Video Classics: ‘Franklin’s Tower’ – The Grateful Dead

Psychedelic Dead Imagery (Cory Schwartz, Getty Images)

It was Halloween, 1980, when the Dead walked the Earth.  OK, so by ‘the Earth’ we mean the stage of Radio City Music Hall, and by ‘the Dead’ we mean …

“Franklin’s Tower”, as pointed out above, was one of the songs played (in long jam-session form) for the Dead’s remarkable 1980 Dead Ahead concert tour. It was also one of the songs that featured Mickey Hart’s return as a percussionist after an almost four-year hiatus.

In it’s original version, the song was only about four-and-a-half minutes long (though like most songs by the band it had a tendency to get elaborated upon extensively in live performance). It first appeared as the #2 track on their 8th studio album, 1975′s Blues for Allah. Unlike the title track, which quickly disappeared from their repertoire, Franklin’s Tower was frequently played thereafter, and has made it onto numerous compilation albums.

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