POP-A-LOOZA: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Grateful Dead, "Uncle John's Band"

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is an emotional Greatest Record Ever Made! piece spotlighting the unlikely subject of the Grateful Dead.

If my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) ever wills itself into existence, this chapter will be part of the book's closing lap, perched immediately after a 1-2 wallop of David Bowie's "Life On Mars?" and the O'Jays' "Put Your Hands Together," with the Dead then leading into tracks by the cast of West Side Story, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Joan Jett, Stevie Wonder, Marykate O'Neil, Eytan Mirsky, and the Jayhawks, before circling back for encores by the Beatles, the T-Bones, and the Ramones. 

Like a good mix tape, the sequencing is specific and deliberate. After more than four years of work on this book, I have completed five different edits of varying length, concocting versions of GREM! that spotlight 175 tracks, 155 tracks, 135 tracks, 125 tracks, and 105 tracks. The sequence detailed above is how each version of the book ends. No matter what else I do with the book, that concluding sequence is not likely to change.

I have a story I want to tell. It's a story about me, and about the music I listen to, but I think the story will be of interest to anyone who revels in the thrill of a personal soundtrack. As a young man, I did not think it plausible that the Grateful Dead would ever be a welcome part of my soundtrack. I've learned better since then. That evolution of opinion, and its ongoing tether it to an ache I feel inside me, provides the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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