![]() There's a brief outtake of her singing it on the train with Garcia on guitar -ĭead.net notes for 6/4/78: "The Dead did a sound check the day before that included: Dancin' In The Streets instrumental, Yellow Bird instrumental, and Iko Iko instrumental." So the Dead didn't learn the song from Joplin they learned it together and influenced each other. Together we found where to take that song." A night or two later, she and I were kicking it around, then at the end with the la-di-da part, I sort of took off, and then Janis picked that up and I started doing a yodel sort of deal, like I used to do, and Janis took off from there. I think he got it off a page of music, I don't think he'd even heard it. ![]() I don't think he was a performer, I think he was a reporter who just happened to play a little, some Canadian guy. "We were learning this song from this guy who was on the train. Seemed to sum up everything that everybody went through on this journey."įrom a Bob Weir interview, in the liner notes to Weir Here: Everyone joined in on the chorus it’s the theme song of the Festival Express, and it must have been sung a hundred times on this trip, in bars, backstage, in compartments late at night, in hotel lobbies and along the tracks. “I only know one song, honey, but I’m gonna sing it anyhow.” And Janis began singing “Bobby McGee.” She sang it with her incredible intensity so that it no longer sounded like Kristofferson’s vaguely country folk song, but more like a gospel blues, and Jerry Garcia picked out sweet steel guitar licks (like his subtle playing on CSN&Y’s “Teach Your Children Well”) that danced around Janis’ raunchy voice. "Someone handed Janis her Gibson hummingbird. But one thing's for certain - Weir started singing it with Janis on the Festival Express in summer 1970.įrom a Rolling Stone article on the trip: Something like 10 or 12 artists released their own versions of that song before the Dead started doing it live. In the '60s, John Hurt performed yet another unrelated but remarkable Casey Jones song, called 'Talking Casey.' Verses are also shared with other railroad songs (like Jimmie Rodgers' 1927 'Ben Dewberry's Final Run' and Charlie Poole's 1930 'Milwaukee Blues'). John Hurt’s song has a different melody and lyrics than the popular ballad, and was apparently distinct to the black-music tradition there’s no earlier recording of it, though Furry Lewis recorded some verses of it in his unique 1928 ‘Kassie Jones,’ and similar verses were printed by Odum in 1911, an older version of the song. The Dead got their ballad from Mississippi John Hurt’s version, recorded in 1928 (unissued & lost) and again in 1963. It had the melody later used for ‘Monkey and the Engineer,’ but otherwise the Dead never played it. The original popular ballad was first published in 1909, first recorded 1910 and covered frequently thereafter. CASEY JONES – there were multiple Casey Jones songs almost as soon as Casey died.
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