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Grateful 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 ...
read moreGrateful 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 ...
read moreGrateful Dead: Ready Or Not
by Doug Collette
The curators of the Grateful Dead's Ready Or Not have done the band a favor in producing this title. The band's own attempts were futile in recording a studio followup to Built to Last (Arista, 1989), but the group nonetheless kept composing new material and playing it in concert during their final years of touring. Captured from the stage between 1992 and 1995 at various locations by engineers Dan Healy and John Cutler (then mastered by David Glasser), ...
read moreGrateful Dead: Saint of Circumstance: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, 6/17/91 (3CD)
by Doug Collette
Hearing Grateful Dead's Saint of Circumstance is a significantly different experience than seeing it. Both the audio and video recordings of Giants Stadium June 17, 1991 are part of a larger box set, appropriately subtitled Shall We Go, You and I, While We Can? (Rhino, 2019). But the film, featured as last year's annual 'Meetup at the Movies' theatrical screenings, posits a Jerry Garcia in marked contrast to the figure of years just prior, as captured, for instance, on Crimson ...
read moreDead & Company at The NYCB Live at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
by Mike Perciaccante
Dead & Company NYCB Live at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum The Fall Fun Run Tour Uniondale, NY November 5, 2019 With the former Nassau Coliseum smelling like a mixture of pot, patchouli and incense with the vast majority of the attendees wearing something featuring tie-dye colors, the latest incarnation of the Grateful Dead, Dead & Co. took the stage and delivered a concert that had the multi-generational audience dancing, acting out the tunes ...
read moreGrateful Dead: Pacific Northwest '73-'74: Believe It If You Need It
by Doug Collette
Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux long ago proved himself a past master at formulating composites of performancess based on more expansive releases from the iconic band's vault. Going back to the triple set culled from The Complete Recordings Fillmore West 1969 (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2005) to its companion piece double set from Europe '72: The Complete Recordings (Rhino, 2011). The archivist has shown himself intimately familiar with the group's music, allowing him to pick and choose tracks (here from May and ...
read moreAnthem Of The Sun 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
by Doug Collette
In an essay dense with historical detail and rich in provocative allusions, Steve Silberman accurately and vividly recounts the sequence of events involved in the original production of the Grateful Dead's second studio album Anthem of the Sun. The writer recounts a herculean task, the comparable likes of which has resulted in this 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Continuing the series of milestone editions initiated last year with the group's eponymous debut. this double CD set is comprised of both the ...
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