Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead (Rhino High Fidelity Vinyl)

Rhino High Fidelity 180-Gram Black Vinyl, Numbered Edition of 5,000

This is the Rhino High Fidelity edition of Workingman's Dead: a single 180-gram black LP, cut all-analog by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original stereo master tapes and pressed at Optimal Media in Germany. The run is limited to 5,000 copies, each numbered on the back of a heavyweight glossy gatefold jacket, and the obi strip carries catalog number RHF1 1869. Tracking Angle's review of the pressing identifies its source as the original Dolby A master tape.

Inside is an exclusive insert with new liner notes by author and Grateful Dead historian David Gans. Rhino issued the vinyl alongside two other High Fidelity versions of the album: a reel-to-reel tape duplicated from a 1:1 copy of the original flat master, and a Blu-ray of the Dolby Atmos mix Mickey Hart made in 2023.

Workingman's Dead, the band's fourth studio album, was recorded at Pacific High Recording Studio in San Francisco in February 1970 and released by Warner Bros. on June 14, 1970. It moved the Grateful Dead away from psychedelic improvisation and toward the Americana songwriting of Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter, who appears as a seventh member in the sepia cover photograph. Garcia credited the band's new vocal harmonies partly to its friendship with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Bill Kreutzmann has named the Bakersfield sound as an influence. The jacket credits Bob Matthews as executive producer, Betty Cantor and the Grateful Dead as associate producers, and David Nelson on acoustic guitar for "Cumberland Blues."

The album reached the Top 30, and "Uncle John's Band," issued as a single backed with "New Speedway Boogie," climbed to No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rolling Stone readers voted it the best album of 1970, and the magazine ranked it No. 262, No. 264 and No. 409 in the 2003, 2012 and 2020 editions of its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Tracklist

Side One

1. Uncle John's Band (4:42)
2. High Time (5:12)
3. Dire Wolf (3:11)
4. New Speedway Boogie (4:04)

Side Two

1. Cumberland Blues (3:14)
2. Black Peter (5:41)
3. Easy Wind (4:57)
4. Casey Jones (4:24)

Complete the Collection (2)

• Merriweather 6/30/85