Freedom gained from the home studio is what Grateful Dead offers on Blues for Allah. Bob Weir opens his doors to the band and their Mediterranean sound, and what comes from this studio effort is the calm before the storm. Preceding album From the Mars Hotel was already a monumental experience, but The Dead would go on to do after Blues for Allah is middling at best. This is, then, the popular end point. Few are heading into Built to Last for any reason beyond the sake of completion, for the chance to check off another discography listened to in full. But Blues for Allah is, despite being released just a decade before it, a whole other world for Grateful Dead and its listeners. Blues for Allah understands the freedom which comes from an independent label, but also the risks of spinning off into endless experimentation.
A smoother, blues-like charm overwhelms Blues for Allah. The hint is in the title. Those laid-back tones, led by Jerry Garcia and backed well by bassist Phil Lesh, are wonderful. It is a break from the frenetic energies and tensions The Dead are associated with. This is a softer side to their music, a stylish and liberated sound bursts through. Opener Help on the Way / Slipknot is a tremendous piece, moving from lyrically-led observations to a groove which makes good on the Mediterranean influences. Their step away from the countrified rock of their preceding albums and back into the psychedelic state of their early years is a meeting of quality musicianship and an out-of-step genre. Psychedelics were not cool around the mid-1970s; they had all but expired their influence – and yet The Dead finds a confident new route through it, without having to rely on the affectionate nostalgia of Aoxomoxoa. That continued, stripped-back sound carries over to Franklin’s Tower, a tremendously cool piece of work.
Where it may feel Grateful Dead dips into the instrumental pool a little too often, Blues for Allah is made all the better by those extended guitar thrills. Garcia and Bob Weir sound as though they are having great fun throughout, and Keith Godchaux is paid his dues on King Solomon’s Marble with an impressive range of keyboard work. It is the overlapping instrumentals which make or break Blues for Allah, and for those wanting a studio cut of The Dead and their on-the-fly abilities, that live energy, then look no further. The Music Never Stops is all too easy to fall in love with. Lyrical defiance with dancing in the face of danger, the backing vocals from Donna Jean Godchaux, and those slick guitar additions. What is not to love? A perfect song.
On it continues and what Blues for Allah provides is a creative freedom The Dead would never reach again. They would still invent and experience new waves of sound, the influences of modern music would touch them time and again, though they became observers and not contributors. Blues for Allah may be the last great album from Grateful Dead, and what a triumph it is. Wailing guitars, spirited, stylish forms of playing and through it all there is a sense of defiance. They lift those psychedelics, those instrumental influences from across the globe, and come together with a fascinating album. Rich in its cultural proclamations and refined in the instrumental example it sets, Blues for Allah is a real high from The Dead.
