Steal Your Face (October ’74 performances, released 1976, UA/GDR)
This one definitely takes the Who Needs It award among all the Dead’s live CDs. It’s mostly first-set material sequenced very strangely and not even recorded particularly well. There are a few decent selections—“Cold Rain and Snow” and “Sugaree” are probably my favorites—but there’s nothing here that can’t be found in much better live versions elsewhere. Not recommended.
Blues for Allah (1975, GDR)
One of the Dead’s most unified-sounding albums, it was born in Bob Weir’s then-new recording studio during the Dead’s hiatus from performing. The material represents a distinct new phase in the band’s development, with the triumvirate of “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot” > “Franklin’s Tower” leading the way. There’s plenty of strong ensemble playing on those tunes, the instrumental “King Solomon’s Marbles” and parts of the strange but intriguing “Blues for Allah” suite. “Crazy Fingers” is as delicate as a dew-covered rose petal. And though most of these tunes would develop greatly onstage over the next couple of years, there is still something quite exquisite about this album—it’s electric chamber music at its finest!
One From the Vault: Great American Music Hall, S.F., 8/17/75 (Released 1992, GDR)
This famous show, one of four during the Dead’s hiatus, took place at an 800-seat San Francisco club in front of an invited audience of Dead family and friends a week before Blues for Allah came out, and was broadcast nationally over the radio. Dan Healy remixed the tapes and it sounds magnificent. It includes all the songs on Blues for Allah, as well as “It Must Have Been the Roses,” “Sugaree,” “Eyes of the World,” and a few others. Parts of it sound a little constrained for my taste—after all the band had not been gigging during this period—but it’s certainly well played. I especially like Keith’s keyboard work on the record, and Garcia lays into the new material with admirable fire and conviction. The twenty-one-minute “Blues for Allah” capper is way strange; to this day I don’t know how I feel about that suite. Two CDs.
What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been (1977, WB) 1⁄2
Longer and better than Skeletons from the Closet, this collection from their Warner Bros. years has some of the requisite “hits” and a few unusual selections and baffling choices. Collectors might want it for the single version of “Dark Star”; otherwise, save your money. Two CDs.
Terrapin Station (1977, Arista)
The music on this album is so precisely played and cleanly recorded it scarcely sounds like the Grateful Dead. Credit producer Keith Olsen with making a solid commercial effort. “Estimated Prophet” and the Terrapin suite are the primary draws here, but the latter, with its Paul Buckmaster arrangement and very British chorale, is a bit overripe. The disco “Dancing in the Streets” has none of the charm of the band’s live versions of the tune. “Passenger” has a nice kick to it and features a sharp Garcia slide guitar line. Personally I’d like to hear the pre-Buckmaster mixes of “Terrapin,” if only to hear the drum duel between Mickey and Billy before it was buried under completely inappropriate dross.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 3: Pembroke Pines, Florida, 5/22/77 (Released 1995, GDR) 1⁄2
The highly regarded spring ’77 tour produced so many superb shows it’s a shame that only one has made it to CD so far. But at least it’s a great one. The first disc of the two-CD set features an excellent “Sugaree,” Weir’s jazzy “Lazy Lightning” > “Supplication,” a “Dancing in the Streets” that completely blows away the Terrapin Station version, and “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot” > “Franklin’s Tower.” The real fireworks are in the second set, however, where we find transcendent versions of “Estimated Prophet,” “Eyes of the World,” “Wharf Rat,” and then part of the Terrapin suite followed by a heartfelt “Morning Dew.” A few mistakes here and there, but still fabulous. Two CDs.
Dick’s Pick’s Vol. 15 : Englishtown, New Jersey 9/3/77 (Released 1999, GDR)
The Dead were famous for blowing The Big Ones (Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Egypt) but at this concert, played for more than 100,000 people at a race track in New Jersey, they rose to the occasion and kicked ass. Set one is not my favorite selection of tunes, for the most part, but the playing is often spectacular, particularly on the definitive versions of “Mississippi Half-Step” and “The Music Never Stopped.” The second set is a scorcher, too, with a rousing “Bertha” > “Good Lovin’,” charged run-throughs of “Estimated Prophet” and “Eyes of the World,” a relentless nineteen-minute “Not Fade Away” and a “Terrapin” encore. There’s an energy to this entire affair that is positively electric, and something of a departure from the typical, somewhat mellow ’77 vibe. A great show.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 10: Winterland 12/29/77 (released 1998, GDR) 1⁄2
The historic aspect of this show is that it marked the return of “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” to the repertoire for the first time since the October ’74 “retirement” shows. Anyone who was at Winterland that night can tell you how special a moment it was when, during the second set, the “Playing in the Band” jam dissembled and fell off to almost nothing, and then the familiar opening of “China Cat” emerged—mirage-like at first—from the void. It is a great “China Cat” > “Rider” (especially the “Rider”), though on the CD (and thus the source soundboard tape) Garcia’s vocals are somewhat buried in the mix, mitigating some of its power. The entire second set (disc two) has a remarkable flow, from the opening “Bertha” > “Good Lovin’” through the final reprise of “Playing in the Band.” I’m a big fan of the slower, more easy-going ’77 versions of “Not Fade Away,” and the one on here is a pretty good one. Disc one is the entire first set of 12/29 and though there’s nothing that’s going to blow anyone away—the set list is pedestrian—it’s all well-played with occasional flashes of brilliance. Disc three presents the double encore—a concise “Terrapin” along with “Johnny B. Goode”—and then jumps ahead in time to the second set the next night (12/30) for an outstanding sequence of “Estimated Prophet” >”Eyes of the World” > “St. Stephen” > “Sugar Magnolia” that has as much energy, if not more, as most of the 12/29 show.
Shakedown Street (1978, Arista) 1⁄2
There are plenty of good songs on this Lowell George-produced studio effort—“Fire on the Mountain,” “Stagger Lee,” “If I Had the World to Give,” “I Need a Miracle,” and the title cut—but the performances are somewhat lackluster and it’s devoid of any sort of cohesiveness. “Fire on the Mountain” and “Shakedown Street” are so abbreviated they never approach their potential. It’s a mystery to me why the Dead were unable to cut loose in the studio the way counterparts like the Allmans and Little Feat could. This is my least favorite Dead studio album.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 5: Oakland Auditorium Arena, 12/26/79 (Released 1996, GDR)
This three-CD set is nicely representative of the early days of Brent’s tenure with the group. The first set (disc one) doesn’t contain many of my own favorites, but it’s very well played and filled with energy. Disc two is a mind-blower, however, with sparkling versions of “Uncle John’s Band” (I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a better one) and “Estimated Prophet,” lots of inventive jamming after “Estimated” and “He’s Gone,” and a gritty, rough-and-tumble “Other One.” The third disc contains a rare late-set “Brokedown Palace” and a surprise encore—“Shakedown Street” into the final instrumental/vocal reprise of “Uncle John’s Band”; a slam-bang one-two punch.
Go to Heaven (1980, Arista) 1⁄2
Producer Gary Lyons did a nice job of recording the band; unfortunately most of the material hadn’t been played much onstage yet, so the songs sound “young” in Grateful Dead terms. The zippy “Alabama Getaway,” which was nearly a hit single, is still fun and frisky. Most of the other high points are in Weir’s songs—“Lost Sailor,” “Saint of Circumstance,” and “Feel Like a Stranger.”
Reckoning (1980 performances, released 1981, Arista) 1⁄2
A wonderful live acoustic record culled from the Dead’s fifteenth anniversary concerts at the Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall. (You can tell which songs were recorded where by listening to how noisy the crowd is—the New York cuts have more whistling, clapping and a higher noise floor in general.) Originally a double-album, it’s now a single CD (with “Oh, Babe It Ain’t No Lie” dropped from the original lineup so it could fit on one disc). It mixes traditional folk and country tunes such as “Deep Elem Blues,” “The Race Is On,” “Rosalie McFall,” and “Been All Around This World,” with cleverly acousticized Dead tunes including “China Doll,” “To Lay Me Down,” “Bird Song,” “Cassidy,” and “Ripple.” A personal favorite; great on Sunday mornings!
Dead Set (1980 performances, released 1981, Arista) 1⁄2
I was tremendously disappointed by this electric counterpart to Reckoning when it came out. It consists mostly of unadventurous (and edited) versions of first-set tunes, though the band stretches out a bit on “Feel Like a Stranger,” “Franklin’s Tower,” and “Fire on the Mountain.” A double-album when it was released, it now fits on one-CD (minus “Space”) and it flows much better as a show on CD. But considering what was available to the Dead from the Radio City and Warfield shows, this still feels overly safe and tame.
Dicks Picks Vol. 13: Nassau Coliseum 5/6/81 (Released 1999, GDR)
It’s obvious that Dick Latvala picked this show mostly because of the long, furious jam following “He’s Gone” (which Weir dedicates to Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands, who died that day). There are hints of “Caution” in the jam and a fine Spanish section as well; overall it’s a serious group excursion into the unknown. The rest of the show only occasionally matches that level of intensity. The first set is wild and woolly, with a good blend of up-tempo and slower numbers and a powerful “Let It Grow” near the end that flies all over the place. On disc two, the beginning of the second set, there appear to be just four songs. On “High Time” (a treat at any show) you can hear that Garcia is very slightly out of sync with the rest of the band, and that feeling crops up at other points in the show as well. But disc two also contains a “hidden” unlisted filler track (which begins almost two minutes after the supposed “end” of track four, “Saint of Circumstance”)—a version of “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain.” It starts out very slowly, but by mid-”Scarlet” the band is cooking, and then the jam between “Scarlet” and “Fire” is the Dead in exploration mode, and the “Fire on the Mountain” has many exciting moments.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 6: Hartford Civic Center, 10/14/83 (Released 1996, GDR) 1⁄2
The weakest of the Dick’s Picks series in my estimation, this three-CD set still hits some amazing peaks on “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain,” “Estimated Prophet” > “Eyes of the World” and in a Spanish jam before “The Other One.” A few flubs here and there, and the sound isn’t as good as on other CDs in the series. Jerry and Brent both sound hoarse here and there, making some of the harmonies pretty difficult to listen to. There are dozens of superior shows from the early ’80s waiting to be tapped.
In the Dark (1987, Arista)
Considering most of the songs on this record were ones the band had been playing for several years, the performances sound surprisingly fresh. “Touch of Grey” is here, of course, as are “Throwing Stones,” “West L.A. Fadeaway” and “Hell in a Bucket,” to name a few. If I were to buy one late-period studio CD, however, it would be The Arista Years, which contains the best tracks from each of their Arista albums, including five from In the Dark.
Dylan & the Dead (1987 performances, released 1989, CBS) 1⁄2
Taken from the ’87 Dead/Dylan tour, this generally disappointing disc only hints at the synergy the pairing occasionally achieved. Dylan made the selections himself, so who knows what his criteria were? My favorite cuts are the simmering “Slow Train Coming” and “Gotta Serve Somebody.” “All Along the Watchtower” features some Garcia guitar pyrotechnics, but “Joey,” about mobster Joe Gallo, is lumbering and tedious, even more than on Dylan’s Desire album.
Built to Last (1989, Arista) 1⁄2
The Dead’s final studio album is a motley affair dominated by Brent’s songs, two of which—“Just a Little Light” and “I Will Take You Home”—are excellent. The percolating “Foolish Heart” is Garcia’s best track on the album. “Standing on the Moon” is a great song, but it isn’t nearly as emotional on the album as it always was live. Putting “Blow Away” and “Victim or the Crime” on the same album was more than I could bear when the record came out, but I came to like “Victim” for the most part. The best songs from this CD are also collected on The Arista Years.
Terrapin Station Benefit CD (1990 performance, released 1997, GDR)
A limited edition three-CD set put out to raise funds for the Dead’s prospective Terrapin Station museum/performance space, this beautiful package features the entire 3/15/90 show from the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland, which fell on Phil’s fiftieth birthday. It’s a rip-roaring good time from beginning to end: The first disc contains fine versions of “Jack Straw,” “Sugaree,” “Althea,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and “Cassidy.” The second set, which is spread over two discs, offers “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider,” a majestic “Terrapin” worthy of naming the CD after, and “Wharf Rat,” among other delights. It’s one of those shows where you can hear that the band is having a great time onstage, and their joy and playfulness is infectious. Garcia even plays a few notes of “Happy Birthday” to his bandmate at the close of “Just like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” If I had to choose just one of the four 1990 live CD sets available, I’d take this one.
Dozin’ at the Knick (1990 performances, released 1995, GDR)
“The Knick” is Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York, one of the best East Coast venues the Dead frequented in the ’90s. This three-CD set was taken from the band’s March ’90 shows there. For me, the first disc is spoiled by two Brent tunes I never cared for, “Never Trust a Woman” and “Blow Away”; much better are “Dupree’s Diamond Blues,” “Just a Little Light,” and “Jack-A-Roe.” Disc two is outstanding, with “Playing in the Band” segueing into “Uncle John’s Band,” and a powerful “Terrapin” that leads into a long, melodic jam before “drums.” Disc three contains the post -“drums” of two different shows (3/24, 25)—one featuring well-played versions of “The Wheel,” “Watchtower,” and “Stella Blue”; the other “I Will Take You Home,” “Goin’ Down the Road,” and “Black Peter.” Solid all the way around.
Without a Net (1989 and ’90 performances, released 1990, Arista) 1⁄2
Considering the wealth of great multitracked material there was to choose from, one could certainly quibble with a number of the choices made (by Phil) for this two-CD live set. Still, most of what’s here is quite good, especially “Let It Grow,” “Bird Song,” “Eyes of the World” (with guest Branford Marsalis), and “Help on the Way.” “Dear Mr. Fantasy” stands as a nice tribute to Brent, but the versions of “Looks Like Rain,” “Victim or the Crime,” and “Saturday Night” seemed unnecessary. For my money, the other three 1990 live CDs surpass this one.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 9: Madison Square Garden, 9/16/90 (Released 1997, GDR)
Like many people, I would have loved to have seen either (or both) of the final two Garden shows (9/19 and 9/20) from this epic series come out on CD; in my view they are superior shows. But this set still shows the septet with Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby at its combustible best during what many acknowledge was one of the Dead’s best runs in the ’90s. Excellent versions of “Cassidy,” “Deal,” and “Cold Rain and Snow” appear in the first set, though that set is marred for me by an annoying reverb slap on one of the snare drums that gives a number of songs a leaden quality, and over-loud keyboard lines by newcomer Vince (not his fault; it’s the mix). Fortunately that echo-y snare is nowhere to be heard in the second set, wh
ich is a marvel, loaded with spectacular jamming after “He’s Gone,” before and after “Standing on the Moon” and during “Iko Iko.” Garcia coaxes all sorts of interesting MIDI sounds out of his axe, from horns to pipe organ. “Morning Dew” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” are delivered with great authority and sensitivity.
Dick’s Picks Vol. 17: Boston Garden, 9/25/91 (Released 2000, GDR)
Another somewhat unconventional choice from a famous run of shows (9/26 would have been the obvious crowd-pleaser), this three-CD set captures the Hornsby-Welnick era in full bloom. The septet has a big, dense sound, with Bruce laying down a commanding, sometimes ornate carpet on the grand piano, while Vince pads around the edges adding color. It’s a strong show from beginning to end, with power-packed, nearly flawless versions of many favorites, including “Help on the Way,” “The Music Never Stopped,” “Crazy Fingers” (one of the finest modern versions). “Playing in the Band” and “Terrapin” (which is followed by an exciting jam sans Garcia). “China Doll” never quite finds its correct tempo, but otherwise it’s all quite wondrous—sort of modern rococo Dead.
Infrared Roses (1991, GDR)
Produced and assembled by Bob Bralove, Infrared Roses is a fascinating hour of “drums” and “space” distilled from late ’80s and a few 1990 concerts. Most of the pieces (which were titled by Robert Hunter) were constructed by Bralove from multiple performances and there’s plenty of musical diversity here. At its heart it’s completely free-form improvisation, which gives the CD an exciting and unpredictable edge. Branford Marsalis appears on “Apollo at the Ritz.” Sonically it’s a masterpiece. Not for every taste.
Garcia: An American Life Page 78
