Songs of Their Own - #17 "Loose Lucy" The Z3 video free download

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, JamBase teamed with Telefunken to produce the Songs Of Their Own video series. We began with a list of 100 Grateful Dead original songs (exclusively their tunes, not covers they often played) and tapped many of our favorite artists to record a cover version either at the JamBase office in San Francisco or at one of the many venues around town and beyond. No song was allowed to be covered twice, and today’s participant The Z3 had a good time with “Loose Lucy.”

“Loose Lucy” was something of an anomaly of the Grateful Dead’s live repertoire. Debuted on February 9, 1973 at Roscoe Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, California, the Hunter/Garcia song was a staple of setlists and performed over 30 times prior to the October 19, 1974 rendition at the Winterland in San Francisco. During that time the Mickey Hart-less band often experimented with the song’s tempo and arrangement from up tempo rock ‘n’ roll like the studio version that made 1974’s From The Mars Hotel LP to the slower and more laid-back, funky approach often employed on stage. “Loose Lucy” would not be played again until March 14,1990 at Landover, Maryland’s Capital Centre. It’s second life with The Dead outpaced its first being performed more than 60 additional times before the July 5, 1995 show at Riverport Amphitheater near St. Louis.

Shifting their focus from Frank Zappa to Grateful Dead, The Z3 gathered at our partner Telefunken’s studios in South Windsor, Connecticut to lay down this funked out version of “Loose Lucy.” Though Zappa never jammed with The Dead, early Bill Graham promoted concerts touted both acts on the same bill in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Featuring guitarist Tim Palmieri on vocals alongside, keyboardist Beau Sasser, drummer Bill Carbone and Zappa band veteran and percussionist Ed Mann, The Z3 delivered their self-described “cro-magnanimous post-Garibaldian” version of “Loose Lucy.”