China>Rider - The Early Years 

   The first China>Rider we have was played on 9/30/69, 40 years ago - these two songs have a tangled history in the early years of the Dead, so I'll offer a brief introduction to how their performances evolved up to '74. (Note that this is not a guide to best-of versions; in fact, I won't even be mentioning the best versions.)  

Our story begins with I Know You Rider, which first emerged as a series of floating blues verses in the '30s. In the late '50s it started circulating as a folk song and was covered by a number of people in the early '60s; Garcia picked up the song from the folk scene and brought it to the Dead - possibly they had even been doing it in the Mother McCree's jugband. Some of the alternate lyrics of other versions are here: http://www.whitegum.com/introjs.htm?/songfile/I1KNOWYO.HTM The lyrics the Dead chose are very evocative in their compressed blues style, being somehow foreboding and hopeful at the same time. There's an excellent discussion of the origins of Rider here: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=40592&messages=16