Touch of Gray
| Touch of Gray | |
|---|---|
| Grateful Dead | |
| publication | 1987 |
| length | 4:35 |
| Genre (s) | Folk rock |
| Author (s) | Jerry Garcia , Robert Hunter |
| Label | Arista Records |
| album | In the dark |
Touch of Gray is a single of the US West Coast - rock - and folk-rock band Grateful Dead from since 1987.
history
The single comes from the hit album In the Dark from 1987 and was recorded under simulated live conditions at the Marin County Veterans Auditorium . Then the song was mixed in the Studio Club Front . Both the auditorium and studio are located in San Rafael , California .
Although the song wasn't released until 1987, the song has been played at concerts since 1982. The song was first performed on September 15, 1982 at a concert at the Capital Center in Landover , Maryland . Since then, the song has been part of the live repertoire and one of the audience favorites. For example, in 1983 the song was played twenty-one times on 66 official shows. The song was last played by the full band on July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field in Chicago . This was also the last concert of the band under the name Grateful Dead, since Jerry Garcia died on August 9th of that year.
Originally the song was an idea by Robert Hunter for his own album, which was never realized, instead the song was used by Grateful Dead. Hunter himself explained the idea for Touch of Gray in his online journal on January 8, 2006 in this way:
" Flipping through a green hardbound 1980 notebook I come upon a run of pages in which I discover" Touch of Gray "- dozens of verses that gradually fall away until the familiar ones emerge. As I read, I'm not otherwise than the person who wrote it down. It's the blear light of dawn after being up all night. I sit at the kitchen table in a 16th Century house in rural England, turning what I feel into images, awash in that writing trance in which I spent, and spend, so much of my life; a place that doesn't have much relationship to the nominal time stream. If I could slip back physically and change anything, perhaps I'd rip out those pages. No getting the genie back in the bottle. "
Touch of Gray was the band's most successful single, which u. a. in the Mainstream Rock Tracks the first place and in the 100 Billboard Hot reached the ninth. In any case, the associated album In the Dark is one of the band's most successful with multi-platinum .
Recordings of the song
The song was used on various albums by the band Grateful Dead. In addition, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir also used the song, u. a. for the bands and projects Phil Lesh & Friends or Ratdog . Other musicians who used the song included The Mighty Diamonds , Tom Russell , Dark Star Orchestra and Joe Craven .
Music clip
Touch of Gray was the band's first song, for which they produced a music clip . a. was played by MTV and its subsidiary VH1 . The reason was that they wanted to promote the song better. For the video they hired Gary Gutierrez, who had previously been responsible for the animation of The Grateful Dead Movie . The clip shows the band live on a stage, but the band members are shown as skeleton puppets, each with the typical characteristics of the musicians.
In 1987 a documentary called Dead Ringers: The Making of Touch of Gray came out about the shoot. Bill Kreutzmann's son , Justin Kreutzmann, was the director of the film.
successes
Billboard charts
| year | single | Chart | position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | "Touch of Gray" | Mainstream rock tracks | 1 |
| 1987 | "Touch of Gray" | The Billboard Hot 100 | 9 |
| 1987 | "Touch of Gray" | Adult Contemporary | 15th |
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Entry in the Allmusic Guide
- ↑ a b entry at Deaddisc.com
- ↑ Dodd, David: The Annotated "Touch of Gray"
- ↑ Single placement according to Billboard