Grateful Dead Dave's Pickes

Anthem of the Sun is the second studio album by the Grateful Dead, released in 1968. It is the first album to feature second drummer Mickey Hart, who joined the band in September 1967. In 2003, the album was ranked number 287 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann's description of the production process succinctly describes the listening experience of the unique album as well: "…Jerry [Garcia] and Phil [Lesh] went into the studio with [Dan] Healy and, like mad scientists, they started splicing all the versions together, creating hybrids that contained the studio tracks and various live parts, stitched together from different shows, all in the same song - one rendition would dissolve into another and sometimes they were even stacked on top of each other…It was easily our most experimental record, it was groundbreaking in its time, and it remains a psychedelic listening experience to this day."

Terrapin Station is the ninth studio album by the Grateful Dead, and was originally released on July 27, 1977. This is the first Grateful Dead album on Arista Records after releasing other albums on its own Grateful Dead Records and their previous label, Warner Bros. According to Dennis McNally, Jerry Garcia conceived the idea for the song "Terrapin Station Part One" while driving across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The album was released for the first time on CD in 1987 by Arista Records before being re-released in 2000 by BMG International. It was then remastered, expanded, and released as part of the Beyond Description (1973-1989) box set in October 2004 with studio outtakes and live songs.

Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades. The object of adoration for popular music's most fervent and celebrated fan following – the Deadheads, their numbers and devotion legendary in their own right – they were the ultimate cult band, creating a self-styled universe all their own; for the better part of their career orbiting well outside of the mainstream, the Dead became superstars solely on their own terms, tie-dyed pied pipers whose epic, free-form live shows were rites of passage for an extended family of listeners who knew no cultural boundaries.

I remember the venue almost like and old fort with roses everywhere. We came to the site and Wavy Gravy showed us where to camp. Ken Kesey was here as well as a couple other big figures of the counterculture. I think because of Mickey's 40th. During drums a double rainbow appeared. Every time it looked like rain the band would stop and then come back even stronger from their breaks. I saw more outdoor shows in 83 than all the years combined. I have goose bumps even typing this from the memories. - xxuncle johnxx, Dead.net

Garcia still works wonders on the guitar. His obbligato behind rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's vocal on the gun-fighter ballad, "El Paso," ranged from flamenco figures to blues lines. The latter created a humorous and musically interesting mixture. Slipping around the sunny Mexican-American rhythms were the riffs and diving glissandos of a music that grew up among the chilly winds of Chicago. - Cliff Radel, Enquirer Pop Music Critic. The vocals and instruments blended perfectly into one cohesive unit. The artists themselves seemed to enjoy playing and the concentration they commanded was unshakable in the fan-filled Coliseum. - Douglas Fechter, The NewsRecord Cincy, The Nati, Paris Of America, call it what you will but when the Grateful Dead came to town, they certainly helped propel her to "Queen of the West." The previously unreleased complete show from the Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, OH 10/2/76 is all up from start to finish with xxx 70s-era first set songs like "Promised Land" and "El Paso" to Europe '72 staples and classic covers ("It's All Over Now," "Big River"), wrapped up with a unique second-set jam that opens with "Dancing In The Street" and closes with "Sugar Mag." An all-around good time! Limited to 25,000 numbered copies and shipping this week, DAVE'S PICKS VOL. 53: RIVERFRONT COLISEUM, CINCINNATI, OH 10/2/76 was recorded by Dan Healy and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. P.S. As a bonus, we have a quintet of songs from 5/4/77 (recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson), the rest of which was featured on Dave’s Picks Vol. 50 and its Bonus Disc. As we mentioned in 2012 when this series started, we’re determined to provide complete shows whenever possible. And even when a show is only partially included on a release as bonus material, we’re happy to complete it later on down the line, as we’ve done here. We hope you dig it. - David Lemieux

Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades.

The four albums gathered here were released by the band's own label, Grateful Dead Records: Wake of the Flood (1973), From the Mars Hotel (1974), Blues for Allah (1975) and the much-maligned live compilation, Steal Your Face (1976). The three studio albums, even if they suggest songs really different from what they have become later, are enjoyable. This is the album "live" that benefits most from the remastering, which it well deserved.