Songs Of Their Own | FiKus – One More Saturday Night

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, JamBase teamed with Telefunken to produce the Songs Of Their Own 50-day tribute series featuring a daily cover of a Grateful Dead original song and culminating with our grand finale 50th video premiering the day of the final Fare Thee Well show in Chicago on July 5. We started the series with a list of 100 Grateful Dead original songs (exclusively their tunes, not covers they often played) and asked many of our favorite artists to record cover versions either at the JamBase office in San Francisco, at one of the many venues around the Bay Area, at Telefunken’s Connecticut studios and beyond. No song was allowed to be covered twice, and today’s participants FiKus cranked up “One More Saturday Night.”

Bob Weir holds sole writing credits for “One More Saturday Night” and though Robert Hunter contributed to the genesis of the song, he ultimately took his name off the lyric sheet. Weir toyed with calling the song “U.S. Blues” and recorded it for his 1972 solo album Ace. First played live along with several other songs on keyboardist Keith Godchaux’s first night as a member of The Dead on October 19, 1971 at the Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis, the tune stayed in rotation for the rest of their live career. Bobby often toyed with the lyrics, name-checking U.S. Presidents at various times in the 1980s and 1990s. Performed over 330 times, one last “One More Saturday Night” was played to close out the second set (as it often did) at the penultimate Grateful Dead concert on Saturday, July 8, 1995 at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

River Vale, New Jersey’s FiKus got things rocking at our partner Telefunken’s studios in South Windsor, Connecticut. Featuring a trumpet solo by keyboardist Jon Schmizzle, the quintet fronted by vocalist Pete Kozak brought along guest guitarist Wiley Griffin to record their faithful rendition of “One More Saturday Night.”

Watch all of the Songs Of Their Own entries including Max Creek, Jackie Greene, Strangefolk, Midnight North, Anders Osborne & Luther Dickinson, Keller Williams and more via the YouTube Playlist below.