The Big Easy List: Truckin’

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Here’s another one of those “classic rock” songs that most people were probably waiting for when it comes to mentioning New Orleans. And there’s nothing like a song that’s not only classic rock but a true story!! Let’s boogie down to the Big Easy. Truckin’ - Grateful Dead On Saturday, January 31, 1970, the police raided the Grateful Dead’s hotel rooms and arrested Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, roadie Laurence Shurtliff, manager John McIntire, and their dealer, Owsley Stanley (who, quick aside, was the inspiration for Steely Dan’s song “Kid Charlemagne”). Other entourage members were also busted, along with their “spiritual advisor” Summer Wind and a few fans. The Dead had played the Warehouse the previous evening. Fleetwood Mac (this was 1970, so don’t envision Stevie Nicks out there singing “Garcia rings like a bell through the night and wouldn’t you love to love him” ) headlined a “Bread for the Dead” benefit show for the band members’ bail! Punch line in all of this: there’s no hotel in the French Quarter with a memorial plaque that says, “The Grateful Dead were busted here!” Yes, today that would be a tourist attraction (no kidding: did you know you can rent the motel room that Gram Parsons died in? And that there’s a LONG waiting list for reservations!?). Back then, though, the newspaper accounts referred to the “freaks” and “long hairs” who listened to “acid rock.” The papers were kinder to the 1973 Howard Johnson’s sniper. Oh, well. The band was bailed out, they kept on truckin’, and everyone remembers this song. Truckin’ Written by Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, and Bob Weir Recorded by the Grateful Dead From American Beauty, 1970 NEW ORLEANS LYRICS: Houston, too close to New Orleans