Wilco Gives The Grateful Dead’s “U.S. Blues” The Cruel Country Treatment

This week’s Wednesday Wilco Song Spotlight shines on a cover that has been currently cropping up in the band’s encores:

“U.S. Blues” (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter)

The Grateful Dead’s “U.S. Blues,” which opens their 1974 studio album, From the Mars Hotel, isn’t really a blues tune. It’s more of a rollicking anthem with its punchy verses and sing-a-long chorus, as can be witnessed in the blazing rendition from the Winterland Ballroom in Oct. ’74 that opens THE GRATEFUL DEAD MOVIE (1977):

The Grateful Dead performed the crowd-pleaser, “U.S. Blues,” well over 300 times in their touring career up until the death of founder/front man Jerry Garcia in 1994, and then has been continued life through performances with such Dead off-shoots as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Phil Lesh and Friends, etc.

Last August, Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy, and his band’s lead guitarist, Nels Cline, performed with Phil Lesh & Friends at the inaugural Sacred Rose Festival at the SeatGeek Stadium outside Chicago under the banner of Philco. The one-off (for now) supergroup performed a 14-song set of mostly Dead classics, with guest appearances by Wilco’s “Via Chicago,” and “Airline to Heaven” from Tweedy and company’s Woody Guthrie/Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg.

The event featured Tweedy’s debuts on the Dead classics, “Dire Wolf,” “Franklin’s Tower,” and his lead on the show closer “Ripple,” a song which he’s performed multiple times since the ‘90s. But “U.S. Blues,” also a first for the Wilco front man, was an early stand-out in the set as can be seen in this cool clip:

When Wilco’s Cruel Country tour resumed after Sacred Rose, “U.S. Blues” made the transition from Philco to a prominent spot in their show’s encores for almost every show they’ve played since. As Tweedy expresses such sentiments as “I love my country, stupid and cruel,” on Wilco’s latest studio offering, Garcia/Hunter’s cynical digs at nationalism in the mid ‘70s rocker thematically fit like a glove in the band’s present-day repertoire.

When “U.S. Blues,” which is populated by the likes of Uncle Sam, Charlie Chan, and P.T. Barnum, comes off as a sarcastic call to “Wave the flag, wave it wide and high,” it could easily be coupled with Tweedy’s “Adjust your eyes to the light/Let them roll with pride,” from Cruel Country’s “Hints.”

Tweedy and Cline’s premiere performance with Philco of “U.S. Blues,” and its following nine encore appearances by Wilco have cemented the song as a crucial cover in the band’s catalog. An entry based on this post will be added to the Wilco: The Covers section in future editions of Wilcopedia.

I’ll conclude with the most recent performance by Wilco of “U.S. Blues” at the Fargo Brewery in Fargo, North Dakota on September 11, 2022:

 

More later...