Grateful Dead

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. The roots of the Grateful Dead lie with singer/songwriter Jerry Garcia, a longtime bluegrass enthusiast who began playing the guitar at age 15. Upon relocating to Palo Alto, California, in 1960, he befriended Robert Hunter, whose lyrics later graced many of Garcia's most famous melodies; in time, he also came into contact with aspiring electronic music composer Phil Lesh.

Grateful Dead 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.

CLASSIC GRATEFUL DEAD SHOW, 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE SAD PASSING OF JERRY GARCIA This sterling performance from a late period Grateful Dead took place about a year before the sad death of Jerry Garcia in August 1995. Following this event the band, inevitably given the circumstances, called it quits. That said, in summer 94 the Dead were on fire. This show, one of three performed at The Shoreline Theatre in Mountain View, California, in July 94, provides testimony to this as GD work their magic for some two and half hours in the hot California sun across a fine selection of classics from across the group s career. And while, as it turned out, time was not on the Dead s side by this juncture, almost everything else was as this double CD featuring the complete FM radio broadcast of this special concert now illustrates.

Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead is the first compilation album from rock band the Grateful Dead. It was originally released in February 1974. As with other such packages, the album was a way for Warner Bros. Records to capitalize on the Dead's back catalog after the band had left the label. It was followed three years later by a second compilation, What a Long Strange Trip It's Been.

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.

"Blues for Allah – The Angel's Share" refers to the unreleased material, or "outtakes," from the Grateful Dead's 1975 album Blues for Allah, similar to other "Angel's Share" releases which provide access to vault recordings.

This 1973 release was the very last collection that the Grateful Dead authorized during their tenure with Warner Bros. in the late '60s and early '70s.

The Grateful Dead forged its legend on the road, traveling countless miles between 1965 and 1995 to perform a world record 2,318 shows for millions of devoted fans. The band's refusal to ever play a song the same way twice has endeared generations of fans, many of whom prefer certain live versions of songs over their studio counterparts, and garnered the popular phrase among Dead Heads: "There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert."