The Grateful Dead covered dozens of songs written or first recorded by black artists. They include highly recognizable musicians like Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters and Otis Redding and songs like Dancing in the Street, Good Lovin', Johnny B. Goode, Little Red Rooster, In the Midnight Hour and Turn on Your Lovelight. The Dead played some of these songs only once, others hundreds of times.
However a lot of the songs and artists covered are more obscure and may even be wholly new to some of you. This special will feature the original versions of these songs followed by a representative cover version by the Grateful Dead. I won't have time to play everything I compiled, but we'll fit as much as we can. Pigpen freaks especially will love this. This show's playlist. Part 2 playlist.
An almost exactly perfect version of my working song list
Ain't It Crazy, Are You Lonely for Me?, Around and Around, Baby What You Want Me To Do, Ballad of Casey Jones, Beat It On Down The Line, Big Boss Man, Big Boy Pete, Big Railroad Blues, Bring Me My Shotgun, Dancing in the Street, Death Don't Have No Mercy, Death Letter Blues, Devil with a Blue Dress, Don't Ease Me In, Don't Mess Up A Good Thing, Down in the Bottom, Foxy Lady (jam), Good Golly Miss Molly, Good Lovin', Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, (Let the) Good Times (Roll), Got My Mojo Working, Hard to Handle, Heads Up, Hey Bo Diddley, Hey Pocky (A-) Way, Hi-Heel Sneakers, Hideaway, How Long Blues, How Sweet It Is, I Ain't Superstitious, I Just Want To Make Love To You, I Know It's A Sin, I Second that Emotion, I'm A Hog for You (Baby), I'm A King Bee, I'm a Man, I've Seen Them All, Iko Iko, In the Midnight Hour, Irene Goodnight, It Hurts Me Too, It's A Man's Man's Man's World, It's All Over Now, Johnny B Goode, Katie Mae, KC Moan, Let It Rock, Little Red Rooster, Look On Yonder's Wall, Louie Louie, Man Smart (Women Smarter), Mona, Monkey And The Engineer, My Babe, My Baby Left Me, New New Minglewood Blues, New Orleans, Next Time You See Me, Nobody's Fault But Mine, On The Road Again, Overseas Stomp, Pain in My Heart, Promised Land, Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu, Run Rudolph Run, If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down, If I Had My Way, Searchin', See See Rider, See that My Grave is Kept Clean, She's Mine, Sick and Tired, Smokestack Lightning, Spoonful, Stealin', That's All Right Mama, The Same Thing, Thirty Days, Turn on Your Lovelight, Viola Lee Blues, Walkin' Blues, Walking the Dog, Wang Dang Doodle, Who Do You Love, You Don't Love Me
- KBOO