When was so many roads written

The Dead must have thought so too, since the song was a frequent encore. This sunny, pedal-down tune is the closest the Dead ever came to AM-radio garage-band pop. The densely orchestrated, seven-part, minute suite captures the symbiotic working relationship between Garcia and Hunter. By the end of the Seventies, it was easy to forget that the often less-than-propulsive Dead had started out as a dance band more than a decade earlier.

Garcia who had recently seen Saturday Night Fever with Hart decided to remind people of that history and update it as well with this disco-boogie anthem. It was such a tricky song to recreate that the Dead stopped playing it onstage between and Late in life, Garcia loved nothing better than an epic melancholy ballad that spoke to his difficult journey. I can lean back and have fun with it.

I kept writing and writing versions of it. By the early Eighties, Garcia was grappling with his escalating and ultimately life-threatening drug addiction, as well as malaise within the Dead itself. Perhaps some of his feelings spilled out on the title track and high point of his solo album. Trading jaunty licks with fiddle player Vassar Clements, he delivered a wry, buoyant performance that achieves the timelessness he was looking for. Garcia and the Dead were always extremely critical of their recorded output; they always felt more comfortable onstage, where songs truly blossomed, than in a studio.

In that regard, Garcia was never more unhappy with a studio performance than he was with this country-blues breakup song. Garcia always put down that performance, too.

One of the last and most poignant songs Garcia and Hunter wrote together was this steadfastly contemplative ballad, which gradually built in tension over its 11 minutes. I almost feel in certain respects we were just getting started. More so than any other single song. It seemed to get my feeling about those times and our place in it.

Black Pete is a traditional Dutch bogeyman, but Hunter turned him into an ailing, sympathetic figure — and Garcia merrily took on the role. The song started as a shuffle when the Dead began playing it live in early , but Garcia toughened it up for his first solo album, with a slide-guitar riff and a rarely heard growl in his vocal. It was then played regularly through to the last performance of the song on July 9, In total the song was played just over 50 times.

We've been working together for so long that he knows what I know. The song is full of references to things that have to do with me Hunter is the only guy that could do that. Mickey Hart Mickey Hart. Robert Hunter Robert Hunter. Tom Constanten Tom Constanten. Keith Godchaux Keith Godchaux. Brent Mydland Brent Mydland.

Vince Welnick Vince Welnick. Lyrics By.