Blow Away - Grateful Dead Song Review

I admit that I just had to go to youtube.com to hear Blow Away because in my mind I was thinking... "Wait, which Brent song is that again" (all I was able to locate was a studio version from Built to Last).

I love Brent Mydland playing with the Dead. In fact, I love all the Dead's keyboardists. I think Jerry had a great relationship with Brent and you can clearly see them enjoying playing off of each other a lot in the DVDs that I've bought (like the Alpine Valley show). I wonder if Jerry's affinity for Brent helped Brent get a lot of his material on Grateful Dead albums? Some of Brent's songs don't really sound like Dead songs to me, and this is one of them. It's not bad at all, it just sounds like something that Michael McDonald or Starship would play.

Built to Last is a little bit overproduced and the studio version of Blow Away has a "Top 40" background chorus. Jerry's guitar leads sound good on this track. This song get's credit for being an original song (as opposed to a blues song). I am going to seek out a couple of live versions of Blow Away and may change my opinion after hearing them but I'd say this is for the most part just an "okay" song.

Blow Away Song Rating on a Scale of 1-10: 6.4

Disclaimer: This is part of my review of every Grateful Dead song from A-Z. Music is a beautiful thing because it is so personal and subjective, so keep in mind that this is one man's opinion (and be sure to read my blog manifesto to understand a little more about where I'm coming from).