A different "Me and My Uncle"
Deadheads know
Me and My Uncle as the Grateful Dead's most-played song. It usually came in the first set, and was usually followed by
Big River. It was written by John Phillips, first played by the Dead in 1966, and then played more than 600 times over the next thirty years. As you can see from
the lyrics, it's your basic manly western song of gambling, drinking, and killing.
What most people don't know it that it was sung a year earlier by Joni Mitchell. She was going by the name "Joan Anderson" at the time, and sang it (MP3, 2.5 megs) on the CBC television show "Let's Sing Out" on October 4, 1965. The combo of the sweet voice and the macho lyrics is wonderful.
Posted by lookit at January 11, 2005 07:33 PM