History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Grateful Dead
Engineer: Bear
Producer: Owsley Stanley; Owsley Stanley; David Lemieux (Reissue); James Austin (Reissue)
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Grateful Dead: Phil Lesh (bass instrument); Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir. Personnel: Jerry Garcia (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar); Bob Weir (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica, organ, percussion); Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Additional personnel: Bill Graham (spoken vocals). Liner Note Author: Bear. Recording information: Fillmore East, NY (02/05/1970-02/14/1970); Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA (02/05/1970-02/14/1970). Introduction by: Bill Graham. Photographers: Joel Axelrad; Amalie R. Rothschild. Released in July of 1973, BEAR'S CHOICE was the third of three consecutive live releases by the Dead. Culled from two legendary (among Deadheads anyway) concerts at the fabled Fillmore East in 1970, it is perhaps their most rustic album: the Dead unplugged. The band sounds genuinely off-hand, with spontaneous stage patter adding to the low-key ambiance. They sound like a bunch of guys just hanging out and making music. The set consists of seven songs, six of them covers. The fiery blues singing of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan is the highlight here. He sings on the 18-minute workout of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning," as well as Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle." The earnest, country-tinged vocals of Bob Weir are featured on the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" and the plaintive folk number "Dark Hollow." Jerry Garcia takes an uncharacteristically low-key role here; but he does sing the spooky Appalachian ballad "All Around this World" and a moving rendition of the one Dead-penned song here, the elegiac "Black Peter." 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. However, this live disc was a sort of melancholy affair, as it centered on material featuring Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (guitar/vocals/mouth harp), who had left the band due to illness in June of the previous year. History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) is somewhat misleading, as a follow-up never came to pass. Band historians, however, claim that this release was optimistically titled because the label had hoped to issue a series of live recordings (� la Dick's Picks) containing highlights from a variety of vintage Dead performances. Alas, with the formation of the group's own label, it was not to be. The single disc includes performances from a highly touted series of shows held over two nights (February 13-14, 1970) at the Fillmore East in New York City. While most assuredly not the finest example of the Dead's formidable acoustic sets, the platter opens with a quartet of cover tunes -- many of which had been entries in Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) and McKernan's folky jug band repertoire prior to ultimately forming the electric, psychedelic Grateful Dead. McKernan's playful cover of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Katie Mae" is a somewhat lightweight affair. He counterbalances ad-libbed lyrics with his own very sparse solo guitar picking, which is in perfect keeping with the lonesome nature of this blues. Garcia and Bob Weir (guitar/vocals) join in on the remaining "unplugged" tracks. Both the affective and noir "Dark Hollow" and "I've Been All Around This World" reveal the command of this highly underutilized subdivision of the Dead. Clocking in at seven-plus minutes, the album's sole original composition, "Black Peter," is masterfully executed. It ultimately bests the original Workingman's Dead (1969) version in sheer emotive realization. The two electric offerings -- a cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning" and Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" -- are full-blown rave-ups allowing the entire band to weave its collective R&B-influenced psychedelia, unedited and in real time. Both tracks had become assertive vehicles for McKernan's no-nonsense R&B sensibilities. In 2001, History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) was included in the 12-disc Golden Road (1965-1973) box set, and in 2003 was also made available by Rhino and Warner Strategic Marketing as a stand-alone purchase. This remastered edition comes replete with a newly inked 16-page liner notes insert containing an essay from "the Bear" (aka Owsley Stanley) himself. The expanded track list yields four additional performances from the same cache of shows: the McKernan-led "Good Lovin'," "Big Boss Man," a second and equally scintillating version of "Smokestack Lightning," and an uptempo "Sitting on Top of the World," the latter of which keeps the frenetic spirit of the reading from the Dead's self-titled debut firmly intact. ~ Lindsay Planer

The Grateful Dead were right there at the birth of the 1960s West Coast psychedelic scene, but they handily incorporated simple folk, blues, and country sounds into their swirling, jam-oriented style. With an endless touring schedule and a huge following of devoted fans, the group fueled hippie visions well into the '90s and sparked the jam-band movement that would eventually fill the void left by the dearly departed Grateful Dead after the passing of guitarist Jerry Garcia. Since Garcia's passing, surviving members of the band have participated in various musical projects, including a reunion tour in 2003 under the shortened name of "the Dead."

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