, 'cause right around Jerry's second solo in Wharf Rat is where the show really kicks in..." You know what I'm talking about, brother.
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    Watson, you're just misinformed about the Dead. Dunno how much of their music you've listened to but they rarely played slow blues and almost never after Pigpen left the band in 1970 (tho the Shrine Auditorium "Death Don't Have No Mercy" from Two from the Vault, is awesome w/ great stinging Garica lead playing the old SG). And they have a ton of uptempo tunes. In fact, I remember jumping up in the middle of a rocking "Sugar Magnolia" at Red Rocks in the early 80s shouting "Play it, hippies, play it!" And Springsteen even covered "One More Saturday Night."

    They were followers of Dylan in terms of the flight back to rural roots, or combining rural roots w/ rock and roll...but so was everyone. They were the #1 follower, and there's a reason Dylan asked to join the Dead in the mid 80s (he was turned down, btw, after a group vote in which reportedly one person voted no).

    Garcia was a good player, a very good player, but not a great player. As he always said of himself he was an "idiomaitic" player. He had come up playing bluegrass banjo and had a finger roll style of playing. He was very comfortable and capable in his niche but even he knew he wasn't Django Reinhart or that kind of supreme player.

    I never and still don't think of the Allmans as a great band. Love Eat a Peach, that's a masterpiece, but other than that I can take 'em or leave 'em. My problem w/ the Allmans is principally that they really only have one album's worth of really good original material in their entire oeurve. A dozen great originals is pretty thin for a band w/ that kind of longevity. I find I never listen to 'em. (BTW, the Allmans opened for the Dead at those gigs where they recorded Live at the Fillmore).

    I also think you're way off base on the question of influence. The Dead is enormously influential. There's an entire school of jam bands that stand on the Dead's shoulders, obviously. And so much of the country rock that grew up in the wake of Dylan/theBand/The Dead bears the band's stamp. You might not like it or listen to it, but you can't deny it's existence. Take a quick glance at everyone who has covered Dead material--from the obvious to the less obvious (Elvis Costello, Sublime's skate punk ska version of "Scarlet Begonias"). The Dead haunt American music like few other acts.

    I'll buy Van Halen as influential (but the influence is principally Eddie's, not the group's). But I'm sorry, I have to say it, Aerosmith blows. They were always a second rate band in my book and their born- again career as power balladeers has done nothing to raise them in my estimation. Clowns if you ask me. (Now I'm baiting Tony Alva).

    The Band was a great band, maybe my all time fave. But 1) they're Canadian, so they don't make it past my limiter 2) to the extent that they were an Americana group they got it all from Dylan. You should grab the 5 CD boot of the complete basement tapes. It's Dylan giving the boys a master class.

    CCR is great, really underrated I think, I just see that band as John Fogherty plus back up band not a real band. Like Sly and the Family Stone which was a little bit more of a group where all the players contributed but still a group dominated by a singular talent that wrote and arranged all the material. (If all these groups at the height of their powers playe in a battle of the bands my bet is that Sly and the 5 are the two left standing at the end. No one could out rock those two bands. That would be one hell of a steel cage death match, tho' my money's on Sly at his best over all comers).

    But beyond the music, which is great, the Dead represent because of all the other stuff.
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    Blogger here is correct.
    GD are THE great American r'n'r band.
    Musically and socially.
    History will prove this as a fact.
    They left everyone else in the dust.
    Congrats for the insight.
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    Sure, you could make an argument for Aerosmith, Van Halen, or even Metallica over TGD in terms of cultural impact...also, The Band was way more than a Dylan vehicle.
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    waiting for tony alva to weigh in with aerosmith!
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    look south for the great rock bands, Allmans, Skynyrd, today's My Morning Jacket and Kings Of Leon. For some reason rock bands are a southern thing in this country.
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    I can't help to agree with you. most famous and talented bands came from south
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    You're baiting me here, man!

    Look, I respect the hippie-stoner slow blues even if it bores the crap out of me, but these guys cut exactly no musical channels in American culture.

    Hell, even in the genre (loosely defined) the Allmans ate their toast, or cooked their hash, or whatever. Far, far superior.

    Sugaree is a nice tune - but Graham Parker covered it better than the lazy-ass, half-cocked Dead.

    Garcia was, I'll admit, the greatest of the supreme, play-while-wasted, noodle-for-hours, blues scales, jazz chords slow-hand festival hounds. But that's a small sub-genre.

    But the Dead over the Velvets, the Allmans, MC5, Ramones, Byrds, Creedence, Stooges, NY Dolls even....nah, don't see it.

    The Dead are agreat moving festival and movable economy - but not a great band.
 

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