How Robert Hunter Stepped Out from the Shadows of The Grateful Dead
Celebrating 50 years of the legendary lyricist’s debut LP Tales of the Great Rum Runners
Whenever I’m asked who my favorite member of The Grateful Dead is (with the exception of Jerry, of course, because everyone loves Jerry), my answer is easy: Robert Hunter.
I’ve always been drawn to great lyricists, and Hunter is one of the greatest. The vast majority of the very best Dead lyrics were penned by Hunter (though to be fair, John Perry Barlow notched some classics of his own, most notably with “Bertha,” “The Music Never Stopped,” and “Estimated Prophet”), and if his partnership with Jerry Garcia consisted solely of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, he’d still be a legend.
I wish I could remember who said it (maybe you do; if so, please post a comment), but Hunter has been described as someone who could write a brand new song that sounds like it’s hundreds of years old.
That’s a great observation, and a pretty good starting point for looking back at his debut solo album, Tales of the Great Rum Runners. It was the first release on the brand-new Round Records label, co-owned by Garcia and Dead manager Ron Rakow, in the spring of 1974. The cover evokes the late-1600s and the golden age of piracy, and closing your eyes while listening to the title track, “Rum Runners,” transports you to the high seas on a ship populated by the sort of men who would be drawn to such a life.
“Here is a wail of a lone flute playing / Those not hanged, by time were slain / Here is a cup of blood and tears / Here is the wail of a hundred years.”
As a singer, Hunter is kind of like grittier, unpolished versions of Phil Ochs, Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley and Dave Van Ronk tossed into a blender and filtered through the LSD, psilocybin and mescaline afterglow of the CIA’s MK-Ultra experiments he experienced. It’s a voice that’s actually well-suited to a song like “Rum Runners,” and it’s difficult to imagine the Dead playing this tune.
One that’s not difficult to image as part of the Dead’s oeuvre is “Children’s Lament.” Sure, they’d probably replace the bagpipes with Jerry’s guitar or Pigpen’s or Keith’s or Brent’s keyboards, but the lyric is something I can easily envision Garcia singing.
Hunter opens the tune at the moment of birth: “When a child is being born / Cut the cord and tie a knot / Be sure you cut it with a keen blade / Life is short and full of thorns.” Then takes the listener through to the parent’s death: “In the hour of your dying / Point your breath and think away / In one brief moment / All eternity comes clear.” That duality, life/death, is classic Hunter, and this one would have been interesting to hear the Dead perform.
Two other songs on this album that the Dead did perform live, according to the Grateful Dead Family Discography site, are “Maybe She’s A Bluebird” and “Arizona Lightning.” The former is a simple, sweet love song (“When I was a beggar / When I was a thief / When I was caught up / Was you that brought relief / Sometimes you amaze me / Sometimes make me crazy / Maybe you’re a bluebird / That will never fly away”) while the latter is a lyrically dense anti-Nixon screed that Hunter wrote while watching the Watergate hearings. It’s packed with the sort of lyrical wordplay that makes Hunter’s work so often so wonderful:
“Arizona thundershower / Count the days and kill the hour / Six foot deep don’t seem so awful low, you know / When the eagle hits the ground / Sparks will fly for miles around / Who could blame a man to curse or pray.”
The most well-known song on this collection, of course, is “It Must Have Been the Roses.” Garcia typically brings a lonely wistfulness to the tune, but Hunter’s is a bouncier toe-tapping version that features Keith Godchaux on keyboards, Mickey Hart on drums, and a host of other players and singers including bassist David Freiberg (of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Starship), and pedal steel guitarist Buddy Cage (New Riders Of The Purple Sage).
The record closes with one of my favorite tracks from this set, “Keys to the Rain,” which finds Hunter stretching all his lyrical muscles and laying down a song that would feel at home on one of Dylan’s early records:
“The just and the crippled both push up the flowers / And nothing remains but the song of the hours / I hope you can dig it I know that you will / But please don’t run hide when I come with my bill / And before you get trying this noose on for size / It’s so quick to fall, yes, and so slow to rise / And who do you think you’ll get to believe you / When you tell them you got the keys to the rain? / Yeah, who do you think you’re gonna get to believe it / When you tell them you got the keys to the rain?”
Recorded at Mickey Hart’s converted barn studio in Novato, California, Hunter’s debut has been difficult to find since its release and unavailable on streaming services. Both of those situations are about to change. Tales of the Great Rum Runners is being re-released in a deluxe two-CD / two-LP version by Rhino Records, “freshly remastered … alongside 16 previously unreleased recordings, including alternate versions of album tracks and several session outtakes” as detailed on Rhino’s website.
It’s a noteworthy release for Deadheads and lyric geeks alike. I’ll be adding it to my collection (alongside my original vinyl copy), and I can only hope that Hunter’s Jack O’ Roses is next in Rhino’s sights.
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Just noting that Robert Hunter wrote “Bertha” not John Perry Barlow (who didn’t write any songs that Jerry sang)