Grateful Dead The Golden Road

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.

The Grateful Dead's eponymously titled debut long-player was issued in mid-March of 1967. This gave rise to one immediate impediment – the difficulty in attempting to encapsulate/recreate the Dead's often improvised musical magic onto a single LP. Unfortunately, the sterile environs of the recording studio disregards the subtle and often not-so-subtle ebbs and zeniths that are so evident within a live experience. So, while this studio recording ultimately fails in accurately exhibiting the Grateful Dead's tremendous range, it's a valiant attempt to corral the group's hydra-headed psychedelic jug-band music on vinyl.

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…

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.

Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead is a live album consisting of audio and video recordings from the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead concerts performed by surviving members of the Grateful Dead Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, with Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti…

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead's eponymous debut studio album. What better way to celebrate than with a special album reissue series that will include two-disc deluxe editions and limited edition vinyl picture disc versions of all the group’s studio and live albums! These two-disc deluxe editions will include the original album with newly remastered sound, plus a bonus disc of unreleased recordings.

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.