I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Deadhead, though I liked them enough as a teenager in the late 1970s and early ‘80s to buy the two albums most non-Deadheads buy, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, plus a two-LP best-of, What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been. I also saw The Grateful Dead Movie at some point in the mid-‘80s, though I don’t remember where or when, just that I was as stoned as many of the audience members shown in the film. But some fans of theirs that I met at the time were…a little much.
Too, it became customary for a few of their ardent admirers to request their songs when I hosted a folk show on Penn State’s student-run radio station from late 1985 through mid-’87. The thing about that, though, and I learned this early on, is that most listeners weren’t fans; to spin the wrong song by them was to risk a series of angry calls, as some folkies acted like Pete Seeger at Newport ’65 when they heard something they disliked. “Ripple” went down well, for example. “Truckin’,” however, did not. And anything over five minutes—forget about it! Deadheads danced through my orbit in the decades that followed, as well, from my days hawking CDs in a new-fangled CD store to my TV GUIDE years, with most eschewing evangelistic spiels about the wonders of their beloved band—just as I spared them longwinded lectures on all things Neil Young. (The happy medium we always found: David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name.)
I start there because, well, it needs to be said before digging into this two-LP set from Mikaela Davis & Southern Star, recorded at Relix Studios in New York City in August 2021. We all come at music from different places; some enjoy long jams, others tight tunes, and many have pre-conceived notions of bands they know little about. Those who dislike lengthy jams won’t enjoy this, while those—like me—who enjoy both should be enthralled from start to finish. It features the talented harpist and her pals, whose 2022 And Southern Star album is one of my most-played albums of recent years, performing nine Dead songs over 10 tracks. (“Dark Star” is covered twice—first as a lengthy jam, the second in more condensed form.) It’s a heady set that’s sure to please both Dead and Davis/Southern Star fans, with Davis handling her harp much like Neil Young does his guitar.
It should be noted that Davis doesn’t sing lead on every song; guitarist Cian McCarthy steps to the fore on a few and handles himself well. In short, it’s a halcyon set that’s sure to hit home for anyone who’s seen Davis and band in concert, as it captures the same magic, plus it should please longtime Dead fans. These aren’t note-for-note replications by a rote tribute band, in other words. Davis’ jazzy harp adds new depths to the numbers.
The track list: “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)”; “Morning Dew”; “Here Comes the Sunshine”; “Mountains of the Moon”; “Dark Star”; “Wharf Rat”; “Dark Star”; “St. Stephen”; “Brokedown Palace”; and “Cold Rain and Snow.”
The only downside is that, like the previous Relix Sessions set that featured Davis and Southern Star, the vinyl-only release lacks a download code, which leaves the music tethered to one’s record player. I’d love to listen to this in the Mazda3 Time Machine, for instance, as I’m sure it would jet me back to the night friends and I took in that Dead film…but c’est la vie. It takes me places, anyway. (Oh, and I’d have loved if “Ripple” or “Box of Rain”—or even “U.S. Blues”—was in the set. Next time.)
FYI, the album is a limited release available only through the Relix Marketplace. For those who’d like to sample before they buy, the bulk of the set is available on YouTube (though not in the same song order):
The back jacket:
The Old Grey Cat 