When the Grateful Dead were great, they were great indeed. They were perhaps the most formidable improvisers in rock’n’roll, and at the turn of the seventies they turned out a pair of LPs—I’m talking, of course, about Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty—that established them as tunesmiths capable of churning out marvelously concise and musically expansive songs that evoked, better than almost anybody else, both America’s mythical past and its weird and wild present.
What a long strange trip indeed. Alas, the trip ended badly, as prolonged trips tend to do, with a series of albums that just got worse and worse. 1975’s Blues for Allah was far from the worst of them—I’d give that award to either 1977’s Terrapin Station or 1978’s truly fetid Shakedown Street—but it was the first of the Grateful Dead’s LPs that truly had no reason for being, other than as a demonstration that an object in motion tends to stay in motion long after the sputtering demise of the inspiration that put it in motion in the first place. Unfortunately for us all, the Grateful Dead were not equipped with a dead man’s switch.
The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau hit the nail on the head when he said, in his typically cryptic way, “I find the arch aimlessness of their musical approach neurasthenic and their general muddleheadedness worthy of Yes or the Strawbs.” And Christgau was a champion of the band. Even yours truly—a heavy-duty stoner at the time—found Blues for Allah tedious, irksome even. Where were the songs? Whatever was the band mucking and meandering on about? And why was the long and abysmal title track so utterly annoying that even I—a clueless kid who actually owned and paid serious attention to the monumentally shitty Shakedown Street—had to give it a pass? Stoned out of my gourd yet?
Even the LP’s half-decent tracks are cloying, and if they’re cloying can they really be half-decent? I’m talking about the overly pretty instrumental “Sage & Spirit,” which boasts a flute that makes me want to break flutes. Blues for Allah’s only real keeper is the percolating “Franklin’s Tower,” on which Jerry Garcia sings and plays guitar while the band—which is otherwise dead in the water—shows some real propulsive power. “King Solomon’s Marbles” is composed of two parts; “Stronger than Dirt” is Latin flavored and makes me want to cha-cha-cha, and wanders about lost like Spinal Tap through the labyrinthine corridors beneath that stadium in Cleveland before the band goes into a lame repetition of the old “stronger than dirt” television jingo. On “Milkin’ the Turkey” the band jams to no great effect; Keith Godchaux’s keyboard noodling is every bit annoying as Garcia’s jazzy musings, and who cares if the band is tight? I don’t.
About the best I can say about opening track “Help on the Way/Slipknot!” is that it could be worse; the backing vocals annoy, and the tune has a smooth jazz veneer that reminds me of the smooth jazz veneer that Steely Dan were slapping on their songs at the time. Garcia, who even at his best was incapable of abusing his impressive guitar gifts, plays well and even sounds a mite pissed, but I will never listen to “Help on the Way/Slipknot!” for pleasure, or for any other reason for that matter. Bob Weir and John Barlow’s “The Music Never Stopped” is a subpar take on “Playing in the Band,” but at least it’s a decent parody of a Grateful Dead song, rather than so much vacuous futzing about. Only the interplay between Garcia and the saxophone holds one’s attention, but once again this is not a Dead song I’d ever bother to pull out and play.
“Blues for Allah” is actually made up of three parts. “Blues for Allah,” a Garcia/Robert Hunter composition, is a boring night in the desert. “Sand Castles and Glass Camels” is attributed to the entire band and is yet another instrumental that goes nowhere and unfortunately takes its good old time getting there. I wish “Strange Occurrences in the Desert” was a mirage but it isn’t; when it comes to making spacy stoner mood music, one need only compare this palaver to what Pink Floyd were producing at the same time to realize the Grateful Dead were as good as done when it came to producing memorable music in the studio.
Blues for Allah is more experimental than the studio LPs that preceded it, and I suppose I should support the Grateful Dead’s dedication to stretching out. But the results are so god awful I can’t. I can listen to its predecessor, 1974’s From the Mars Hotel. I can even listen to 1973’s moribund Wake of the Flood, although I don’t. But when push comes to shove about the only thing positive I have to say about Blues for Allah is, “Groovy cover!” Pity the album in the slip sleeve is about as welcome as a long day in the sweltering Sahara, with nary an oasis in sight. I’m dying of thirst here, people!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D
