| Uncle John's Band | |
| Cover: | Uncle John's Band single.jpg |
| Alt: | A single sleeve for the Grateful Dead single 'Uncle John's Band', backed with 'New Speedway Boogie'. The band's name is displayed in mixed-font text at the top of the sleeve, with the two song names below in title capitalization and no capitalization, respectively. An image of the band is below the two song names. The Warner Bros. logo, along with 'MONO STEREO' and 'WV5144', is in the upper right. |
| Caption: | French single cover, 1970 |
| Type: | single |
| B-Side: | New Speedway Boogie |
| Artist: | Grateful Dead |
| Album: | Workingman's Dead |
| Released: | July 1, 1970 |
| Studio: | Pacific High, San Francisco |
| Genre: | Folk rock |
| Length: | 4:42 |
| Label: | Warner Bros. |
| Composer: | Jerry Garcia |
| Lyricist: | Robert Hunter |
| Producer: | Bob Matthews Betty Cantor Grateful Dead |
| Prev Title: | Dupree's Diamond Blues |
| Prev Year: | 1969 |
| Next Title: | Truckin |
| Next Year: | 1970 |
"Uncle John's Band" is a song by the Grateful Dead that first appeared in their concert setlists in late 1969. The band recorded it for their 1970 album Workingman's Dead. Written by guitarist Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter, "Uncle John's Band" presents the Dead in an acoustic and musically concise mode, with close harmony singing.
The song is one of the band's best known, and is included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2001 it was named 321st (of 365) in the Songs of the Century project list.
"Uncle John's Band" has one of the Dead's most immediately accessible and memorable melodies, set against a bluegrass-inspired folk arrangement with acoustic guitars. Specific lyrics ("It's a buck dancer's choice my friend; better take my advice", "the fire from the ice", "don't tread on me", "It's the same story the crow told me") allude to various folk, mountain, or bluegrass tunes known to be in band members' repertoire.[1]
Warner Bros. Records released "Uncle John's Band," backed with "New Speedway Boogie," as a single in 1970, receiving only limited airplay due to its length. Garcia worked with Warners to cut it down, though he later called the mix "an atrocity."[2] "I gave them instructions on how to properly edit it and they garbled it so completely," Garcia commented. The original album version ended up getting more air play than the revised Warner Bros. version.[3]
While the single was the group's first chart hit (peaking at No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100), it had a greater impact than its chart performance indicates, receiving airplay on progressive rock radio stations and others with looser playlists. At a time when the Grateful Dead were already an underground legend, "Uncle John's Band" (and to some degree its albummate "Casey Jones") was the first time many in the general rock audience actually heard the band's music.[4]
Moreover, the song affected the mainstream because of first using the word "goddamn" in the unedited single, which many radio stations played instead of the edited version;[5] together with the reference to cocaine in "Casey Jones," the two songs made the band a "thorn in the side of Nixon that became a badge of honor to the masses."[6]