Grateful Dead Beauty

UNIQUE 1970 BROACAST FROM CROSBY, GARCIA, WEIR AND LESH 1970 was an exciting time in the music world. David Crosby was riding high on the early success of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with two wildly successful studio albums and a plethora of legendary performances at the likes of Woodstock and The Monterey Pop Festival under his belt. The Grateful Dead has just released arguably their two greatest albums, Workingman s Dead and American Beauty , and were fast gaining a reputation as the best live act around. Towards the end of the year these two creative forces combined for a one-off concert at The Matrix in San Francisco. Billed under the curious moniker David & The Dorks, it would mark the only time that a band featuring David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart would take to the stage together, and thankfully this broadcast recording still exists, enabling fans, even today, to enjoy a unique musical event. Performing a wide variety of material including tracks from Crosby s then upcoming solo debut If Only I Could Remember My Name , plus further cuts from across his catalogue, including many songs not at the time released on record, plus an inspiring version of the Dead classic Bertha , and a couple of blues traditionals, this superb CD is testament to the quite staggering talent and creativity of these top drawer musical giants.

Grateful Dead, live from Northrop Auditorium, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, MN October 19th 1971.
Combining psychedelia with their chilled style, as heard on 1970's Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, 1971 saw the Dead at their greatest live, performing a huge number of fine sets with extraordinary length. This live concert, from the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium on October 19th that year - broadcast on KQRS-FM radio - was no exception and saw them rip through material from the length of their career up to that point, much of which had not featured on studio albums. Presented here in its entirety, accompanied with background notes and archival imagery.

30 year spanning collection of essential live tracks + an early "pre-Dead" Emergency Crew track featuring Pig Pen! "30 Trips Around the Sun: The Definitive Story (1965-1995)" serves as an introductory sampler to the Dead’s live canon, including 30 unreleased performances - one from each concert in the boxed set - along with the 1965 recording of “Caution”.

EXCEPTIONAL LATE SUMMER ’71 SHOW FROM THE LAST DAYS OF THE ORIGINAL 5-PIECE GRATEFUL DEAD • Just a month after closing down the Fillmore venues (both East and West) Bill Graham presented this two-night stand at the Berkeley Community Theater, with the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage. These were marathon shows for Jerry Garcia, who was onstage with both bands. These were to be some of the last ever performances by the original five-piece Grateful Dead line-up. • Just a few weeks after this show, frontman Pigpen would be diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, following years of alcohol abuse. The following month the group would begin rehearsals with Keith Godchaux, changing the sound of the band forever. Pigpen would return the following year, but would not be healthy enough to join the fall tour that October.

Due July 10th, Workingman's Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available as a three-CD set and digital equivalents featuring the original album with newly remastered sound, plus an unreleased complete concert recorded on February 21, 1971 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY.

So much more than just the archetypal jam band, the Grateful Dead grew to become an artistic and cultural institution that existed entirely on their own terms. While the band initially came out of a psychedelic revolution in the Bay Area's musically and chemically exploratory mid-'60s, they quickly evolved from their acid rock beginnings, incorporating elements of Americana and Bakersfield country into gently majestic albums like 1970's American Beauty. Their live shows were completely separate from their studio output, based on freeform improvisation borrowed from jazz and made up of extended performances and set list variations that ensured no two shows were exactly like. Though the band recorded only 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1989, an entire counterculture formed around their endless touring, and they even broke through to the mainstream with an unlikely radio hit in the MTV era.

So much more than just the archetypal jam band, the Grateful Dead grew to become an artistic and cultural institution that existed entirely on their own terms. While the band initially came out of a psychedelic revolution in the Bay Area's musically and chemically exploratory mid-'60s, they quickly evolved from their acid rock beginnings, incorporating elements of Americana and Bakersfield country into gently majestic albums like 1970's American Beauty.

So much more than just the archetypal jam band, the Grateful Dead grew to become an artistic and cultural institution that existed entirely on their own terms. While the band initially came out of a psychedelic revolution in the Bay Area's musically and chemically exploratory mid-'60s, they quickly evolved from their acid rock beginnings, incorporating elements of Americana and Bakersfield country into gently majestic albums like 1970's American Beauty. Their live shows were completely separate from their studio output, based on freeform improvisation borrowed from jazz and made up of extended performances and set list variations that ensured no two shows were exactly like. Though the band recorded only 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1989, an entire counterculture formed around their endless touring, and they even broke through to the mainstream with an unlikely radio hit in the MTV era. The Grateful Dead effectively ended with bandleader Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, but their presence never faded. Spin-off projects continued decades later, and regularly released archival recordings of the group's more than 2,000 concerts help new generations of Deadheads discover the band's sound, spectacle, and community perennially.