The Grateful Dead - Casey Jones

Sunday again, god how the week just fly by. Time for a classic? Oh yes!

Todays classic band is The Grateful Dead, who was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock and for live performances of long musical improvisation. "Their music," writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world." They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

The fans of the Grateful Dead, some of whom followed the band from concert to concert for years, are known as "Deadheads" and are known for their dedication to the band's music. From 2003 to 2009 former members of the Grateful Dead, along with other musicians, toured as The Dead and The Other Ones. There are many contemporary incarnations of The Dead, with the most prominent touring acts being Furthur and Phil Lesh & Friends.

The Band is also know for they great art work, here are some old poster, aren't they cool, huh?

Todays classic tune "Casey Jones" is a song written by Jerry Garcia, and the lyrics are by Robert Hunter. The song first appeared on the Dead's 1970 album Workingman's Dead. Subsequently it was included on a number of their live albums. The Grateful Dead played "Casey Jones" in concert on a regular basis from June 1969 through October 1974. After that, they continued playing it live, but less often. In total they performed the song in concert more than 300 times.

"Casey Jones" is about a railroad engineer who is on the verge of a train wreck due to his train going too fast. Jones is described as being "high on cocaine" (the song even makes a double entendre of advising Jones to "watch his speed"). It was inspired by the story of an actual engineer named Casey Jones. The engineer's exploits were also sung of in an earlier folk song called "The Ballad of Casey Jones", which the Grateful Dead played live several times.

"Casey Jones" has received significant airplay on progressive rock, album-oriented rock, and classic rock radio stations over the years, and so is one of the Dead's songs that is more recognizable by non-Deadheads. It includes the line, "Drivin' that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed."



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