On “Uncle John’s Band,” the first cut on Workingman’s Dead, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter asks, “What I want to know, where does the time go?”
It’s not clear where, but the time certainly has gone, as 50 years have passed since the Dead released that album on June 14, 1970, after recording it over the course of just 10 days at San Francisco’s Pacific High Recording Studio.
To commemorate Workingman’s Dead’s 50th anniversary, the Grateful Dead will be reissuing a remastered version of the classic album on June 20 of this year on both CD and vinyl. The new vinyl pressing will be printed on a picture disc that is being limited to 10,000 copies, and the deluxe CD edition comes with a previously unreleased 1971 concert at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York.
“For an album as important and great as Workingman’s Dead, it seemed appropriate to double the amount of bonus material,” Grateful Dead archivist and producer David Lemieux told Rolling Stone. “The show we’ve selected gives a definitive overview of what the band were up to six months after the release of the album and shows the Dead sound that would largely define the next couple of years.”
Here’s the live recording of “Casey Jones” from the Capitol Theatre from the deluxe set:
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