Written and performed by Buddy Holly,"Not Fade Away"
was also the Rolling Stones first hit in the United
States.
"All along the Watchtower" was a Bob Dylan tune as well
as a Top 40 hit for Jimi Hendrix,who recorded it on
Electric Ladyland.
Country-and-Western star Merle Haggard penned the
outlaw prison tune "Mama Tried".
With it's African-American origins,chant song "Iko-Iko"
is popular around New Orleans and has been recorded by
the Neville Brothers and Sugar Boy Crawford.
"Big Boss Man"was written by R&B artist Jimmy Reed,who
had a hit with it in 1961.
Harry Belafonte made "Man Smart,Woman Smarter" a hit in
1965, although there is controversy about who actually
wrote the song.
Skyrocketing up the charts in 1967, "I Second That
Emotion" was originally a Smokey Robinson and the
Miracles tune.
"Good Lovin",written by Arthur Resnick and Rudy Clark,
was a Young Rascals hit.
"Cold Rain and Snow" has it's roots in the 1800's as
a"white blues" song that came out of the Blue Ridge
Mountain region.It was recorded by Obray Ramsey,but
it's author is unknown.
The Grateful Dead have been doing "Ain't It Crazy"
since the days of Mother McCree's Up-town Jug
Champions. It was written by the late Sam "Lightnin"
Hopkins, a Texas blues singer.
Written by blues great Willie Dixon,"Little Red
Rooster" with all of it's sexual innuendo has also been
recorded by the Doors and by the Rolling Stones.
A hit for Martha and the Vandellas in 1964,"Dancin'in
the Streets" was recorded as a disco tune on Terrapin
Station.
Country singer Marty Robbins shot to stardom after the
1959 release of "El Paso".
Jim Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas wrote "Me and
My Uncle" but never recorded it. The song does,however,
appear on a Judy Collins live album from the early
1960s.
First performed by Negro jug bands in the deep
South,"New Minglewood Blues" is about a textile factory
in Tennessee.After each recording of the song, another
word was added to the title.
A Donna Godchaux classic, "You Ain't Woman Enough" was
first recorded by Loretta Lynn.
'Morning Dew,"a chronicle of the cold war nuclear
threat, was written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie
Dobson. The song has been recorded by many other
artists in one form or another, and others have been
given false credit for writing it.
Kris Kristofferson's songwritting debut,"Me and Bobby
McGee,"was a Roger Miller hit in 1969. Since then it
has been recorded by Gordon Lightfoot,Janis Joplin,and
Willie Nelson.
Many different forms of "Jackaroe" have been
documented, some dating back to ancient Greek tales of
a "maiden warrior" who dresses as a man to enlist in
the navy to be with her lover.
"It Hurts Me Too" was written by the late Elmore James,
one of the first blues artists to play electric slide
guitar. The Song was released in a posthumous
collection of James's work.
Written by Eric Clapton during his Derek and the
Dominoes days, "Keep on Growing" was released on that
band's Layla.
A PigPen classic, "Hard To Handle" was written by Otis
Redding and has since been recorded by the Black
Crowes.
"Deep Elem Blues" dates back to the 1930s and recalls
the Prohibition-era red-light district in downtown
Dallas, Texas. It was first recorded by the Lone Star
Cowboys in 1933.
Although it was first written and recorded by Chuck
Berry, "Around and Around" was a hit for the Rolling
Stones in 1964.
"Don't Ease Me In" was first performed by Ragtime Texas
in the twenties,but it was also popular with folk and
jug bands in the 1950s and 1960s.
In addition to the Grateful Dead's repertoire of
original songs, the band has performed and recorded
tunes that have roots in variety of musical styles
spanning decades and even centuries.Borrowing from
rock,folk,blues,gospel,jazz,and even disco,they have
created a colorful portrait of frontier
gamblers,assassins,cowboys,thieves,drunkards,lovers,sai
lors,and heroes. While some of the songs have appeared
on the charts in altered incarnations, many have been
passed down through generations in the
farmhouses,freightyards,and shantytowns of the South
and West.
"Dear Mr. Fantasy"was originally written and recorded
by the British band Traffic.