While there are no tapes, there was a lot of press coverage. Buffalo’s presence in “Truckin’” owes to it being the opening night of Hunter’s March 1970 tour with the Dead that ended with the writing of “Truckin’.” One of the most infamous untaped (or perhaps uncirculated) shows in Dead history, when the band jammed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. According to Hunter’s journal, the Houston reference came from a show in “ 69 or ‘70 when cops in battlegear swarmed the stage to pull the plug,” likely this gig from February 1970. Robert Hunter’s lyrics to “Truckin’” make reference to various events in the band’s life circa 1970. Crumb brought the phrase “ Keep on Truckin’” into the counterculture with a 1968 sequence in the debut issue of Zap Comix that illustrated the lyrics to Blind Boy Fuller’s “Truckin’ My Blues Away.” Though it didn’t refer to actual trucks, it easily mutated into the version seen on truck-flaps everywhere. References to truckin’ to show up in many songs from the late 1920s and ‘30s. And if you haven’t, you can learn (or catch up on the origins). If you’re into Lindy Hops, you may have even trucked yourself. Originating in Harlem in the ‘20s but with tendrils stretching back into the murky era of minstrel shows, truckin’ was a move from Black dance culture. “Truckin’” is a Grateful Dead classic with deep roots, autobiographical lyrics, and a history of big jams, an iconic album closer that provided a preview of what was to come.
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