The Golden Road Grateful Dead

It only seems like there has been an endless stream of Grateful Dead compilations. In reality, there has only been a handful, and the most notable of those were released while the band was still an active recording and touring unit in the '70s – and before they had belated chart success in the late '80s, 20 years after their debut album. So, Warner/Rhino's 2003 collection The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group's career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista.

It only seems like there has been an endless stream of Grateful Dead compilations. In reality, there has only been a handful, and the most notable of those were released while the band was still an active recording and touring unit in the '70s – and before they had belated chart success in the late '80s, 20 years after their debut album. So, Warner/Rhino's 2003 collection The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group's career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista.

Over the years a number of studio rarities have been appended to the deluxe or expanded versions of The Grateful Dead’s studio albums. In addition, two critically acclaimed career-retrospective box sets—2001’s The Golden Road and 2004’s Beyond Description—further increased the number of “alternate” studio recordings available in their best fidelity. This collection (like its companion Complete Live Rarities Collection) mops up the loose ends in one spellbinding place. These tracks are best understood in context with the new digital book The Golden Road and Beyond: A Grateful Dead Primer, which has two essays written for those aforementioned box sets by the band’s longtime publicist Dennis McNally. However, you only need ears to enjoy the Scorpio Sessions versions of “Don’t Ease Me In” and “I Know You Rider,” the under-three-minute take of “Dark Star,” and the studio outtakes of “Catfish John,” “Jack-a-Roe,” and “Peggy-O.” The b-side “My Brother Esau” is a great find, while the studio rehearsal of “Touch of Grey” should interest anyone who fell under the spell of the band’s biggest hit single.

The Grateful Dead's second live release was an eponymously titled double LP whose cover bears the striking skull-and-roses visual motif that would become instantly recognizable and an indelibly linked trademark of the band. As opposed to their debut concert recording, Live/Dead (1969), this hour and ten minutes concentrates on newer material, which consisted of shorter self-contained originals and covers. Coming off of the quantum-leap success of the studio country-rock efforts Workingman's Dead (1969) and American Beauty, Grateful Dead offers up a pair of new Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter compositions – "Bertha" and "Wharf Rat" – both of which garnered a permanent place within the band's live catalog.

Only the second major career-spanning retrospective of the Dead, The Best of the Grateful Dead - released in the spring of 2015, just before a series of farewell shows in the summer - takes advantage of the extra disc 2003's The Very Best of Grateful Dead lacked. Weighing in at 32 tracks - a full 16 cuts longer than Very Best - The Best of the Grateful Dead also follows a strict chronological sequence, so it takes a little while for the psychedelic haze to lift and the Dead to settle into the rangy, rootsy groove that characterized so much of their existence - right around "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower," both from 1969's Aoxomoxoa. From there, many - but by no means all - of the group's warhorses are marched out, all in their studio incarnations…

The Grateful Dead - The Best of The Grateful Dead (2015) [2CD] {Rhino}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 999 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 380 Mb
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© 2015 Rhino / Warner | 081227955984
Rock / Psychedelic / Folk Rock / Jam Band

Only the second major career-spanning retrospective of the Dead, The Best of the Grateful Dead – released in the spring of 2015, just before a series of farewell shows in the summer – takes advantage of the extra disc 2003's The Very Best of Grateful Dead lacked. Weighing in at 32 tracks – a full 16 cuts longer than Very Best – The Best of the Grateful Dead also follows a strict chronological sequence, so it takes a little while for the psychedelic haze to lift and the Dead to settle into the rangy, rootsy groove that characterized so much of their existence – right around "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower," both from 1969's Aoxomoxoa. From there, many – but by no means all – of the group's warhorses are marched out, all in their studio incarnations.