(LOOTPRESS) – Fifty years ago today, the members of the Grateful Dead took the stage at the County Coliseum in El Paso to burn through an extended thirty-song performance.
The date was Friday, November 23, 1973, and Thanksgiving festivities had just concluded the day prior. But the Dead’s relentless commitment to the road had the band setting up shop in the south to play for their equally committed followers before there was even time to indulge in leftovers.
1973 was a transitional year of sorts for the Grateful Dead. In many ways, the band was still finding its footing following the passing of founding member, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan in March of that same year. Trained pianist Keith Godchaux had already come onboard by this point, having begun to augment the ailing Pigpen in late 1971 and filling in for shows which his predecessor was unable to perform.
Godchaux’s arrival to the band was closely followed by that of his wife, vocalist Donna Jean, who assumed the role of tertiary vocalist – a role previously filled by bassist Phil Lesh.
Despite this array of changes, the Grateful Dead were operating on a different level sonically by 1973. This approach, characterized by jazz-informed turnarounds and prominent rhythmic dynamics, has been dubbed the “Turbo-charged, turn-on-a-dime Grateful Dead,” by Lesh in his memoir, Searching for the Sound.
The 1971 departure of secondary drummer Mickey Hart was in no small part a contributing factor to his evolution of the band’s sound, as his absence drastically altered the rhythmic and musical foundation of the group’s live shows.
The recently reconfigured lineup made their way to El Paso’s County Coliseum in late November of 1973, kicking things off with a leisurely paced “Bertha,” which more closely resembled iterations of the tune performed in later years by Dead and Company.
Fittingly, the performance features no shortage of vocalist/guitarist Bob Weir’s beloved “cowboy tunes.” In fact, as soon as Weir steps to the microphone for his first song of the night on lead vocals, he leads the band through a toe-tapping rendition of “Mexicali Blues,” an early collaboration between Weir and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.
Also performed that night was the classic country tune, “The Race is On,” a Don Rollins number which would give the iconic George Jones his sole Top 40 hit, along with the Johnny Cash vehicle, “Big River,” and of course, the Marty Robbins-penned Western ballad, “El Paso,” which crops up at roughly a third of the way through the show.
Originally released on the album Gunfighter, Ballads and Trail Songs on Columbia Records in 1959 and written by Marty Robbins, “El Paso” is checks all the boxes with regard to what’s expected from a typical Western ballad, but the writing is also rich with striking imagery and critical details which tell a thousand stories on their own when given adequate consideration.
“The song hardly says anything you can understand, but if you throw in the signs, symbols, and shapes it hardly says anything that you don’t understand. Gunfire; blood; sudden death; [What] seems like a typical Western ballad is anything but,” said Bob Dylan of the song.
“This is a ballad of outrageous love. “El Paso:” the passageway; the escape hatch, the secret staircase, ritual crime and symbolic lingo; circular imagery; names and numbers; transmigration. Deportation; and all in the cryptic first person, the primitive self. The stench of perfume; alcohol; the puff of smoke; the duel; the worthless life; pain in the heart; staying in the saddle; love in vain; the Grim Reaper, and a love that’s stronger than death.”
The Grateful Dead’s foray into more stripped-back musical territory – initiated with the release of 1970’s Workingman’s Dead and followed by American Beauty that same year – presented an opportunity for Weir to incorporate a slew of classic country-leaning tunes into the band’s repertoire.
These tunes, which included numbers like “El Paso,” were able to sit comfortably aside many of the group’s original cuts that also emerged in the early 1970s. “Tennessee Jed,” “Jack Straw,” and “Truckin,’” were among these newly presented cuts, and all three would be performed admirably in the City of El Paso fifty years ago today.
“Me and My Uncle,” would also be sung by Weir on this night, as it so often was. In fact, since its incorporation into the band’s catalog, the John Phillips-penned story song would be performed with greater consistency than any other song by the band, with hundreds of concert recordings still in existence today.
Other highlights from the El Paso performance include a rollicking “China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider,” section, an intense early performance of Weir’s “Weather Report Suite,” and a notable “The Other One>Space>Me and Bobby McGee.”
The Grateful Dead would continue their sonic evolution into 1974, capping off a period to which some fans refer to as the most captivating of the band’s career. By the close of the decade the internal gears would have shifted once more, clearing the way for Mickey Hart’s return and the eventual departure of Keith and Donna Godchaux.
Despite subsequent musical twists and turns which would be navigated by the band along with further stylistic developments, 1973 remains an integral year for one of the hardest working bands in the history of popular music. For those with little experience with this iteration of the group, or for those simply with a hankering for a great show and a couple hundred minutes to kill, 11/23/1973 at the El Paso County Coliseum is more than deserving of a listen.