Grateful Dead
Album: Workingman’s Dead
Released: 1970
It was the early nineties, and grunge rock dominated my budding music collection—which consisted primarily of cassette tapes, some hand-me-down records, a shoebox full of eight-tracks I’d found at a garage sale, and a small number of compact discs. Columbia House offered me a deal that was too good to believe: twelve CDs for the price of a single penny. I had nine selections locked in but needed to fill the order with three more albums, and I had reached the extent of my musical knowledge. I knew about Deadheads: they had long hair, a fondness for psychedelics, and wore tie-dyed clothes prominently featuring skeletons. I didn’t know anything about the music of the Grateful Dead but figured they were probably an artist that inspired Metallica, so I should own an album. I circled Workingman’s Dead on the order form.
When the album arrived, it didn’t sound anything like Metallica. In fact, it sounded a lot like the music the kickers were playing—something I should probably rebel against. Even more to my surprise, it wouldn’t get out of my head. I was walking around with twangy songs about Uncle John’s Band and Casey Jones taking up permanent space in my mind. I kept playing the album, and I haven’t stopped yet.
Workingman’s Dead was the fourth album released by the Dead, and they took a dramatic turn from their previous sound with this country-inspired music, a trend they would continue on the next album, American Beauty, as well. The shift in sounds was partially due to Jerry Garcia getting his hands on a steel guitar and figuring out what he could do with it. It’s a widely appreciated album that introduced many songs that became staples of their legendary live shows. It went platinum in 1986 and was ranked number 262 on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of greatest albums of all time.
Workingman’s Dead is one of the tangible links between the psychedelic rock music that came out of San Francisco in the sixties and the cosmic country that was brewing in Austin in the seventies. What the Grateful Dead played on this album is not much different from what you could hear at the Armadillo World Headquarters on a Friday night. In fact, they even left their own impression on the storied venue.
Doug Sahm was the magical connection that helped it all come together. He had to leave the state for a while to avoid some trouble with the law stirred up by a drug conviction. He escaped to Haight-Ashbury, where he became good friends with Jerry Garcia and the gang. In 1972, the band was in town to play a show at the Austin Municipal Auditorium. It was probably a great show, but not one that people are talking about fifty years later. But we are still talking about what happened the next night—an “impromptu” jam session at the Dillo featuring Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Doug Sahm, and Leon Russell, as well as members of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and Shiva’s Headband.
Rhinory ‘Keras Collection’ Cabernet Sauvignon
It’s a simple concept: winos in the front, rhinos in the back. That explains the 4,000-pound rhinoceros named Blake wandering around the premises while curious Texans swirl and sip flights of wine. Once you wrap your mind around that, the next question is usually, why? That’s a simple explanation—why the hell not?, as our friend Kinky Friedman was fond of exclaiming. The longer explanation is that the owners were on a safari in South Africa when a vicious gang of poachers slaughtered some rhinos. They were so grieved by the tragedy that they decided they needed to open a winery in the Hill Country near Fredericksburg.
Where the Texas wine drinker wins is the collaboration between the Hill Country winery and their South African counterparts. The boutique wineries they partner with don’t have a large distribution network, and their product would not be accessible (to the non-safari crowd) without Rhinory. The select vintners reserve some of their premier vintages for sale at the Texas winery. It’s one of the rare situations where everyone wins. Visitors to the winery get access to exclusive wines, South African producers expand to a market where they can sell at a higher price point, and a hefty chunk of the proceeds makes it back to rhino preservation.
The Keras Collection Cabernet Sauvignon hails from Stellenbosch—a mountainous area about 35 miles east of Cape Town. It is known for both its astounding natural beauty and as one of the premier wine-growing regions in the world. This is a bold, full-bodied wine where toasty oak mingles with black raspberry, cassis, and a hint of smoked meat. Very full on the palate, the aromas are joined with flavors of bitter chocolate, cigar box, and mint. It’s a perfect companion to a grilled steak.
You are probably wondering how we are going to take this unlikely international wine collaboration and tie it back to the Grateful Dead. In 2006, Rhino Records obtained exclusive licensing rights for the Grateful Dead catalog, and reissues and archived material since then have been on the Rhino label – including the version of Workingman’s Dead currently in my collection. If you have read the mission statement of the listening lounge, it specifies that the focus is on local music and the wine list is exclusively Texan. There is a poetic satisfaction in breaking both rules at the same time, pairing a California band with a South African wine, and claiming them both as local jewels.
Pop the cork on a Keras Collection Cab while spinning Workingman’s Dead – it just might be an album you spend the rest of your life enjoying.
