RECORDS
The longer the word “psychedelic” is used to describe music, the less meaning it has. Both of these bands have had the term pasted on their respective reputations and they’ve got about as much in common as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and yo’ mama.
RECORDS
BR’ER REAPER GRATEFUL DEAD In The Dark (Arista)
ECHO & THE BUHHYMEH (Sire)
The longer the word “psychedelic” is used to describe music, the less meaning it has. Both of these bands have had the term pasted on their respective reputations and they’ve got about as much in common as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and yo’ mama. They play guitars, they make records, they breathe oxygen, yada yada.
The Dead probably deserve the description more than anyone else, since they were the house band for Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, jamming blues, bluegrass and folk roots into new rock recipes with the help of chemical inducements. This stage climaxed, on vinyl, with Live Dead in ’69; on the following Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty they achieved a muted, more mainstream approach— sorta in between what the Band and Crosby, Stills & Nash were doing at the time (though still tweaked with the occasional microdot)—that remains the basis of their sound today.