Grateful Dead - American Beauty: The Album Review

“Thank the lord for music. It’s a healing force beyond words to describe.” – Phil Lesh (1940-2024)

Jerry Garcia: guitar, steel guitar, piano, lead vocals

Bob Weir: lead vocals on “Sugar Magnolia” and “Truckin,” guitar

Pigpen McKernan: harmonica, lead vocals on “Operator”

Phil Lesh: bass, some guitar and piano, lead vocals on “Box of Rain”

Bill Kreutzmann: drums

Mickey Hart: percussion

Rob Hunter: principle lyricist

Guests: David Grisman, mandolin; Howard Wales, organ and piano; David Torbert, bass on “Box of Rain;” David Nelson, guitar on “Box of Rain;” Neil Lagin, piano on “Candyman”

Produced by the Grateful Dead with Steven Barncard

Author’s Note: This post corresponds to the American Beauty episode of Vinyl Monday, originally posted 11/4/2024. Save for audio/editing jokes that cannot be included in a text format, this is a faithful adaptation of the review chapter. To watch the full episode, scroll to the bottom of this post or visit my YouTube channel here.

Starting in December 1969, the Grateful Dead hit a streak of cosmically shit luck. Not comically – cosmically.

It started with the Altamont Free show. The formal end of the hippies, as most people see it. In short, the Dead and the Airplane wanted to put on the Woodstock of the West. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Jefferson Airplane, and more all played this free show. The Rolling Stones were to be headliners, along with the Dead. But things very quickly spiraled out of control: there was a last-minute venue change, the Hells Angels were “security,” it was bitter cold, the drugs were bad, there was a fatal car crash outside the venue. Hells Angels were antagonizing concertgoers and performers – they hit a pregnant woman in the head with a bottle – and it all culminated in the killing of Meredith Hunter during the Stones’s set. I don’t like that the Dead and the Airplane shirked responsibility for Altamont. But they were absolutelyright not to perform that night, it was way too dangerous.

Then, not even a month into 1970, New Orleans police raided the Dead’s hotel and charged the whole crew with possession. (Busting the Dead for possession sounds like low-hanging fruit to me, but alright.) Warner Bros. had to bribe the DA to get the charges dismissed. Everyone got off except sound engineer Bear Stanley; he’d already caught charges for LSD back home.

You can imagine the Dead were on thin fucking ice with Warner after this. Honestly, considering their behavior during Anthem sessions, it's a miracle they weren't dropped!

Pictured: yes, this was a real letter Warner sent the Dead. And yes, this was a real correction the Dead made before sending it right back to the execs.

The lovely little New Orleans incident, plus commercial failures Anthem of the Sun and Axamoaxa, and expenses from touring left the Dead in $200,000 of debt. The band needed a hit to get themselves out of the weeds, and they needed it now.

But it’s about to get even worse. The Dead’s manager at the time – who just so happened to be Mickey Hart’s dad – renewed the band’s contract without the band’s permission, then took off with what little money theyhad left. Let that sink in: Mickey’s dad sold his son and all his son’s friends down the river for a quick buck. Ultimate betrayal.

Then, the black dog sat on their doorstep. In August, Jerry Garcia’s mother got in a car crash. She spent about a month in the hospital before succumbing to her injuries. At the same time, Phil Lesh’s father was diagnosed with cancer. Phil and Robert wrote “Box of Rain” for him. It was an aggressive form of cancer, he passed very quickly. While playing a gig at the Fillmore East, the guys were informed that Jimi Hendrix had died. A few weeks later at the Winterland, they got news that hit close to home. Janis Joplin, a good friend of the band, had passed.

“By this time, we were all in a state of extreme apprehension, metaphorically looking over our shoulders and wondering: ‘What next?’”

(Phil Lesh, “Searching For the Sound: My Life With the Grateful Dead” 2005)

Nevertheless, the Dead kept on truckin’. They becoming one of the touring acts of the day. Known for their almost supernatural ability to jam on a tune and encouraging bootlegging of their shows, the Dead soon formed a small but devoted following. We know them today as the Deadheads. The Dead were road dogs through and through; they much preferred playing on stage and they were continually inspired by the road. Let’s face it: riding a cramped van through the highways and byways of the American midwest will have you thinking about country and folk music. As Jerry put, “the only sanity (they) had at all was in the studio.” In just four months, the Dead produced two albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, that were so wildly different from their previous material it’s kind of insane.

Going in: I am the world’s 2nd most casual Deadhead. The title of number 1 goes to my mom, who you all met in the Deja Vu redux episode. I listened to this album in the car with my mom recently, I think we were both surprised at how many of the words she still knew.

I well and truly thought I wasn’t going to like this album. For some reason I’d gotten it in my head that the Grateful Dead were too hippy-dippy for me (even I have my limits.) But overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how balanced and grounded American Beauty is! It was a return to formula for some guys – Jerry played bluegrass, the proto-Dead was a jugband, Pigpen McKernan was a blues guy – and an exploration for others, like jazzhead Phil.

Dennis McNatty said in the VH1 Classic Albums joint Anthem to the Sun/American Beauty special that the Dead didn’t start rehearsing with acoustic instruments because it was commercial, but because the music demanded it. I do agree with the latter, this is a lot more grounded than Anthem. They had to tone the John Cage shit down to explore vocals.

But not commercial? Dennis seemed to have forgotten Crosby, Stills & Nash 1. existed, 2. had one of THE most preordered albums of 1970, and 3. 1/3 of them were friends with the Dead!

Pictured, L-R: Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, and (maybe) Neil Young jamming (I can't think of anyone else in their circle with hair that long and stringy and such a penchant for flannel...)

Crosby, Stills, and Nash all happened to be independently recording at Wally Heider’s studio at the same time as the Dead; whether they were there for Workingman’s Dead sessions or American Beauty. Of the three core members of the super-trio, Croz was most connected to the San Fran scene. He rented a house just outside the city to record Deja Vu (the cover photo was taken in the backyard) and was very good friends with the Airplane and the Dead. David lost his girlfriend, Christine Hinton, in a car accident the year before. He knew the exact sudden, acute grief Jerry was feeling. The Dead often credited CSN for teaching them how to sing, but Croz always denied it:

“They knew how to sing. They had their own style, and they had the most important quality down already, which is the tale-telling. They knew songs.”

quoted from: “Classic Albums: The Grateful Dead – Anthem to Beauty” (dir. Jeremy Marre, 1997)

The two groups exchanged a vocals-focused sound with a willingness to fuck with time signatures. Natural cross-pollination between artists; Joni Mitchell, Paul Kantner and David Freiberg of the Airplane, and Mike Shrieve of Santana were also hanging around.

I have to insert the caveat here that when you listen to the Dead on record, you’re only getting a fraction of a fraction of their intended musical experience. I think it was Phil who described the live sections of “That’s It For The Other One” as a thousand-petal lotus opening? That’s how I think of the Grateful Dead as a whole. These songs in the form we hear them on American Beauty are the most stagnant form they were ever in. These compositions were always moving, always evolving, never played the same way twice. The lotus of each song opened, the outside petals wilted off. We only get one little petal on Beauty, but it’s no less profound.

This is an album about young men facing their own mortality. Robert Hunter and the guys emphasized the hippie value of living in the moment because they learned that lesson the hard way. They’ll soon lose one of their own; this was the last studio album with Pigpen as a full-time member. I couldn’t help but notice the art of Beauty’s follow-up, Wake of the Flood, features a wheat farmer who looks an awful lot like the grim reaper.

We’re pretty immediately faced with mortality ourselves. American Beauty opens with Box of Rain, Phil’s song to his dying father. Rob admitted the “box of rain” title was an accident: “By ‘box of rain,’ I meant the world we live on, but ‘ball’ of rain didn’t have the right ring to my ear, so box it became, and I don’t know who put it there.” (quoted from: Alan Trist and David Dodd, “The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics” [2005]) Clever.

Even if it’s accidental, I love the box imagery. Circles, spheres are infinite, right? Boxes are finite. Confined. You’re stuck on this plane until it’s your time to move to the next. Phil didn’t have a strong, assertive frontman voice. None of these guys did. If we’re speaking technically, this recording is pitchy. What Phil did have was the necessary vulnerability to sing “Box of Rain;” it wouldn’t feel sincere or be nearly as touching if it was delivered with gusto. Listen to how his voice quivers even on simple sustained notes. It’s youthful, almost like a boy who’s still figuring out how to use his man voice. It feels helpless, “What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?”

When we were all little babies, our parents – in an ideal situation anyway – helped us when we couldn’t help ourselves. They fed us, they burped us, changed our diapers, stayed up with us when we couldn’t sleep, and held us when we scream-cried. At some point, when our parents grow old, we have to help them when they can’t help themselves. Visit often, make them as comfortable as possible. We have to stay up with them. “What do you want me to do, to watch for you while you’re sleeping?” As abstract as boxes of wind and water are, this song isn’t some lofty hippie shit. This is just a guy actively losing a parent. He wants to help, but there’s nothing he can do besides be there. “It’s just a box of rain. I don’t know who put it there.” That’s the gravity of American Beauty right there.

“Walk into splintered sunlight, inch your way through dead dreams to another land/Maybe you’re tired and broken, your tongue is twisted with words half spoken/And thoughts unclear”

That’s the delirium of a dying man. And later, the line that’s stuck with me since Phil’s recent passing: “Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.” We’re helpless to the procession of time. “Box of Rain” teaches us that life and loving is always worth the pain. The inevitability of death makes living life to the fullest all the more necessary.

In typical hippie fashion, the Dead had lots and lots of friends on board. Friend of the Devil was co-written with Marmaduke Dawson of the New Riders of the Purple Sage...one hell of a name there. “Devil” is one of the Dead’s outlaw songs; like “Mama Tried,” “Casey Jones” and the like. I’m not sure what their fascination with outlaws was, but considering the bust in New Orleans they might’ve considered themselves something of outlaws. We also have our first proper appearance of dear Jerry on this record; his thin but no less warm voice tells the story of this guy who’s escaped prison. Our narrator is doing everything he can to stall going back to the slammer, like...fetal collabs of questionable parentage. “Got a wife in Chino babe, and one in Cherokee/First one says she’s got my child, but it don’t look like me…”

The Devil is financing our narrator’s prison break. He might bum the Devil for child support while he's at it. “...he loaned me twenty bills, I spent the night in Utah in a cave up in the hills” But then he comes to take the $20 back in the very next verse. Something tells me that $20 was in exchange for his soul, and it doesn’t feel like our narrator wants to uphold his end of the deal. Friends of the devil won’t be friends of yours for long, my friend…

This is a very country-forward song; it’s finger picking on finger picking on finger picking. It might be a bit too soft for me? I remember hearing this and being like “ehh, maybe the Dead are TOO hippie for me.”

But hearing it in context with the rest of Beauty, I now view “Devil” as one installment of something every great album should have: a strong 3 or 4-song run to start. Deja Vu has “Carry On,” “Teach Your Children” (which coincidentally features Jerry on steel guitar,) “Almost Cut My Hair,” and “Helpless.” The White Album has “Back In the USSR,” “Dear Prudence,” and “Glass Onion.” American Beauty has a 4-song run too! “Box of Rain,” “Devil,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “Operator.” While I love this 4-song unit, I don’t love its sequencing. I strongly believe “Sugar” and “Devil’”s spots should’ve been swapped. Just try it for yourselves, the flow is better.

Sugar Magnolia is one of the most rock-oriented numbers. It’s got a lot of valence, thanks to Phil’s very melodic playing. That style came from...him not being a bass player? He joined the band as bassist because they needed one and made shit up as he went along! “Sugar” features the Dead’s famed squiggly-sounding harmonies and syncopation to boot. The latter was likely something Phil picked up from his enduring fascination with Stockhausen, and the former was what Jerry and the guys picked up from jazzheads like David Crosby and the Airplane.

“Discovering the wonders of nature rolling in the rushes down by the riverside...” I’m reminded of the grass fuck scene in the Woodstock film.

“Takes the wheel when I’m seeing double,” (don’t EVER trip and drive,) “Pays my ticket when I speed,” she’sfinancially independent and unwilling to stick to gender roles! She’s as light a presence as a breeze in the pines in the summer night. “She come skimming through rays of violet, she can wade in a drop of dew.” She’s an ethereal girl who is just a joy to be around. She’s a hippie’s dream girl! Every man needs a “Sugar Magnolia” in his life; someone who makes him appreciate the little things.

We come back down to earth with Pigpen’s only singer-songwriter moment, Operator. Mickey Hart said this period in the Dead’s career “was sort of stepping out of our spacesuit and coming down to earth, and putting on a pair of Oshkosh and digging the furloughs” (quoted from: Classic Albums: The Grateful Dead – Anthem to Beauty” [dir. Jeremy Marre, 1997]) No song is more emblematic of that statement than “Operator.” Top to bottom, it’s a simple, inoffensive front-porch tune about a guy trying to track down his runaway lady. Worshboard, harmonica and all.

Others call “Operator” a weak spot on American Beauty, I do not. I really like Pigpen’s gruffer voice in contrast with boyish Jerry, Phil, and Bob. It gives this work an aged quality, like fine wine instead of college bathtub mead. Beauty’s true blemish spot is Candyman. It’s a little long; clocking in at over 6 minutes. It drags the album’s momentum down. I know it’s about a dealer, but for the world’s horniest candyman seeking revenge on Mr. Benson, it’s one sluggish track. I don’t know if you should have the shotgun to blow him straight to hell man, this song feels under the influence.

Thankfully, side 2 perks up with Ripple. Rob was most proud of the line “Let it be known there is a fountain, that was not made by the hands of men,” And rightfully so.

It’s a gorgeous interpretation of whatever intangible life force connecting us all; whether that’s god, juju, or psychedelics.

Jerry sounds so warm and sweet on this song; naive and hopeful, like a boy about to set out on the hero’s journey, but the words are wise like the old mystic who advises him. “There is a road, no simple highway between the dawn and the dark of night/And if you go, no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone.” Though we can’t escape the confines of time, life, and death, the way we navigate it is ours and ours alone. Free will is real. That’s a really inspiring, necessary message. “You who choose to lead must follow, but if you fall, you fall alone.” You can’t shirk your responsibilities in life, you have to take accountability if you posture yourself as someone to look up to. That’s a very important message these days.

For such profound shit, “Ripple” is comfy-cozy music; with gentle, finger-plucked guitars and lush mandolin. I really wish David Grisman got to come in earlier like he wanted to. His pre-chorus entrance feels hokey without flourishes through the verses to fill it out.

Being that this is a hippie band, here come the obligatory group vocals. I’m so blissed out at this point I don’t care if it’s a cliché. It’s nice! Dare I say heartwarming.

There’s very little space on the album between “Ripple” and Brokedown Palace. Like its predecessor,“Brokedown” is spiritual without referencing any specific deity. Rob paints the picture of the river which runs through our all our lives, in a classic American mythology way. It takes a while for this song to mature into something, but it eventually blossoms into a gorgeous refrain; marked by another set of words we’ve all surely been ruminating on lately. “Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell”

Till The Morning Comes is the strongest musical evidence that the Dead were hanging around CSN. Tell me this isn’t literally “Everybody I Love You.” In fact, I feel “Till The Morning Comes” was what CSN were trying to do with “Everybody I Love You” but couldn’t quite manage. This song feels more intentional, while also freer to move.

Then comes “Attics of My Life.” This song is just stunning. The music stays out of the way of the vocals, but the bassline is fleeting and just enough to be noticed. Its airy bobs up and down are reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Sun King” and “Don’t Let Me Down.” Pretty as the subtle arrangement is, the vocals are obviously the shining star of “Attic.” They’re hymnal and they’re homey. They proceed solemnly, with each guy completely in tune with each other’s inflections as they sing of a magical inner world to take refuge in when things are hard. “In the attics of my life, full of cloudy dreams unreal, full of tastes no tongue can know, and lights no eye can see.” From the book of love where all the print is love and all the pages are my days, and the secret space of dreams, this song is pure poetry. It’s some of Rob and Jerry’s all-time best work together. “Attics” praises the power of love. Being these guys are artists, their power of love is the power of the muse; no matter how elusive. I think the following line says it all:

“I have spent my life seeking all that’s still unsung. Bent my ear to the tune, and closed my eyes to see.”

The thrill isn’t the chase of the muse, but maybe the chase is the comfort; a moment of soliloquy amongst the madness inside and out. American Beauty hasn’t just given me two new Grateful Dead songs: “Box of Rain”and “Attics of My Life.” It’s given me two new favorite songs, period.

My YouTube channel’s oldest slogan is “come join this long strange trip.” I still use it as a thank-you when newbies comment “just subscribed!” Of course, it came from the last song on American Beauty, Truckin. It’s a much-welcome rock-oriented number after a pretty subdued side two.

“Truckin” is a blast. It’s super fun, especially Bob’s delivery of, “If you got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in.” A laissez-faire fuck-off if I’ve ever heard it.

I’m a sucker for these kinds of epics and autobiographical songs. “Truckin” is just guys living in the moment, living life on the road and rolling with the punches – appreciating it more now than ever. In a way, this song has become about the Deadheads too. They find the same comfort the Dead and all their spinoff bands have found in traveling around the country. According to Rob in the aforementioned VH1 special, the guys were supposed to keep adding to “Truckin” as the years went on: “Once in a while, the music gets into the street/Fifty old ladies bug every cop on the beat/They’re putting the lock on Lindley Meadow and Kezar, beginning to look like we can’t play in the park…” Would it have been fun to keep adding forever? Yes. Do I love that extra verse? Yes, I’ve been singing it to myself all week. Would it have been a nightmare to remember it all? Also yes. Gotta take logistics into account! “Just keep truckin on,” “Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings,” the aforementioned long strange trip. This song is just chock full of iconic Grateful Dead lines.

This album has been so much about introspection and person-to-person relationships. Before I close things out, I want to point out a specific verse that speaks to the collective; one of the only times American Beauty does this:

“What in the world ever became of sweet Jane? She lost her sparkle, you know she isn’t the same/Living on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine/All a friend can say is, ‘ain’t it a shame?’”

This isn’t the death of a Jane so much as it’s the death of the group she’s in: the hippies. The assassinations of RFK and MLK mere months apart, the ’68 DNC riots, the Tate-LaBianca murders, and Altamont all brought the end of the happy hippie 1960s. People put down weed, hash, and LSD for way stronger shit and killed the optimism, killing the potential. Thus, the 1970s were marked by paranoia. Ain’t it a shame…

In his book, Phil described the bond between the members of the Grateful Dead, both as musicians and as men:

“The Grateful Dead has always been collectively dedicated to many ideals: family, community, freedom, risk-taking – but for me it was always the music. With all its ups and downs, it’s an exhilarating experience to improvise – onstage and in life – with one’s fellow humans; who, after forty years of living, working, disagreeing, and completing one another’s thoughts musically and conversationally, are connected by a bond that’s ‘thicker than blood,’ as Bob Weir likes to say.”

If you haven’t read his book, or listened to him narrate it himself, I recommend you pair it with listening to American Beauty.

Musically, Beauty was the Dead’s return to earth. It was emblematic of a larger return to the self after this generational devotion to the collective; which either either spiraled out of control or burnt itself out. But this album isn’t bitter at all. That’s kind of remarkable, considering the mass loss of innocence and the band getting hit with tragedy after tragedy. But you don’t get that from the music. We’re left in the golden glow of the simplest happiness you can feel. Just being happy to experience life.

"Thicker than blood," and the healing power of music. That’s the lifeblood of American Beauty. If you were to prick its thumb on the rose, that’s what would come out. In a way, it’s kind of perfect that the guys serendipitously suggested this cover; they only found out American Beauty was a rose variety after the fact.

Life grows with thorns. If you live life to the fullest, if you grab it and pick it for yourself, you’re gonna get pricked. It’s inevitable. American Beauty makes peace with the bleeding, and in a way this listener didn’t know she needed right now.

Personal favorites: “Box of Rain,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Ripple,” “Attics of My Life,” “Truckin”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!