Songs Of Their Own | Yonder Mountain String Band – Shakedown Street

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, JamBase teamed with Telefunken to produce the Songs Of Their Own video series. We began with a list of 100 Grateful Dead original songs (exclusively their tunes, not covers they often played) and tapped many of our favorite artists to record a cover version either at the JamBase office in San Francisco or at one of the many venues around town and beyond. No song was allowed to be covered twice, and today’s participants Yonder Mountain String Band have “Shakedown Street” locked down.

Yonder is no stranger to “Shakedown,” having performed the song several times in recent years and on separate occasions with Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann. Though the band’s current lineup has evolved since those shows, when they came through town for a gig last month at The Fox Theater in Oakland we knew we were in for another blissfully bluegrass take on the title track to the Dead’s 1978 Lowell George produced LP.

While coordinating with Yonder, like with many of these sessions, scheduling was tight. The band was coming from a show the previous night in Reno and emails were flying back and forth between their tour manager, support staff and JamBase in an all out effort to make this recording happen. Luckily, the folks at Another Planet and The Fox Theater were kind enough to let us shoot at the venue after Yonder wrapped up their soundcheck. Shooting on-site at local venues has been essential to coordinating busy schedules, in addition to providing some eclectic backdrops for the project. And though we think JamBase HQ is pretty cool, it’s certainly no Fox Theater.

The Songs Of Their Own series launched yesterday with Anders Osborne and Luther Dickinson performing “Black Muddy River.” Watch their touching rendition of the last song Jerry Garcia sang lead on here.