“Shakedown Street” by The Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead gave their 1978 album its name from this song, a Robert Hunter lyric set to a Jerry Garcia tune, and they had already broken it in on stage: it got its first airing on August 31, 1978, at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, the same night "From the Heart of Me" debuted. Lowell George produced it for Arista, with Dan Healy co-producing and John Kahn along as associate producer.

What George and the band cooked up is the Dead's dance-floor move: a loose, rubbery funk groove, clipped chicken-scratch guitar and a strut that tips its hat to the disco floor. Fans later borrowed the title, too, calling the vendors' marketplace that sprang up outside their concerts Shakedown Street.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.