Jerry Garcia – Deal

I read the book Deal by Bill Kreutzmann. the drummer for the Grateful Dead. I started listening to Garcia’s debut solo album because of that and ended up liking it. Another song I loved as a kid, Sugaree, came from this album. That song was the first Dead/Garcia song I remember. I remember skating at our local skating rink and the owner must have been a Dead fan…he would play this album at times. 

Garcia wanted to see what he could do without the Dead while making this solo album. One of the driving reasons was that he and his wife Mountain Girl wanted a house and the advance from the record company helped them get it. When you listen to the album the songs really flow and seem effortless. I could listen to this music at any time. I don’t have to be in a mood.

The album Garcia peaked at #35 on the Billboard Album Charts. He wanted to play all of the instruments on the album and did except drums. He brought Kreutzmann in to do that job. He also brought roadie Ram Rod (Laurence Shurtliff) in for those sessions, doing roadie work essentially, running errands and moving around the equipment. Kreutzmann and Ram Rod both were listed as “production assistants” in the credits. He paid Ram Rod the same amount that he paid Bill Kreutzmann and that was Garcia’s sense of fairness, which speaks volumes for his character. Although Bill doesn’t really agree with this to this day but sees that as Garcia’s character. Ram Rod ended up as  President of Grateful Dead Productions from 1976 to 1995.

Like the Allman Brothers, they formed a family atmosphere with their crew and it extended to their audience. From the early Kool-Aid acid tests to later allowing the audience to tape their shows drew their audience closer. They would later give them their own section to record in…while other bands like Led Zeppelin would send people to bust their tape recorder or head. Garcia commented: Well, my feelings are, the music is for the people…I mean after it leaves our instruments it’s of no value to us, ya know what I mean? it’s like, ya know…what good is it? So it might as well be taped, my feeling is that..and if people enjoy taping it and enjoy having the tapes to listen to, that’s real great. “

They never played the same show twice. They would take songs in different directions and Garcia has said that he couldn’t play something twice the same. He just wasn’t built like that. That made every show unique…not that every show was great. The Dead has admitted they had their share of bad ones.

Bill Kreutzmann Drummer for the Dead: The album, Garcia, was cut at Wally Heider Studios in July 1971 and released by Warner Brothers the following January. There are a lot of songs on there that became Grateful Dead mainstays, in addition to “Deal”—we’re talking about straight-up classics like “Sugaree,” “Loser,” and “The Wheel.” Also, “Bird Song” is on there, which, to this day, is one of my all-time favorite Dead songs and one of my absolute favorite songs to play live (along with “Dark Star” and “The Other One”).

When I want musicians I’m playing with to learn any of those songs, I give them the Garcia versions. They’re just so good. I had a really great time making that album. Dealing exclusively with Jerry was the most effortless thing in the world. I didn’t have to do anything other than be myself. And play.

Cocaine was our special guest throughout those recording sessions, but you’d never be able to tell because everything was very laid back. I have no idea how we were able to do that, because cocaine isn’t exactly known for its relaxing properties. Maybe it was just the dynamic between us that made it all so … easy.

Deal

Since it costs a lot to winAnd even more to loseYou and me bound to spend some timeWondering what to choose

Goes to show, you don’t ever knowWatch each card you play and play it slowWait until that deal come ’roundDon’t you let that deal go down, no, no

I been gambling hereaboutsFor ten good solid yearsIf I told you now all that went downIt would burn off both of your ears

Goes to show you don’t ever knowWatch each card you play and play it slowWait until that deal come ’roundDon’t you let that deal go down, no, no

Since you poured the wine for meAnd tightened up my shoesI hate to leave you sittin’ thereComposing lonesome blues

Goes to show you don’t ever knowWatch each card you play and play it slowWait until that deal come ’roundDon’t you let that deal go down

Wait until that deal come ’roundDon’t you let that deal go downWait until that deal come ’roundDon’t you let that deal go downDon’t you let that deal go downDon’t you let that deal go downOh, no

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

23 thoughts on “Jerry Garcia – Deal”

  1. Pingback: Jerry Garcia – Deal – MobsterTiger

  3. That’s a great tune. And given the atmosphere, I agree it was pretty laid back for a cocaine fueled song. I have long wondered whether the idea for “Sugaree’ came from the Elizabeth Cotten title of ,”Shake Sugaree” that was released in 1967.

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  4. I had some Grateful Dead bootleg albums which had new songs on them before they were officially released. The quality was usually very bad on these recordings, as it was not made with professional equipment, but it was a treat to get to hear the new music. Deal was always a great opener at concerts, as it got the fans out of their seats and dancing around. It will never be the great gambling song like Willie Nelson wrote, but it was a lifestyle that I knew well in my younger days. I was at the Capitol Theater when the Dead played, but I only saw the Jerry Garcia Band a few times.

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    1. What other bands didn’t get at the time is that recording the music… the Dead allowing recording increased their crowd and popularity. They got back what little they lost on live albums 10 fold.
      Thanks for the story Jim… that is half the fun writing these about Garcia/Dead…I always hope you have a story connection to it.
      This album is wonderful…it really is. I like it better than some Dead albums….and yea Deal was the perfect song to kick it off and live it sounds great.

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  6. Ok song that probably could grow on me, as with many GD ones. Even regardless of their music you have to love their attitude to be FOR the fans, let them tape, take pictures and so on, remember who pays the bills. Too few acts are like that, and that was especially true in the ’70s or ’80s

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    1. The Stones have that effect on me…they usually have to grow on me.
      I was telling Jim…that yea that paid them back 10 fold by letting people record. That circulated their music to more people and they ended up with a huge following.
      Zeppelin could have learned from them and not bust people up for recording them. What little they lost on live recordings was paid back with much more.

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  7. Still one of my all time favorite albums, with classic songs that stayed in the repertoire of both the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band. It was also amazing that Garcia played nearly everything himself on the sessions and knew his own limitations – didn’t try to play drums. And, while the Dead weren’t known for their studio work (except during this brief period of Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and Garcia), this was stellar.

    This album also provided one of my bicycling mantras – and made for a poster. Riding up an endless hill on a gravel road in South Dakota I sang “Every time that wheel turn round/Bound to cover just a little more ground”. Four years later the song got me up and over Teton Pass despite COVID.

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    1. I remember hearing it as a kid but as a kid you just don’t pay attention although I loved Sugaree… but in the last few years I started to listen and I like it better than a lot of Dead albums, like you said they weren’t known as studio guys as much.
      That is a great line for inspiration.

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  8. I would have loved seeing the Dead and the Allman Brother jams…..the Grateful Dead, it took me a while to appreciate Garcia and that band, and their history was always weird…I do like American Beauty, Touch of Grey is my personal theme song, I know most of the words to Casey Jones, and I keep wanting to hear some of Garcia’s bluegrass, I’ve always wondered if he and Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen jammed or recorded anything together..the story of people following the Dead all over the US like a cult is interesting to, they were like the Burning Man festival before there was a Burning Man..

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    1. After I got a few books on the Dead…I really started to like them a lot. I started to really listen and they do have some great music. They were alt-country before there was an alt-country.
      They did jam together at Watkins in 1973…I’ve never heard it but I would like to.
      Warren you have pointed me to a lot of good songs…try this one by The Dead…”Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” it’s one of my favorite Dead songs.
      About Jorma and Garcia…yes…here is something

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  10. Nice song, Max. Frankly, the only track from that album I knew was “Sugaree”, which I had heard by the Dead before. That 1980 live version by the Jerry Garcia Band also sounds pretty cool. I think the slightly faster pace works very well for this song.

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    1. It IS a good song and I personally like this album. He almost continued American Beauty with this one in a small way. You can hear some of that in it.

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  11. Can’t listen to Jerry without a smile, blissful or not. Our second daughters name might have sprung forth thanks to ‘It must Have Been The Roses.’ Maybe, maybe not not, but playing and hearing that song around the time she was due to enter this world sure didn’t hurt when it came to choosing names!

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    1. Hey I totally get it. We were watching It’s A Wonderful Life so Bailey it was.
      This album is fantastic…it could be looped and I would be in laid back heaven

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