Indigo Girls "Uncle John's Band"

One of the weird phenomenons of being married is that while you do so much together, there are other things you simply can't do, because your partner is the one who does it.

For instance, 99% of the time I drive if my wife and I go somewhere. It's not that she can't drive or really despises driving. It's just something I do, and she doesn't.

How many times have we gone to visit her friend Nikki, who lives near Worcester? Half a dozen times in the last two years?

One day last year, she had a day off while I was working, so she decided to pack up the kids and go for a visit. I got a call from the road:

"How do you get Nikki's?"

She'd been down the path many, many times, but because she was in the passenger seat, the turns and landmarks had never really stuck with her, and she had no idea how to get to what should have been a familiar destination.

I was thinking about this when I played The Indigo Girls version of the Grateful Dead song "Uncle John's Band."

Sometime in the late 1990s, my friends and I drove down from where we lived in Virginia, to a club in Asheville, North Carolina, to celebrate Daemon Records 10th Anniversary. Daemon is the record label started by Amy Ray, one-half of The Indigo Girls.

Several of the artists on her label played that day, and of course, Amy did a short solo set. Vocal Indigo Girls fans were shouting out requests between songs, and Amy finally relented to a pair of persistent squawkers.

"What do you want me to play?" she asked. They requested a tune that The Indigo Girls had covered on a Grateful Dead tribute album called "Deadicated."

She hemmed and hawed, seemed to think about rejecting the request, and then just decided to go for it.

She got partway through the song, and you could see she was in trouble. And then she abruptly stopped.

She apologized. "Emily sings that part. I don't think I know the words . . ."

They'd no doubt performed "Uncle John's Band" many times before, but because she'd never sang certain parts of the song, she'd never retained them. And without those parts, the song fell apart.

You go through life in perfect harmony, but sometimes you don't really know just how much you need your partner until you're singing solo.

Grateful Dead “Uncle John’s Band”

I was not a Deadhead growing up. I had the vaguest knowledge of “Casey Jones” and “Touch Of Grey” and a few other radio regulars. But the whole Dead culture was something I was not tuned in to. Or perhaps, in my suburban existence, was shelter from.

College.

I had a girlfriend, and while she wasn’t a Deadhead, many of her friends were, and they were my introduction to the music and the culture and the attitude.

One hot Fourth Of July weekend, we were all invited out to a western Massachusetts backyard barbecue, by one of the gang, who promised that the food would be great, there was a pool, and a bunch of her friends had a great Dead cover band that would play in her backyard, into the night.

I remember sitting in a kiddie pool, drinking a beer, excited as I watched the dudes set up.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked.

“It’s gonna be great!” said my hostess.

The band broke for lunch. Yes, the hamburgers were delicious.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked.

“Oh, they’ll start soon!”

The band tuned up.

And tuned up.

And tuned up.

I played frisbee, barefoot on the grass.

“When’s the band going to start?” I asked out loud, but to no one in particular.

With dusk gathering, after much tuning up, the band took a stab at “Uncle John’s Band,” which was cool, because it was my girlfriend’s favorite.

After the one song “sound check,” they took a break to fill their beers.

The lonely amps sat in the corner of the yard, unattended, as the band filled and refilled their cups. I asked my hostess, “Are they going to play anymore?

She said, “You worry too much.”

And that was my introduction to Dead culture and attitude. There are those in life that soak up the sun, and the kiddie pool, and the beer, and the hamburgers, and their bare feet on the grass, and their college girlfriend, and their tribe that has migrated from a classroom to a backyard in Western Mass . . . and there are those in life that wait for the band to start.


If you’re a Deadhead, or a Friend of a Deadhead, this week on mvyradio, we’re offering a “Friend of the Devil, Friend of mvyradio” t-shirt for a donation. You can support the station, and show your pride in the tribe. And for more Dead, check out Shakedown Stream.