Grateful Dead [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Grateful Dead
Artist: Merl Saunders
Engineer: Dick Bogert
Producer: Dave Hassinger; Michael Wesley Johnson; David Lemieux (Reissue); James Austin (Reissue)
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: The Grateful Dead: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir (vocals, guitar); Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (vocals, harmonica, keyboards); Phil Lesh (vocals, bass); Bill Kreutzmann (drums, percussion). Recorded at RCA Victor Studio A, Hollywood, California and Coast Recorders, San Francisco, California. Includes liner notes by Blair Jackson. All tracks have been digitally remastered using HDCD technology. Personnel: Bob Weir (vocals, guitar); Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (vocals, harmonica, keyboards); Phil Lesh (vocals). Audio Mixer: Jeffrey Norman. Liner Note Author: Blair Jackson. Recording information: Coast Recorders, San Francisco, CA (01/1967-09/1967); Dance Hall, Rio Nido, CA (01/1967-09/1967); RCA Victor Studio A, Hollywood, CA (01/1967-09/1967). Photographers: Herbert Greene; Bob Seidemann; Gene Anthony; Jim Marshall . Arrangers: Grateful Dead; Phil Lesh; Ron "Pigpen" McKernan; Bob Weir. The Grateful Dead's self-titled first album contains the main ingredients of the unique musical stew the band would brew over the coming years. Upon its release in March 1967, it brought the musical and philosophical ideals of the freak counter-culture out of the Bay Area and into the ears of mainstream America. "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" is a Summer Of Love anthem nonpareil. "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" shows off the Dead's ability to reinterpret the blues, and Pigpen's natural front-man qualities. The hyperactive rockabilly of Jesse Fuller's "Beat It On Down The Line" and the rearranged traditionals "Sitting On Top Of The World" and "Cold Rain And Snow" are proof that, despite the group's anti-establishment fashions, their lyrical symbols and musical forms were as time-honored as the English folk-tale that provided their name. While the cover of Bonnie Dobson's eerie anti-war epic "Morning Dew" and the women-and-wine rocker "New, New Minglewood Blues" are energetic portrayals of hippie values, the closing number, Noah Lewis's "Viola Lee Blues," is the album's grand, mind-blowing concoction and a highlight. The remastered version's live bonus tracks include some never-recorded garage-rock and blues cuts and a 23-minute "Viola Lee Blues" bearing the first hints of the modal riff at the foundation of Dead milestone "Dark Star." One of the things that made the Dead such a unique live act was the sheer variety of their influences. The vastness of the musical terrain they covered is well demonstrated on 1971's GRATEFUL DEAD, nicknamed "Skull & Roses" because of its cover art. It captures the band's live sound at a time when their marathon, acid-inspired concerts were swiftly becoming the stuff of legend and earning them legions of new fans. This set conveys the typical arc of a Dead show. The band could be economical and straightforward, with brisk, stripped-down numbers like the lilting "Bertha," the straight-forward country of "Me and My Uncle" and Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried," and the country-folk of "Me and Bobby McGee." They could just as easily go into lugubrious album-side-filling improvisations like "The Other One," and pump out loose-limbed, groovy versions of '50s rockers like Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." The set concludes with the laid-back, joyous jam of the traditional "Goin' Down the Road Feelin Bad." Conspicuous in his absence is singer/keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, whose alcoholism was beginning to take its toll. The Grateful Dead's eponymously titled debut long-player was issued in March of 1967. This gave rise to one immediate impediment -- the difficulty in attempting to encapsulate/re-create 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. Under the technical direction of David Hassinger -- who had produced the Rolling Stones as well as Jefferson Airplane -- the Dead recorded the album in Los Angeles during a Ritalin-fuelled "long weekend" in early 1967. Rather than prepare all new material for the recording sessions, a vast majority of the disc is comprised of titles that the band had worked into their concurrent performance repertoire. This accounts for the unusually high ratio (seven:two) of folk and blues standards to original compositions. The entire group took credit for the slightly saccharine "Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)," while Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) is credited for the noir garage-flavored raver "Cream Puff War." Interestingly, both tracks were featured as the respective A- and B-sides of the only 45 rpm single derived from this album. The curious aggregate of cover tunes featured on the Dead's initial outing also demonstrates the band's wide-ranging musical roots and influences. These include Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's greasy harp-fuelled take on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl," and the minstrel one-man-band folk of Jesse Fuller's "Beat It On Down the Line." The apocalyptic Cold War folk anthem "Morning Dew" (aka "[Walk Me out in The] Morning Dew") is likewise given a full-bodied electric workout as is the obscure jug band stomper "Viola Lee Blues." Fittingly, the Dead would continue to play well over half of these tracks in concert for the next 27 years. [Due to the time limitations inherent within the medium, the original release included severely edited performances of "Good Morning Little School Girl," "Sitting on Top of the World," "Cream Puff War," "Morning Dew," and "New, New Minglewood Blues." These tracks were restored in 2001, when the Dead's Warner Brothers catalog was reassessed for the Golden Road (1965-1973) box set.] [This version of the album includes bonus material.] ~ Lindsay Planer

Rolling Stone (11/11/71, pp.55-56) - "...a mixture of pleasant good-time music and solid solos, brought up and made even more attractive by the Dead's uniquely rich and magestic sound..." -Lenny Kaye Q (7/93, p.107) - 3 Stars - Good - "...It's on originals like Garcia's haunting, melancholic 'Wharf Rat' and Bob Weir's tricky 'Playing In The Band' that they're at their best and Bill Kreutzmann's bomping drums are things of joy as ever..." Down Beat (1/02, p.74) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Clarified the band's instrumental strengths and a propensity for collective improv..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.152) - "This is the Dead as garage band....It's improved with age and re-mastering, restoring faded guitars solos and adding prime outtakes..."

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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