“Early Morning Rain” | Hand me down (Late) Tuesday! | The Grateful Dead / EP

• Tweet

This is one of those posts where I’m dying for everyone to hear the track and I’m hoping that the music sort of speaks for itself. This song, “Early Morning Rain” (Gordon Lightfoot) performed by an early Grateful Dead, then called The Warlocks, is exactly how music sounds in my head. On a day to day basis. I’ve tangled and tussled over whether I like Elvis’ version better, but, while Elvis has a voice softer than velvet and ten times better than that of Phil Lesh, the mid 60s psychedelic jangle does it for me.

Sidenote: I first came to know this version from a bootleg tape given to me by a friend I met at tech school and second on a 4cd boxset that I bought at Mainstream for $80 back in 1999! It was later released on a compilation of early Dead material put out by Rhino Records. I think that retails for about $14 now.

A lesson to all you youngsters, before the internet, torrents, and the death of dial-up, bootlegs were a portion of your paycheck. And you had to walk 30 miles in the snow to get them. Barefoot. And every one of them came with a warped Jethro Tull record.

Oh, and the first time I went to Graceland, I bought a pair of sunglasses, a TCB money clip, and Aloha From Hawaii just because “Early Morning Rain” was on it. The more you know….

The Warlocks (The Grateful Dead) – Early Morning Rain

Elvis Presely – Early Morning Rain