Mr. Charlie has the dubious distinction of being the only song played at every single show on the Europe 72 tour. When the box set came out there were jokes made about how many Mr. Charlies were included and trying to decide on a favorite.
All joking aside, Mr. Charlie is a fun song. It’s got a cool chorus with a bunch of nonsense lyrics (is that where Phish learned it? I kid! I kid!) and a great groove. Sure it’s not a 30 minute Lovelight rave up, but it’s more than setlist filler too. I really like the shorter, more structured blues numbers that Pigpen sang and this is a great example of an original instead of the covers that he seemed to typically sing.
So instead of having to choose my favorite Mr. Charlie from Europe 72, I opted for a version from one of the “warm up” gigs for that tour: the Academy of Music in New York.
[Standard performance history note: Mr. Charlie was played 49 times total between July 1971 and May 1972. Of those 49, 22 were part of the Europe 72 tour. The band never played the song again after that tour.]
Speaking of previews, here comes a seminal version of the Pigpen groover, sounding ripe and ready as ever. Check out Weir’s excellent figures during the first solo segment! The whole band in fact were all over this vibe, maybe better than in the officially-released version. Chooba-chooba, indeed! Pig was re-asserting himself in the band at the time, and it is such a damn shame he didn’t live to develop this newfound prominence. Anyway, dig this version fully. It definitely adds to the huge, blurry picture that is the history of the Grateful Dead.