• https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-pride-cucamonga
    Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Pride of Cucamonga"

    By David Dodd

    Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

    Hmmmm. I can’t locate a link for “Pride of Cucamonga” on the Dead.net website.

    However, it is Phil Lesh’s birthday week, and therefore time to talk about a Phil song. “Pride of Cucamonga” is one of the several songs Lesh wrote with lyricist Bobby Petersen, and its road-oriented words fit in with the outlines of Petersen’s life spent out on the edge of an empty highway.

    This song contains a number of biographical clues to Petersen’s life. The summary of his life included in The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics was written by Alan Trist:

    Robert M. Petersen

    Born in 1936, of a solid middle-class background in Klamath Falls, Oregon. In the fifties, he hopped freights, played jazz saxophone, and attended San Mateo College, in California, where he met Phil Lesh, with whom he later wrote several songs for the Dead. Sometimes, he lived on the mountain. He served time. He knew the lore of the West, its local and natural history. He practiced freedom. He bridged the Beat scene of San Francisco to the rock era, like his sometime companion, Neal Cassady. He was a constant presence in the Grateful Dead’s world, from its earliest days in Palo Alto. He published one volume of poetry during his lifetime, Far Away Radios. A posthumous edition of his collection poems, Alleys of the Heart, was published by Hologosi. Petersen died in 1987. He has one son, Didrik.

    “Pride of Cucamonga” was never played live by the Grateful Dead. Since Garcia’s death, it has become a feature of post-GD versions of the band, introduced by The Dead into the live repertoire on June 15, 2004, at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado.

    It appeared on side two of From the Mars Hotel, released June 27, 1974—which means the Dead debuted it on very close to its 30th birthday.

    The lyric vividly portrays a life on the road, and seems to convey a sense of escaping one thing (“the northern sky, it stinks with greed”—a reference to the lumber mills of southern Oregon, perhaps) to fall prey to another (“and I done some time...”). There’s a sense that something better must be available—(“I think I’ll drift for old where-it’s-at...”), but that this might be a chimera.

    The title was long a source of some speculation. I found references to it in Annie Lamott’s Rosie — but as a reference back to the song. I chased down the locale of Rancho Cucamonga itself. But eventually, I received a note via email, as I often do, letting me know that “Pride of Cucamonga” was indeed the name of a brand of cheap wine produced in the 1960s. Here’s the annotation:

    Pride of Cucamonga: The label of a jug wine produced in the late 1960's by the Joseph Filippi Winery in Rancho Cucamonga. An article on the winery's website confirms that the label is being revived for a fine wine in its new incarnation. The article includes this paragraph:

    “A Venetian immigrant named Giovanni Filippi founded his vineyards in 1922, and in 1934 with his son Joseph, made a name in table and altar wine. Joseph and his son Joey boosted production, creating a jug brand offering nine different varietals and a name so distinctive - Pride of Cucamonga - that the Grateful Dead used it in a 1974 song.”

    That article is no longer available on their website, but they do seem to be producing a wine under the Pride of Cucamonga label.

    I would love to find a vintage label from the 1960s, but no luck so far....

    The song is a very catchy country tune, with tasty pedal steel by Garcia laid in, that takes a side trip into the blues on one of the “done some time” refrains. Lesh sings it with humor and grace on Mars Hotel, where his major composition “Unbroken Chain” overshadows “Pride of Cucamonga.” But I’ve always thought it a perfect example of what it is—a catchy County road song.

    In some ways, this song fits in with the album title better than any other song on the album. You can easily imagine the song’s character taking a room in the old SRO hotel, on his way to somewhere else. Better, anyway, than the Graystone Hotel, a reference to a jailhouse.

    The “bluoz” website has a photo from the San Francisco Public Library’s photo collection, and this statement:

    The San Francisco public library historical photo collection has one single photo of the Mars hotel at 192 4th street at the corner of 4th and Howard, where the Moscone Center is today. 3rd and 4th streets near Mission and Howard was a low income area in the 60′s and 70′s similar to 6th street today and was demolished to make way for the Moscone Center in the 80′s

    This photo is dated November 14, 1963, at the corner of 4th and Howard – S. F. News-Call Bulletin photo by Eddie Murphy.

    I would include it here, but I try to respect copyright and only use photos that are clearly in the public domain, so you’ll have to go seek it out yourself.

    There is a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin called The Graystone Hotel. I can’t tell for sure if it was in existence when Petersen wrote the song—indeed, I can’t really tell when Petersen wrote the lyrics. It’s located at 66 Geary Street. So maybe that’s the place Petersen was referring to.

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    Grateful for Music
    10 months ago
    Pride of Cucamonga

    Saw Dead&Co at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Tuesday, May23, 2023. They performed Pride of Cucamonga and it was VERY WELL received by those of us in the audience.
    Same was true for Unbroken chain and Scarlet Begonias. A youngster who was dancing in a group of like-aged folk directly in front of me stopped to shake my hand at the right moment in Scarlet Begonias while we both sang "strangers stopping strangers, just the shake their hand . . ."

  • Default Avatar
    dougtinva
    9 months 4 weeks ago
    Sorry, Nope

    Got a bad dose from the lot? They didn't play Pride of Cucamonga or Unbroken Chain in Phoenix on 5/23/23. Check the setlist from setlist.fm. Or you can see an image of the band's setlist on twitter or facebook.

  • marye
    4 years ago
    Pride of Cucamonga wine
    as I recall my dad bought a gallon of it back when cheap gallons were starting to be a thing, and it was really, really awful. May have been a bad batch however.
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14 years 11 months

By David Dodd

Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

Hmmmm. I can’t locate a link for “Pride of Cucamonga” on the Dead.net website.

However, it is Phil Lesh’s birthday week, and therefore time to talk about a Phil song. “Pride of Cucamonga” is one of the several songs Lesh wrote with lyricist Bobby Petersen, and its road-oriented words fit in with the outlines of Petersen’s life spent out on the edge of an empty highway.

This song contains a number of biographical clues to Petersen’s life. The summary of his life included in The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics was written by Alan Trist:

Robert M. Petersen

Born in 1936, of a solid middle-class background in Klamath Falls, Oregon. In the fifties, he hopped freights, played jazz saxophone, and attended San Mateo College, in California, where he met Phil Lesh, with whom he later wrote several songs for the Dead. Sometimes, he lived on the mountain. He served time. He knew the lore of the West, its local and natural history. He practiced freedom. He bridged the Beat scene of San Francisco to the rock era, like his sometime companion, Neal Cassady. He was a constant presence in the Grateful Dead’s world, from its earliest days in Palo Alto. He published one volume of poetry during his lifetime, Far Away Radios. A posthumous edition of his collection poems, Alleys of the Heart, was published by Hologosi. Petersen died in 1987. He has one son, Didrik.

“Pride of Cucamonga” was never played live by the Grateful Dead. Since Garcia’s death, it has become a feature of post-GD versions of the band, introduced by The Dead into the live repertoire on June 15, 2004, at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado.

It appeared on side two of From the Mars Hotel, released June 27, 1974—which means the Dead debuted it on very close to its 30th birthday.

The lyric vividly portrays a life on the road, and seems to convey a sense of escaping one thing (“the northern sky, it stinks with greed”—a reference to the lumber mills of southern Oregon, perhaps) to fall prey to another (“and I done some time...”). There’s a sense that something better must be available—(“I think I’ll drift for old where-it’s-at...”), but that this might be a chimera.

The title was long a source of some speculation. I found references to it in Annie Lamott’s Rosie — but as a reference back to the song. I chased down the locale of Rancho Cucamonga itself. But eventually, I received a note via email, as I often do, letting me know that “Pride of Cucamonga” was indeed the name of a brand of cheap wine produced in the 1960s. Here’s the annotation:

Pride of Cucamonga: The label of a jug wine produced in the late 1960's by the Joseph Filippi Winery in Rancho Cucamonga. An article on the winery's website confirms that the label is being revived for a fine wine in its new incarnation. The article includes this paragraph:

“A Venetian immigrant named Giovanni Filippi founded his vineyards in 1922, and in 1934 with his son Joseph, made a name in table and altar wine. Joseph and his son Joey boosted production, creating a jug brand offering nine different varietals and a name so distinctive - Pride of Cucamonga - that the Grateful Dead used it in a 1974 song.”

That article is no longer available on their website, but they do seem to be producing a wine under the Pride of Cucamonga label.

I would love to find a vintage label from the 1960s, but no luck so far....

The song is a very catchy country tune, with tasty pedal steel by Garcia laid in, that takes a side trip into the blues on one of the “done some time” refrains. Lesh sings it with humor and grace on Mars Hotel, where his major composition “Unbroken Chain” overshadows “Pride of Cucamonga.” But I’ve always thought it a perfect example of what it is—a catchy County road song.

In some ways, this song fits in with the album title better than any other song on the album. You can easily imagine the song’s character taking a room in the old SRO hotel, on his way to somewhere else. Better, anyway, than the Graystone Hotel, a reference to a jailhouse.

The “bluoz” website has a photo from the San Francisco Public Library’s photo collection, and this statement:

The San Francisco public library historical photo collection has one single photo of the Mars hotel at 192 4th street at the corner of 4th and Howard, where the Moscone Center is today. 3rd and 4th streets near Mission and Howard was a low income area in the 60′s and 70′s similar to 6th street today and was demolished to make way for the Moscone Center in the 80′s

This photo is dated November 14, 1963, at the corner of 4th and Howard – S. F. News-Call Bulletin photo by Eddie Murphy.

I would include it here, but I try to respect copyright and only use photos that are clearly in the public domain, so you’ll have to go seek it out yourself.

There is a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin called The Graystone Hotel. I can’t tell for sure if it was in existence when Petersen wrote the song—indeed, I can’t really tell when Petersen wrote the lyrics. It’s located at 66 Geary Street. So maybe that’s the place Petersen was referring to.

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“Pride of Cucamonga” is one of the several songs Lesh wrote with lyricist Bobby Petersen, and its road-oriented words fit in with the outlines of Petersen’s life spent out on the edge of an empty highway.
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“Pride of Cucamonga” is one of the several songs Lesh wrote with lyricist Bobby Petersen, and its road-oriented words fit in with the outlines of Petersen’s life spent out on the edge of an empty highway.
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“Pride of Cucamonga” is one of the several songs Lesh wrote with lyricist Bobby Petersen, and its road-oriented words fit in with the outlines of Petersen’s life spent out on the edge of an empty highway.

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Mars Hotel was definitely still standing in the fall of 1974. Thanks again for featuring Bobby Petersen. I believe he had a humble life and end of life also.
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Though it obviously would have been great to hear how the Dead would have done this song live in the early 70's and on, I think Phil's versions of late (in Furthur and P&F) are really something. They extend the blues/rocker portion of it in a few different ways that are all interesting, but without taking away from the country aspect of it.
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I've always been a country music fan, besides being a Deadhead. There are so many things that made the Grateful Dead great, and perhaps the biggest was their superior talent at so many aspects of American music. There was never a gap between being Deadicated and loving Silver Threads, The Race Is On, Big River, El Paso, Mexicali (oops, that was a polka), Cumberland Blues, You Win Again, Stagger Lee, Don't Ease Me In, and Pride Of Cucamonga. Heck, even I Need a Miracle would be a cracking country song done by the right hat act. Another off the wall observation: I swear I was watching a Three Stooges episode once where "The Pride of Cucamonga" was mentioned. As I remember, somebody asked, "Where are you boys from?" and Curly said, "We're the pride of Cucamonga!" (please insert Curly enunciation). I've Googled that until the cows came home and never found any attribution of this memory. Which could mean that it's drug/dream-induced, or it could be that it's too obscure to be found with my reference faculties. Has anybody else experienced Curly Howard identifying with this great Peterson lyric? Note that if true, this usage would have pre-dated the song and the wine. And I agree with Foliage12, it's wonderful hearing Phil sing this, later in life. BTW, you can of course see the annotated lyrics at http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/pride.html, though David may be respecting copyright(?) by not linking to this.
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Played pedal steel on this song.
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I seem to remember that, too. But it would have been 35-40 years ago, so who knows.
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Here are some out takes from a rehearsal that contain versions of Pride of Cucamonga, Unbroken Chain, and some other tunes from Mars Hotel and Blues for Allah: https://archive.org/details/gd74-12-xx.mars-hotel.12468.sbeok.shnf Pretty cool to hear. I knew that John McFee played pedal steel on Pride of Cucamonga but I didn't realize he has a pretty impressive resumé as a multi-instrumentalist and also playing steel for Van Morrison and Elvis Costello. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McFee I believe that Garcia's final pedal steel performance on a studio album by the Dead was on Wake of the Flood's Stella Blue and Weather Report Suite: Part 2. Wikipedia reports that it was Garcia on that album but on my vinyl and cd liner notes it does not mention anyone playing steel, so I guess we can assume it was Garcia? It sounds like his style anyway...can anyone confirm this? Garcia played the steel a few more times on the Dylan/Dead shows in 1987 (I'll Be Your Baby Tonight). Here's a nice article I just found about Jerry's steel playing (it does not mention Jerry playing on Wake of the Flood): http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/jerry-garcia-and-the-pedal-s… I'm still curious about who played on Wake of the Flood?
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the wine, was really, really bad. My dad brought home a jug one time instead of Red Mountain (which was later to become of staple of college parties). Let's just say that compared to Pride of Cucamonga, Red Mountain (then 99 cents a gallon) was Beaujolais Jadot.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE PHIL!!!!!!!!! THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT MUSIC OVER THE LAST 45 YEARS. MUCH LOVE!!!
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Happy Birthday Phil, hope to see you soon.You are right Mary, that wine was the worst, but the Red Mountain wine was quite good. I also remember almenden Mountain Nectar back in those days, also very good for next to nothing cost wise. Your post gave me a very nice flashback, thanks.
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the one and only time I got really horribly hung over, at about age 19, was on Red Mountain, which was flowing freely at this hippie wedding up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The experience was enough to put me off the stuff forever. The good thing was it made me so sick I couldn't look at a cigarette, and thus was able to quit smoking after several attempts (in college in the '60s, just about everybody smoked, hard as that is to believe now). I understand they have rather more low-impact ways to quit these days.
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...Where the weed grows green and fat." Love this song. Why it never made it into the repertoire is a mystery. Happy 74th Phil.
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saw the song topic this morning and before reading anything, I got out Workingman's Dead so I could hear POC and couldn't find it. I could've swore it was Pigpen who sang this. Then I read the article and went to find my copy of FMH and soon realized that I don't have one. I know this song well, heard it many times, love the lyrics, but for the life of me I don't remember where I heard it. Maybe I had FMH at one time. What a pleasantly weird Sunday. the northern sky it stinks of weed, you can smell it for miles around.
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I have an old Pride of Cucamonga label that came in handy for a deadhead friend's wedding… I scanned it and printed off a few dozen and brought them to the occasion. My girlfriend and I then glued them over the labels of the (much finer) wine that were to be at the tables for the reception. This prank was much appreciated by many folks that day, but the father of the bride was not among them...
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Always loved this little song. The interplay between Keith's piano and the pedal steel during the instrumental ride is one of the cleanest they ever recorded, and I'll bet it would even make Floyd Kramer smile.
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Thanks for the links, especially, to the wine label, wolfguitar, and to the manuscript at the Archivers, masonskids! And thanks for the correction re: pedal steel, uponscrutiny!. Sheesh. Sometimes I wish I hired a fact-checker! But you are all very kind in your provision of corrections to my faulty brain.
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I always thought it was interesting that Jerry didn't play pedal steel on this album. I know that its not an easy instrument to play, so maybe Jerry was a little rusty. But I doubt that was the case...Jerry was good but I think they just wanted that perfect twangy expert sound. The fact that Pride of Cucamonga was also a wine is great. Maybe its just my mind making the connection but I think its a perfect connection with the song. The lyrics start in the past and end up projecting the future, with each chorus representing the present. Someone is just sitting back, relaxing, having a drink, and telling a story. Random story about Phil: My friend just moved out to Cali and got to meet Phil at his restaurant. People were singing karaoke and my friend said that Phil was having a blast and applauding after each song, even when they were really bad. Great guy and happy belated birthday!
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I love how a Good Song like this can take you places you've never been before in the way it stimulates the Imagination. When you're on the Road with an urge for Home there are songs that will take you there. And when you're at Home and Bored there are songs that will take you on an Adventure. I guess they can't Revoke your Soul for Trying to find a better place of "Where its At" I like where "Cucamonga" takes me. On an American Adventure along the Pacific Coast in the 1950's...much like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's "On the Road." Hitching a Ride from Oregon to the Land of that "Bright-Whoa-oh-oh-Oaxa Vine" Its fun to sing all those "Oh-Oh's" Too bad it was never played live by the Grateful Dead...its a Fun Tune.... It has such a great Melody that begs for some Good Old Get On Down Instrumentalization.
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as I recall my dad bought a gallon of it back when cheap gallons were starting to be a thing, and it was really, really awful. May have been a bad batch however.
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Saw Dead&Co at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Tuesday, May23, 2023. They performed Pride of Cucamonga and it was VERY WELL received by those of us in the audience.
Same was true for Unbroken chain and Scarlet Begonias. A youngster who was dancing in a group of like-aged folk directly in front of me stopped to shake my hand at the right moment in Scarlet Begonias while we both sang "strangers stopping strangers, just the shake their hand . . ."

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Got a bad dose from the lot? They didn't play Pride of Cucamonga or Unbroken Chain in Phoenix on 5/23/23. Check the setlist from setlist.fm. Or you can see an image of the band's setlist on twitter or facebook.