Songs Of Their Own - #4 "Friend Of The Devil" Dead Winter Carpenters 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 participants Dead Winter Carpenters retooled “Friend Of The Devil.”

“Friend Of The Devil” was debuted by the Grateful Dead at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York on March 20, 1970. Like the first performance, The Dead often played the song acoustically and the Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia/John Dawson composition soon became a standard in the band’s live repertoire. The song featured on their 1970 album American Beauty evolved over more than 300 performances, with The Dead toying with its tempo and arrangement up until the final rendition on June 24, 1995 at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.

North Tahoe natives Dead Winter Carpenters were passing through the neighborhood for a gig down in Santa Cruz when they stopped by JamBase HQ in San Francisco. It was a great day of recording as the band pulled up and parked their trusty bus “Suds” in front of our office and got to work on their “Friend Of The Devil” arrangement. As we set up, the band headed into our kitchen to rehearse. Once it was time to lay down the track, some extensive chair rearranging was needed to best capture the band in this stripped-down approach. Ultimately we settled on arranging one of JamBase’s trusty veteran couches (one many of our readers have likely sat on at JB Holiday Party or other office event) into the shot.