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The Grateful Dead
If I were to discuss a list of albums that qualify as ‘life-altering’, I’d have to say that few albums meet the grade as well as American Beauty. Not only does it represent the best studio effort of the Grateful Dead, it also represents the apotheosis of the hippie era, offering resolution in the face of disintegration and a path toward new possibilities. If the world had been paying close enough attention and heeded the message presented here, it might have become a better place for all of us. As history would have it, American Beauty is simply a masterwork, as complex and wondrous as the rose for which it is named, combining optimism and realistic expectation in a manner that embraces the complexity of life and translates it into a musical means of expression. So much of what I’ve just said sounds like a slew of words, but I really do believe that this album has had that profound of an effect on its generation.
It should be noted that before this album was released, the Grateful Dead had amassed one true work of art (their previous studio album, Workingman’s Dead), and it was all too easy to assume that it might have been a fluke of nature, a one-off that would never be equaled or surpassed. American Beauty rises to the challenge, and then raises the stakes. Workingman’s Dead almost exclusively featured the songwriting of Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter; American Beauty showcases the entire band, proving that Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and even Pigpen had developed the ability to write beyond expectations, and that they functioned together, as a team. It also offered diversity, sounding contemporary or old-fashioned, urban or rural, energetic or spent, optimistic or resigned, all in service to the song.
Much of the gorgeous aural atmosphere of this record can be attributed to the pedal steel guitar of Jerry Garcia. Rarely has this instrument sounded as rich and full of emotional expression as it does here. Garcia’s solo on “Candyman” is nothing less than wondrous, enough to freeze any non-believer in his tracks and draw him in. Equally magnificent is the imagery presented in the Phil Lesh/Robert Hunter-penned “Box of Rain,” which attempts to summarize the meaning of life by placing it in context of the time spent on this water-filled planet (Lesh’s father had recently passed away), singing “It’s just a box of rain, I don’t know who put it there… Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there.” Add in the optimistic imagery of “Sugar Magnolia,” and the unflinching backward glance at hippie-dom offered on “Truckin’” (a much more profound, relevant and sober observation than it is credited to be), and you have one remarkably insightful piece of art, one that simultaneously summarizes its past while bravely forging forward. Few artists have ever attempted to say as much, and fewer still have been even remotely successful. If ever anybody questions the relevancy of the Grateful Dead, in their own time or in the present, justification can be found almost anywhere on this album – provided, of course, that you are willing to listen to what you hear.
Grade: 
 
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