Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead High-Fidelity Reissue

My vinyl copy of the Grateful Dead's classic Workingman's Dead is a little hammered. I think I bought it at a garage sale about 30 years ago. It has someone else's name written on it. I have played it a thousand times, and I can say the same for my CD copy. I mostly prefer to listen to live Dead shows, but for my money, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are two of their finest releases, studio or live. Workingman's Dead, released in 1970, was a step forward in the band's songwriting, and was a departure from their more psychedelic offerings on previous releases. Tracks were tight, had more traditional structures, were catchy, West Coast-country flavored, and the recordings were clean, clear, and straightforward. The album featured what would become some of the band's "classics" and staples of their live shows at various times; "Uncle John's Band," "Dire Wolf," "New Speedway Boogie," "Cumberland Blues," "Black Peter," and the massively popular "Casey Jones." All of the above also made it one of the only Grateful Dead records the casual music fan might have in their collection. Bob Weir had not yet come into his role as a lead singer, and instead he joins the blend of the band's new Crosby, Stills and Nash vocal approach. Any sole lead singing duties on Workingman's Dead were covered by Jerry Garcia, with the exception of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, singing "Easy Wind".

Imagine my delight when a package containing a newly re-issued and remastered, limited-edition, numbered copy of Workingman's Dead arrived at the front door. The heavy-duty gatefold package includes liner notes from David Gans, and the album was remastered (and lacquers cut) from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. The 180-gram vinyl pressing sounds amazing. Original sessions were produced by Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor at Pacific Recording in San Francisco, and mixed and mastered by Betty Cantor. Engineering credits are listed as "Alembic," but both Matthews and Cantor, along with Tom Flye, did the bulk of the recording/engineering.

There is also a Blu-ray version with both high-resolution standard stereo and Dolby Atmos 5.1 remixes done by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. It is not an over-the-top drums panning everywhere and things flying across the sound field immersive mix, but rather, the songs just have a little more depth, space, and detail. This was already a well-recorded and mixed album, but this is certainly a fun listen for fans.

It is a touch unnerving that some of my favorite albums are having their 50th (Ramones), 40th (Spirit of Eden), and 75th (Miles '56: The Prestige Years), anniversaries, but it is also fantastic to revisit them with outstanding audio upgrades, and time under my belt to appreciate them in a new light. Having fresh copies of some of these albums that I appreciate sitting down and listening to attentively on vinyl is a treat, and a trend I hope continues.