Big Boss Man
As stated in my blog manifesto I am somewhat of a blasphemer because I much prefer the late 80’s/90’s Dead over the mid 70’s. In that regard I will also say that while I love Pigpen, I just don’t listen to that much Pigpen era Dead and when I do, I prefer many of their more psychedelic “acid rock” exploratory jams (ie. The Eleven) over blues vehicles like Big Boss Man.
Couple that with the fact that Big Boss Man doesn’t usually (to my knowledge) have a “rave up” jam in the middle and you have a rather mundane Grateful Dead blues rock song with (in my opinion) not much of a Grateful Dead “stamp” on it. There are other songs like this including Mr. Charlie and Hurts Me Too that I just don’t have much love for.
One reason that Big Boss Man does stand out is that Jerry revived it in the eighties as an opener and I can only imagine how great that would have been to be at that first concert (or any concert where Jerry revived this tune). I actually prefer these versions of Big Boss Man.
Big Boss Man Song Rating on a Scale of 1-10: 5.5
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2 comments:
I was lucky enough to be at the '95 bust-out of Big Boss Man at Riverport on Summer Tour, the only time I heard the song live and in person. Twas a bust-out in my book since it was the first time played in just over 5 years. I've never heard the show since that day but from what I remember, it sounded nice (I'll get around to playing it eventually.) I'd bet a dozen kynd veggie burritos that it would've stuck around in the repertoire had Jer been able to stick around. Oh well.
Oh man, I've heard a tape where Jerry played it (OPENER NO LESS) and it sent chills up my spine! That must've been epic!
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