The three parts of Weather Report Suite are distinct movements – really distinct songs – yet they hold together beautifully as a single composition. Part One and Part Two, the latter more commonly known as Let It Grow, even emerged from different lyrical partnerships. Bobby and Eric Andersen wrote the lyrics to Part One, while John Barlow penned the words to Let It Grow.
When Wake of the Flood was released on October 15, 1973, much of the music was already deeply familiar to Dead audiences. Phil later said of the album, “We’d learned to break in the material at shows (under fire, as it were), rather than try to work it out at rehearsals, or in the studio at tremendous expense.” And that was largely true. Eyes of the World, Stella Blue, Here Comes Sunshine, Row Jimmy, and the rest of the Garcia-Hunter material had all spent months in the regular rotation before the band entered the studio.
Weather Report Suite was different. Neither Part One nor Let It Grow appeared live before the album’s release. Only the Prelude emerged publicly during its gestation. Over the course of 1972 and 1973, Bobby slowly composed and reshaped the Prelude across a handful of performances, which was far different than the Garcia-Hunter tracks, which were first played as nearly fully formed tunes.
Bobby’s composing on stage allowed audiences to hear the Prelude evolve from fragment and tease into one of the Dead’s more evocative musical landscapes, all in real time. And, the Prelude benefitted from this free form creation, taking on an open harmonic structure, a cadence that is never fully resolved, and a pastoral spaciousness that eventually fit so well with the ecological themes of the rest of Weather Report Suite.
Keen-eared Heads have noticed hints of the Prelude in the years leading up to Wake of the Flood. The earliest of these might be from the Avalon Ballroom on April 5, 1969, in a tuning after Doin’ That Rag. Other examples include in The Other One on August 6, 1971 and the tuning following Chinatown Shuffle on March 23, 1972. While these do not amount to much, the little glimpses suggest that Bobby was already forming the melodic ideas for the Prelude long before.
A clearer starting point for the evolution of the Prelude comes at the Paramount Northwest Theater in Seattle during mid-summer 1972. There, Bobby fingerpicks the basic melody with the band tentatively backing him for nearly a minute before Weir laughs off the effort, saying “well anyway” and launches into Me & My Uncle. It is a charming moment as we hear Bobby struggling with the incomplete piece in public.
The next time the Prelude appears, on November 19, 1972, it is still an unresolved harmonic movement, but coming into its own as a masterful atmospheric portal. Emerging from the tail end of Dark Star, we hear the Prelude blossoming, but neither Bobby nor the rest of the band really know where to take it. Instead, after a minute and a half, the boys transition into a meandering, spacey jam that somehow finds its way to Mississippi Half-Step, another new Wake of the Flood tune.
Bobby once again shelves the project – at least publicly – until spring 1973. But when the Prelude comes back out, on March 21, it comes into its own as an emotionally coherent piece. And, in a righteous moment – dawn breaking over the earthiness of Weather Report – the Prelude there leads to a very fine Dark Star. Clearly, the Prelude is now a powerful transitional work, but what it will transition to Bobby and the band are still exploring.
Just five days later, Bobby sandwiches the Prelude between Truckin’ and Wharf Rat. After a classic He’s Gone> Truckin’ transition and a fiery Truckin’ proper, the band takes their biographical classic into a chill and spacey realm, which eventually unfolds to reveal the Prelude. And, after a clunky start, the tune turns into a precious beauty. At the point where they will later transition into Part One of the entire Suite, Jerry stretches the jam into a mellow meander across the fertile Prelude landscape, stretching the song out to a full eight minutes. In the latter portion, Phil becomes ever more active and the jam gathers a bit more force. But the flood tide barely washes over into the opening of Wharf Rat, all providing a lovely pastoral comedown after Truckin’.
Another two days later, on March 28, the Prelude reached its most mature form yet. Still untethered from the rest of Weather Report Suite, it is now a structurally sound edifice that leads to another brilliant Dark Star.
Then, on April 2, 1973, the Dead start really exploring the pregnant possibilities of the Prelude melting it into a sweet and joyous Eyes of the World. Had Bobby not created the rest of the Weather Report Suite, this – as a lead-in to Eyes – could have been a great place for the Prelude, playing, as the two tunes do, with an ecological consciousness rooted in fecundity, earthiness, and natural cycles.
After this early April show, the Prelude vanished until the full Weather Report Suite debuted on September 8, 1973, after the Dead laid down Wake of the Flood. But the Prelude’s independent life hints at possibilities left unexplored, provides insight into Bobby’s compositional methods, and exemplifies how the Dead embraced improvisation and composition as a public, collective process.
This is the first of four posts in our series on Weather Report Suite. Read part two here.
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