Mickey Hart Explored the Grateful Useless’s Hip-Hop Aspect In 1974

In 1981, The Conflict embraced their love of hip-hop and had Grandmaster Flash and the Livid 5 open a number of concert events for them in New York Metropolis. It’s a transfer that displays effectively on The Conflict — and fewer so on their followers, lots of whom had been less-than-thrilled to see considered one of hip-hop’s formative teams, and had been vocal of their disapproval. However stated punk band wasn’t the one beloved group rooted in rock music who sought to show their followers on to a really totally different style.

In a brand new article for Far Out, Tyler Golsen makes a convincing argument that Mickey Hart — sure, the drummer of the Grateful Useless — drew inspiration from the rap scene whereas recording music all the best way again in 1974. Golsen factors to a recording of “Fireplace on the Mountain” from that 12 months wherein “Hart himself took lead vocal duties, opting to rap the verses as a substitute of sing them to a melody.”

Golsen tracks how Hart’s rapped verse has come up repeatedly through the years, each in his solo initiatives and together with his work within the Grateful Useless and Useless and Firm. This has come up as lately as earlier this month, with Hart reprising his work at a Useless and Firm present in Boulder, Colorado in July 2023.

If we’re going to discover a possible connection between the Grateful Useless and the earliest days of hip-hop, it’s price mentioning {that a} reference to the previous does present up on The Final Poets’ 1971 tune “This Is Insanity” — and The Final Poets did play a major function within the improvement of hip-hop. That stated, it’s not a really flattering reference, with the group making lyrical allusions to “psychedelic nightmares” and “the sanctimonious sounds of the white rock group The Grateful Useless.”

Did Hart have this in thoughts when he entered the studio in 1974? It may be considered one of rock music’s everlasting mysteries.