On November 15, 1978 The Grateful Dead released Shakedown Street, an album described by critics as the band at its nadir. Produced by Lowell George, the album's title cut is a slippery attempt at Bee Gees style disco. Drummer Mickey Hart liked the sound. Shakedown Street is rescued from the trash bin by "Fire On the Mountain", a live Dead mainstay based on 1976's "Happiness is Drumming" from Mickey Hart's side hustle, the Diga Rhythm Band.
On September 14, 15 and 16 of 1978 The Grateful Dead performed an open air concert in Giza, Egypt near the Great Sphinx. On the final night of the concerts, the band played during a total lunar eclipse. Most of the people in the audience were America deadheads. But on the outskirts of the concerts, shadowy figures could be seen swaying to the music. They were bedouins, the nomadic horsemen of the desert, drawn by the loud music.
How did this ever happen? It began with a visit by tourist Richard Loren, who happened to manage The Grateful Dead. He brought Dead bassist Phil Lesh back with him.
"It sort of became my project because I was one of the first people in the band who was on the trip of playing at places of power, "Lesh said. " You know, power that's been preserved from the ancient world. The pyramids are like the obvious number one choice because no matter what anyone thinks they might be, there is definitely some kind of mojo about the pyramids."
The concert wasn't cheap but it would become legend.
"Egypt instantly became the biggest, baddest, and most legendary field trip that we took during our entire thirty years as a band," said drummer Bill Kreutzmann. "It was priceless and perfect and, at half a million dollars, a bargain in the end. Albeit, a very expensive bargain."
There had been plans to release the concert recordings as a live album but the band decided to focus their attentions on finishing up Shakedown Street, released in November of 1978. A box set called Rocking The Cradle : Egypt 1978 was eventually released in 2008.
1974 was the year rock fans got two definitions of rednecks. From Randy Newman, we learned rednecks were no-necked oilmen from Texas, good ol' boys from Tennessee and college men from LSU (Went in dumb. Come out dumb too). From Charlie Daniels ( who had played bass on Dylan's Nashville Skyline), we learned rednecks could also have long-hair, get stoned in the morning and drunk in the afternoon.
That sounded pretty good to a whole generation of us growing up and listening to southern rock by choice. Even in the Northeast, you couldn't help but hear the CDB, Marshall Tucker, the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd on the FM radio.
On "The South's Gonna Do It Again", Daniels goes through a roll call of Southern rock acts rising up in the 1970's, including them "Tucker Boys" cooking' down in Caroline. The Charlie Daniels Band and Marshall Tucker Band toured together all the time. On November 29, 1974 Marshall Tucker Band released their third album, Where We Belong.
This double disc-er had two studio sides ( with the single "This Ol' Cowboy") and two live sides of epic jams, including a nearly 14-minute version of "24 Hours at a Time". Both songs mentioned feature the fiddle work of, who else, Charlie Daniels.
