Happy Independence Day!
Halfway through this year’s Texas-Colorado Dead run, I’m back home in Cañon City for the 4th of July. It’s a welcome day off from traveling. Tomorrow, it’s off to Boulder for the 2-day run to close the 2019 Dead & Company summer tour.
In many ways, the Grateful Dead with its various offshoots is the quintessential American band. Stubbornly independent, they defied the odds on an idiosyncratic journey from jug band to top-grossing touring act. After Jerry Garcia died in 1995, the original band broke up. But killing the Dead wasn’t so easy, and many tribute bands and “sequels” (The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur) extended the legendary “Long Strange Trip” all the way up to present day and the current incarnation, Dead & Company. More about them after the Boulder shows.
Celebrate the holiday Dead-style with an appropriate tune or two.
U.S. Blues
I’m Uncle Sam, that’s who I am
Been hidin’ out in a rock and roll band.
Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum & Charlie Chan.
Shine your shoes, light your fuse.
Can you use them ol’ U.S. Blues?
Liberty
O00h — Freedom!
O00h — Liberty!
Ohh-whoa — Leave me alone!
To find my own way home
To find my own way home.
Yep, that’s an American attitude for you — we’re independent, ya know.
Cheers!
Buller's back porch 