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Grateful Dead: Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses)
by Doug Collette
Grateful Dead, the second album of concert recordings released by the iconic band for Warner Brothers Records, resides squarely in the sweet spot between the expansive likes of its corollary, Live Dead (Warner Bros., 1969) and the economical studio recordings this group issued in between, Workingman's Dead (Warner Bros., 1970) and American Beauty (Warner Bros., 1970). Likewise, this 50th Anniversary Edition not only expands upon the original title, appearing remastered by engineer David Glasser to great effect (more full and ...
Continue ReadingGrateful Dead: American Beauty: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
by Doug Collette
If it's true the Grateful Dead epitomize the counter culture of the Sixties, it's also true the iconic group embraced the following decade on its very own terms, at least at the outset of the period. Workingman's Dead (Warner Bros., 1970) represents an authoritative and confident statement of artistic purpose, while its companion piece, American Beauty (Warner Bros., 1970), is an even more staunch and exquisite declaration of style, one based on folk and country roots almost diametrically opposed to ...
Continue ReadingGrateful Dead: Workingman's Dead - 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
by Doug Collette
Released on-line around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Workingman's Dead (Warner Bros., 1970), The Angel's Share of over two-and-a-half hours of unreleased studio outtakes and fly-on-the wall conversations from the recording sessions somewhat give the lie to the expeditious cost-effective time the Grateful Dead spent recording their landmark album. But it's a profound paradox that the delicious simplicity the likes of which permeates the iconic band's fourth studio effort is usually the result of meticulous ...
Continue ReadingAllman Brothers Band: Trouble No More: 50th Anniversary Collection
by Doug Collette
The gold-embossed lettering on the front and back cover of the roughly 5" by 7" slipcase enclosing the Allman Brothers Band's box set Trouble No More belies its otherwise generic art work. Yet the graphic design isn't all that gives the lie to an otherwise positive first impression gleaned from 50th Anniversary Collection. A glance at the sixty-one tune track-listing plus a cursory perusal of Kirk West's stellar photos inside the eighty-eight page booklet are also somewhat deceiving: while this ...
Continue ReadingBob Weir: The Music Never Stopped
by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
It has been said before but there really has never been a group of musicians quite like the Grateful Dead. And as the years have passed on, I can no longer, as I did then, take their ability to turn sound into magic for granted. It didn't happen at every performance, but when the heavens opened, a perfect harmony existed between audience, band and sound that became a phenomenon beyond the written word. It was part of the elusiveness that ...
Continue ReadingBeyond Description: Grateful Dead 1973-1989
by Doug Collette
Serendipity is dead... Grateful Dead that is. A successor to the similarly massive and comparably gorgeous box set The Golden Road (1965-1972) , Beyond Description (1973-1989) depicts the latter day Grateful Dead's utter and perhaps naïve willingness to surrender to their muse for inspiration, whether it be on the stage or in the studio. It becomes quite clear before you are even half-way through these dozen extended remastered CDs that, when this band was struck with inspiration, there ...
Continue ReadingThe Other Ones: The Strange Remain
by AAJ Staff
For over 30 years, The Grateful Dead criss-crossed the country, the house band at party after party in countless cities for a roaming community best known as “Deadheads;" their common bond, to gather and celebrate. Skeptics often write off The Grateful Dead, dissing their fans, attacking the band's now mythical drug habits and citing their poor output of studio recordings, without ever really taking the time to consider the massive body of work they left behind. In this writer's opinion ...
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