Listening

Guide 9-1_2b.

Uncle John's Band as recorded by the Grateful Dead (1970)

Features:
Even beat subdivisions are followed throughout the recording.

A backbeat is played softly on a wood block in parts of the recording but not
stressed in most places.

Strummed acoustic guitars and electric bass provide the main instrumental
accompaniment with additional color added by such Latin percussion instruments
as guiro, maracas, claves, and conga drums.

The harmonized group vocals include two voices above the main melody.

Tempo:
The tempo is approximately 132 beats per minute, with four beats per bar for most
of the recording. Rhythmic interest is added when the fourth and eighth bars of each
A section are shortened to only three beats. The instrumental D section also varies
the beat pattern by alternating four- and three-beat bars.

Form:
The recording begins with an eight-bar introduction comprised of two bars of a
single strummed acoustic guitar, two bars of two strummed acoustic guitars with
bass, and then four bars of those instruments with another acoustic guitar playing a
lead line.

After the introduction, the recording continues in sections of varying lengths as
follows: A A B C C A A C B D C B.

Each A section is sixteen bars (the fourth and eighth of which have only three beats)
with lyrics followed by a two-bar extension.

Each B and C section is made up of eight four-beat bars. The second C and D are both
instrumental. The C section functions as a refrain with repeated lyrics.

The instrumental D section is based on a rhythmic pattern that plays a seven-beat
pattern (one four-beat bar followed by one three-beat bar) seven times before going
back into the four-beat pattern of most of the rest of the recording.

The last C section is preceded by silence and sung a cappella (without instrumental
accompaniment).

The second and final B sections have the same lyrics as the C refrain.


The recording ends with an extension of the last B, which fades out.

Lyrics:
The lyrics stress virtuous living and ask the listener to go with the singers to visit
"Uncle John's Band" by the riverside so that Uncle John can take them home. If one
sees a Christian baptism as going home, then Uncle John can be seen as John the
Baptist.