''Wake of the Flood'' is the sixth
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
(tenth overall) by rock band the
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
. Released October 15, 1973, it was the first album on the band's own
Grateful Dead Records
In 1973, the Grateful Dead established their own record label, Grateful Dead Records. The band released four vinyl LPs on the label in the mid-1970s: ''Wake of the Flood'' in 1973, '' From the Mars Hotel'' in 1974, ''Blues for Allah'' in 1975, ...
label
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed dir ...
. Their first studio album in nearly three years, it was also the first without founding member
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan
Ronald Charles McKernan (September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973), known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.
McKernan grew up he ...
, who had recently died. His absence and keyboardist
Keith Godchaux
Keith Richard Godchaux (July 19, 1948 – July 23, 1980) was a pianist best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979.
Biography
Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Concord, California ...
's penchants for
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
and
modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...
(rather than McKernan's tendencies toward the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
and
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...
) contributed to the band's musical evolution. Godchaux's wife, backing vocalist
Donna Jean Godchaux
Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux-MacKay (born August 22, 1947) is an American singer who was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1972 until 1979.
Biography
Donna Jean Thatcher was born in Florence, Alabama. Prior to 1970, she had worked as a sessi ...
, also joined the group and appears on the album.
The release fared better on the pop charts than their previous studio album (1970's ''
American Beauty''), reaching 18. An expanded version was released in 2004.
Recording
After three (official) live albums in a row, the Grateful Dead wanted to record studio versions of songs written since Keith Godchaux had joined the band. At the time of recording, five of the songs on the album (and part of a 6th) had been in live rotation for up to a year and a half, as arrangements were road-tested and finalized. Referring to this period, bassist
Phil Lesh
Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.
After the band's disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of ...
explained, "We'd learned to break in the material at shows (under fire, as it were), rather than try to work it out at rehearsals, or in the studio at tremendous expense."
The new compositions drew on many of the band's influences, blending genres from
country folk
Contemporary folk music refers to a wide variety of genres that emerged in the mid 20th century and afterwards which were associated with traditional folk music. Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from tradit ...
and
R&B to
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
and
jazz rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
, the latter being more prominent than previously.
As had become routine,
Robert Hunter and
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...
wrote the majority of the songs, with
Bob Weir
Robert Hall Weir ( ; né Parber, born October 16, 1947) is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead ...
's contribution being the epic "Weather Report Suite". The "Prelude" section of this piece had been developed onstage, but the "Part 1" and "Part 2 (Let it Grow)" debuted after the album's recording. "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away" is the band's only singing-songwriting contribution from Keith Godchaux. It was performed live just six times, in September 1973, between the recording and release of the album.
Describing Godchaux's influence, drummer
Bill Kreutzmann
William Kreutzmann Jr. ( ; born May 7, 1946) is an American drummer and founding member of the rock band Grateful Dead. He played with the band for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart, and has continued ...
characterized the album as "Keith's coming out party." Remarking on the evolution in style, he remembered:
The band chose to record at the recently built
Record Plant
The Record Plant is a recording studio established in New York City in 1968 and currently operating in Los Angeles, California. Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it has produced highly influential albums, including Blon ...
between August 4–15, 1973. It was in
Sausalito
Sausalito (Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Sausalito's p ...
, near their
San Rafael home base, and had been used by cohorts
New Riders of the Purple Sage
New Riders of the Purple Sage is an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco in 1969 and its original lineup included several members of the Grateful Dead. The band is sometimes referred ...
for their successful album ''
The Adventures of Panama Red
''The Adventures of Panama Red'' is the fourth country rock album by the New Riders of the Purple Sage, released in 1973. It is widely regarded as one of the group's best efforts, and reached number 55 on the Billboard charts.
The album incl ...
'' (which featured input from Hunter and Donna Godchaux).
Staff engineer Tom Flye, assistant engineer Tom Anderson, and Dead soundman
Dan Healy recorded and mixed on
24-track
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking or tracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a ...
, bringing the mixdown to Lacquer Channel in Sausalito for mastering. The initial vinyl runs were pressed by Monarch Record Mfg., in Los Angeles.
Release
The album title comes from the opening stanza of "Here Comes Sunshine":
Wake of the flood, laughing water, '49
Get out the pans, don't just stand there dreaming, get out the way,
a poetic reference to the
historic flood in Vanport, Oregon (a site where the Dead would play in 1995). Though lyrically the songs continued Hunter's
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana (music), a genre or style of American music
*Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...
themes, a thread of Earth, seasons and life cycles connects the material, particularly with Weir and Barlow's culminating suite. This is represented in the album cover artwork, designed by San Francisco counterculture artist and band associate
Rick Griffin
Richard Alden "Rick" Griffin (June 18, 1944 – August 18, 1991) was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in ...
. It has an Earth tone and simple graphics including a
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
-derived figure of a harvest-reaping man with a wheat bundle and scythe, and a
field crow. Reflecting the cycles of nature is an image, hidden in a cloud, of a
hooded skull. Griffin said that the artwork was inspired by a quote from
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.
Background
Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...
– "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hell gave up the dead that were in them, and they were judged, every man according to their works." (
Revelation 20:13) He added that the image was designed "to show an alternative to that. I wanted to juxtapose that Scripture with a loving image, an image of loving harvest." (The list of song titles on the back cover is missing from some early pressings.)
After completing their extended contract and extracting themselves from
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
, the Dead were left without a record label for production and distribution of their albums. The decision was made to start an
independent label
An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...
, in order to retain complete control of their recordings and allow for side-projects. Lesh explained, "We already owned our own sound system. Booking and travel were in-house. It seemed as if being our own record company would be worth a try. No one could see a downside."
Though pressing their own records was foreseeable, setting up a distribution network to compete with existing channels was formidable and ultimately short-lived. Lesh continued, "How would we distribute the records?
anager RonRakow's original scam was to sell the records from ice-cream trucks...seriously impractical. In the end, we settled on a more traditional model: the Dead would finance and produce the recordings, and
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was an American record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 to issue movie soundtracks. The label expanded into other genres, such as easy listening, jazz, pop, and R&B.
History Genres
In 1959, ...
would manufacture and distribute."
[
Two singles were released: "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away ( b/w "Here Comes Sunshine"), followed by single edits of "Eyes of the World" (b/w "Weather Report Part I"). Neither charted. The Dead's ex-label responded to the loss of the band by compiling "best-of" and archive albums, beginning with '' Skeletons from the Closet'', just months after the release of ''Wake of the Flood''.
All of the songs but "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away" and the first parts of "Weather Report Suite" remained in setlists throughout the existence of the band (though "Here Comes Sunshine" was absent from 2/23/74 to December 1992). Weir had played the finger-picked "Prelude" for months before attaching it to "Weather Report Suite", ultimately dropping all but the "Let it Grow" section after 1974. Though the album's version is concise, "Eyes of the World" in particular had already become an extended-jam set piece and would remain so.
With the collapse of the band's label in 1976, ''Wake of the Flood'' was in and out of print for many years. Exercising an active contract, United Artists made a one-off pressing on their Liberty label in 1979. The album went back into publication when it was released on CD in 1988, again on the Grateful Dead Records imprint. It was remastered and expanded for inclusion in the '' Beyond Description'' box set in October 2004. The expanded version was released separately in 2006.]
Track listing
Notes:
*Live version of "Eyes of the World" is an edited version of performance.
*"China Doll" has a coda of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down
"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and published by Harms Inc., New York. It is best known as the theme tune for the ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon series and ''Merrie Melodies'' reissued cartoon ...
", written by Cliff Friend
Cliff Friend (October 1, 1893 – June 27, 1974) was an accomplished songwriter and pianist. A member of Tin Pan Alley, Friend co-wrote several hits including "Lovesick Blues", "My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now" and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down ...
and Dave Franklin
Dave Franklin (September 28, 1895 – February 2, 1970) was an accomplished American songwriter and pianist. A member of Tin Pan Alley, Franklin co-wrote "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", which was adopted as the theme song to the ''Looney Tunes ...
.
Personnel
Grateful Dead
*Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...
– guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
, pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...
, vocals
*Donna Jean Godchaux
Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux-MacKay (born August 22, 1947) is an American singer who was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1972 until 1979.
Biography
Donna Jean Thatcher was born in Florence, Alabama. Prior to 1970, she had worked as a sessi ...
– vocals
*Keith Godchaux
Keith Richard Godchaux (July 19, 1948 – July 23, 1980) was a pianist best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979.
Biography
Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Concord, California ...
– keyboards
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
, vocals
*Phil Lesh
Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.
After the band's disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of ...
– bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
*Bill Kreutzmann
William Kreutzmann Jr. ( ; born May 7, 1946) is an American drummer and founding member of the rock band Grateful Dead. He played with the band for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart, and has continued ...
– drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
*Bob Weir
Robert Hall Weir ( ; né Parber, born October 16, 1947) is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead ...
– guitar, vocals
Additional musicians
* Bill Atwood – trumpet
*Vassar Clements
Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was an American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and ...
– violin
*Joe Ellis – trumpet
*Martín Fierro
''Martín Fierro'', also known as ''El Gaucho Martín Fierro'', is a 2,316-line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, ''El Gaucho Martín Fierro'' (1872) and ''La Vuelta de Martín F ...
– saxophone (alto, tenor)
*Sarah Fulcher – vocals
*Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly (born David Allan Kelly, 9 May 1950) is an English actor and presenter. Having been trained as a theatre actor, he first came to public prominence as a television presenter of ITV light entertainment shows such as ''Game for a L ...
– harmonica
*Frank Morin – saxophone (tenor)
*Pat O'Hara – trombone
*Doug Sahm
Douglas Wayne Sahm (November 6, 1941 – November 18, 1999) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in San Antonio, Texas. Sahm is regarded as one of the main figures of Tex-Mex music, and as an important per ...
– bajo sexto
Bajo sexto (Spanish: "sixth bass") is a Mexican string instrument from the guitar family with 12 strings in six double courses. A closely related instrument is the bajo quinto (Spanish: "fifth bass") which has 10 strings in five double courses. ...
*Benny Velarde – timbales
Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfico ...
Reissue personnel
*Tom Anderson – engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
, liner notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes.
Origin
Liner notes are desce ...
*James Austin – production
*Hugh Brown – design, art direction
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the visi ...
*Reggie Collins – annotation
*Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cr ...
– liner notes
*Jimmy Edwards – associate production
*Sheryl Farber – editorial supervision
*Tom Flye – mixing
*Joe Gastwirt – mastering, production consultancy
*Dan Healy – engineering
*Robin Hurley – associate production
* David Lemieux – production
*Hale Milgrim – associate production
*Scott Pascucci – associate production
*Ed Perlstein – photography
*Bruce Polonsky – photography
*Michael Putland – photography
*Cameron Sears – executive production
*Steve Vance – design, art direction
Charts
''Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''
References
{{Authority control
1973 albums
Arista Records albums
Grateful Dead albums
Grateful Dead Records albums
Rhino Records albums
Albums with cover art by Rick Griffin