'SHAKEDOWN STREET' Musical recalls Grateful Dead tunes

The play uses the songs to help move along its plot.
By MARK DE LA VINA
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The frothy pop of ABBA and the glossy nostalgia of the Beach Boys might be perfect for the New York stage, but a musical with songs from the Grateful Dead?
Though it may sound as likely as Robert Preston playing Hacky Sack, that's just what's planned by San Jose-born playwright Michael Norman Mann. "Shakedown Street," his new play featuring songs of the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, will receive its world premiere at the New York International Fringe Festival on Aug. 12.
The musical spoofs gritty pulp novels and black-and-white detective movies of the 1940s with a reinterpretation of Dead favorites such as "Truckin"' and "U.S. Blues." Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist who worked closely with Jerry Garcia, also has written two new songs, in addition to dusting off and inserting four previously unreleased tunes, some written by Greg Anton of the group Zero.
"Shakedown Street," set in San Francisco in the summer of 1941, traces the contorted path of Duke Bishop, a down-in-the-dirt gumshoe who encounters a femme fatale lounge singer, a crooked judge, an oily political wannabe and a dishonorable cop while attempting to crack an art-theft ring.
"The Grateful Dead is a band that interprets these songs in one fashion, and Robert Hunter and I are interpreting them in another -- for the stage," Mann says. "I feel Hunter is a poet, before a lyricist. I worked with the lyrics as poetry, rather than thinking about these as Grateful Dead songs."
One way
Adds Hunter, "It's my hope that the songs stand on their own right. The Grateful Dead's performances were only one way to interpret them, possibly the best, but only one way."
Mann developed his collaborative relationship with Hunter while writing "Cumberland Blues," a dark, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"-style family drama set in a dying coal-mining town at the turn of the 20th century. The musical, which featured such Dead songs as "Touch of Gray" and "Friend of the Devil," had its world premiere at San Jose Stage Company in 1998 before moving to San Francisco later that year. Hunter also composed new material for that show.
"Shakedown Street" becomes the latest musical in a long line cobbling songs of pop artists into a stage show.
The insanely popular "Mamma Mia," the ABBA jukebox-as-musical comedy, has lured fans of the group into theaters. Other productions include "Good Vibrations," the Beach Boys songfest; Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp's "Movin' Out"; and "Lennon," the musical tribute that premiered in San Francisco in April.
Since "Beatlemania" hit Broadway in 1977, playwrights and pop stars have teamed to showcase the music of everyone from shock rockers (Kiss) to cult bands (the Shaggs). But many of the shows were little more than revues.
By contrast, "Shakedown" uses classic Grateful Dead songs to propel a plot. Though Mann is credited with the show's libretto, he and Hunter collaborated on several scenes designed to seamlessly introduce Hunter's new songs.