The Grateful Dead’s ‘American Beauty’: Retro Album Review

The Grateful Dead were not, by most people’s definition, a band fit for the studio. To condense their songwriting and penchant for free flowing jams into the sort of sterile, structured environment usually required for recording an album was, in a word, challenging.

But in 1970, the Dead, who would ultimately have dozens upon dozens of live albums to their name, made what is arguably the finest studio LP of their catalog: American Beauty. A crisp-sounding, precise record that clocks in at just around 42 minutes, it features some of the best songwriting collaborations between the band members and lyricist Robert Hunter, as well as spawned several of the band’s most famous songs. The Dead may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but in American Beauty they offered a highly palatable version of themselves, rich with folk/bluegrass influence and a beautiful sense of optimism in an environment that was then suffering greatly under the weight of the Vietnam War abroad and political violence at home.

This begins with the album’s opening track, “Box of Rain.” “Feel your way like the day before,” bassist Phil Lesh sings, “Maybe you’ll find direction around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you.” (Not for nothing: Crosby, Stills & Nash aren’t the only ones with a knack for three-part harmony, which is made clear throughout this entire album.)

READ MORE: How the Grateful Dead Met

This gives way to the jaunty “Friend of the Devil,” built on Jerry Garcia’s descending acoustic guitar riff and Hunter’s lyrics about a ramblin’ man on the run from, well, all sorts of trouble. Not all such story songs are accessible, but “Friend of the Devil” is easy to sing to, and even if most of us haven’t lit out from Reno trailed by 20 hounds, everyone has a few demons following them around.

Then comes “Sugar Magnolia,” cowritten between Hunter and Bob Weir. It wouldn’t really be a Grateful Dead album without a bit of warm whimsy — how lovely it is to be told you’re someone’s “summer love in the spring, fall and winter.” “Sugar Magnolia” is as close as the Dead may have ever come to a pop standard about being in love. We’ll gladly take it.

Listen to the Grateful Dead’s ‘Sugar Magnolia’ 

“Candyman,” the longest song on American Beauty, closes side one, mournful, slow though not sluggish and proof that the Dead might have been purveyors of illicit substances back in their day, but they were not unaware of the flip side of that coin. The ’60s yielded a lot of light through its counterculture movement, of which the Grateful Dead was most certainly a part, but it was not without a good deal of loss.

But side two begins with the album’s most uplifting song, “Ripple.” No one would think of the Dead as anything resembling a religious band, but here themes of harps, full cups and guiding presences lend credence to the idea that “Ripple” is a song of faith, or at least a certain kind of it. (I found myself swaying while to the song while writing this piece, moved by the simple rhythm and choral “la da da.”)

An underrated gem is found on side two: “Attics of My Life.” There’s a gospel-like quality to it, with Lesh, Garcia and Weir effortlessly sharing vocal duties. “I have spent my life seeking all that’s still unsung” is a powerful line performed by men aged just 30, 27 and 22, respectively.

Listen to the Grateful Dead’s ‘Attics of My Life’

And then things wrap up with “Truckin’,” perhaps the best odes there is to keepin’ on in spite of it all. (I must also thank the Dead personally for including my hometown of Buffalo, New York in this song — not many people want to truck up there.) Life on the road is relentless and wild, but it chugs along just as the song itself does with Lesh’s animated bass line and organ bit courtesy of a man named Howard Wales. Here, the best known phrase the Grateful Dead ever put out into the world bookends all the choruses: “What a looooonnnggg strange trip it’s been.”

All of this comes together to make a concise collection of songs that speaks to the band’s collaborative strength as songwriters and their ability to pull back when necessary. For those that don’t typically care for the Dead, American Beauty is the album to give them a chance on. Let there be songs to fill the air.