Workingman's Dead

Workingman's Dead
A black-on-sepia image of men in Stetson hats standing along a road.
Studio album by
Grateful Dead
ReleasedJune 14, 1970 (1970-06-14)
RecordedFebruary 1970
StudioPacific High Recording, San Francisco
Genre
Length35:33
LabelWarner Bros.
Producer
Grateful Dead chronology
Live/Dead
(1969) 		Workingman's Dead
(1970) 		Vintage Dead
(1970)
Singles from Workingman's Dead
  1. "Uncle John's Band"
    Released: July 1, 1970
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
American Songwriter[2]
Christgau's Record GuideA[3]
Pitchfork9.1/10[4]
Rolling Stone[5]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[6]

Workingman's Dead is the fourth studio album (and fifth overall) by American rock band Grateful Dead. It was recorded in February 1970 and originally released on June 14, 1970. The album and its studio follow-up, American Beauty, were recorded back-to-back using a similar style, eschewing the psychedelic experimentation of previous albums in favor of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's Americana-styled songcraft.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 262 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, 264 in a 2012 revised list,[7] and 409 in the 2020 list.[8] It was voted number 371 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[9]

  1. ^ Akeny, Jason. "Workingman's Dead". AllMusic. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  2. ^ Beviglia, Jim (January–February 2014). "The Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead". American Songwriter. 29 (2). ForASong Media, LLC: 55. ISSN 0896-8993. Retrieved December 27, 2013.
  3. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: G". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved February 24, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  4. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (July 11, 2020). "Grateful Dead: Workingman's Dead". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 21, 2020.
  5. ^ [1] Archived June 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
  7. ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
  8. ^ "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  9. ^ Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 143. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.