A place to talk about the music of the Grateful Dead
eyeprod wrote:it's a good discussion. jerry has alot of good parts, but don't forget weir. many people(even people that know how to play the songs) often don't realize just who is playing what part. ALOT of dead tunes have definitive licks that aren't played by jerry. example: china cat, jerry plays the part you hear first, it starts the song and surely is a classic riff. then the weir part kicks in, it sounds something like a circus calliope and really makes the tune come alive. i love it, personally i find it alot more fun to play the weir parts on alot of songs. he comes up with very interesting, catchy licks. whichever of them is singing is usually playing a simpler part, and the other guy is typically adding fills and frills.
easy wind is a great example of a tune with a whole lot of good riffs in it. jerry again plays the intro of the song. it's a blues turnaround lick in E. neither jerry nor bob are singing this one, so they are both pretty busy throughout the song. after the 'river keeps a talkin but you never heard a word it says' part they play that turnaround lick again, jerry does the exact same thing as the intro, but the part you hear loudest(the part most players will try to emulate) is weirs blues lick in E pentatonic at the 12th fret. it rocks.
i love playing dead songs. i play bass and slide in an acoustic blues trio and we do some dead songs. we've got an mp3 of big boss man available http://www.humboldtmusic.com/webpage/index.cfm?id=1735
and i also have an mp3 of an instrumental might as well that i recorded for fun. i even played all of the parts... http://superchargedconnection.com/jerry.htm
