Beat It On Down the Line

"Beat It Down the Line" is a country-blues song written by Jesse Fuller and first recorded in 1961.^[1] The lyrics mention "Joe Brown's Coal Mine", which refer to Joseph E. Brown, four times governor of Georgia and president of the Dale Coal Company who ran numerous coal mines in the state.^[2]

The song was covered by the Grateful Dead and was one of the first songs the band played live, even being performed in their pre-Dead jug band incarnation as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions in 1964^[3][4] and appeared on their first album. It remained in the band's sets throughout their career, being performed at least 323 times between 3/12/66 and 10/3/94, every year except 1976 and 1995.^[5][6]

References

1. Jim Tuedio; Stan Spector, eds. (2010). The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays on Live Improvisation. McFarland. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-78645828-8.
2. David G. Dodd; Alan Trist (2015). The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics. Simon and Schuster. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-501-12332-0.
3. "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions - Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions - Songs, Reviews, Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic.
4. Rock Scully (2001). Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Cooper Square Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-461-66113-9.
5. John W. Scott, Stu Nixon, Mike Dolgushkin (2015). Dead Base 50. Watermark Press. p. 578. ISBN 978-0-692-47093-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
6. Scott Schinder, Andy Schwartz (2008). Icons of Rock. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-313-33847-2.