Song · The Grateful Dead
“Alabama Getaway” by The Grateful Dead
From the album Go to Heaven (1980)
“Alabama Getaway” by The Grateful Dead appears on 6 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 1991 and 2023. It was first released in 1980 on the album Go to Heaven. Its best result is #394 on the 99.1 PLR Big 500 (2022).
"Alabama Getaway" led off the singles from Go to Heaven, the Grateful Dead's 1980 album, and it's the Dead with the throttle wide open: a Berry-esque rocker with Jerry Garcia's music, Robert Hunter's words and Brent Mydland tearing off a solo on the Minimoog. Hunter spun an outlaw yarn thick with Old West imagery and left enough of it hazy that listeners often wrongly heard it as a comment on Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux, who had only just left the band.
Gary Lyons produced it, with Betty Cantor-Jackson among the engineers. Rolling Stone's J.M. De Matteis gave it credit for getting in and out fast, a lesson he figured a few of the album's longer-winded tracks could have learned, and the song stayed a fixture of the band's shows into the early '80s.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
Classic Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 470 | WNEW-FM | WNEW Firecracker 500 (1991) | 500 |
| 2011 | 784 | 100.7 WZLX | 100.7 WZLX Top 1100 Countdown (2011) | 1100 |
| 2012 | 1175 | 100.7 WZLX | 100.7 WZLX Top 1200 Countdown (2012) | 1200 |
| 2020 | 643 | 102.5 KZOK | KZOK Classic Rock Top 1025 (2020) | 1025 |
| 2022 | 394 | 99.1 PLR | 99.1 PLR Big 500 (2022) | 500 |
| 2023 | 842 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
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