Getting into The Grateful Dead

I suppose Workingman's Dead would be another somewhat mainstream sounding album you could check out.

 

Indeed!
I also love the American Beauty album.
Great, real, earthy hippie music.
Yeah!

 

The Grateful Dead were first and foremost about their live show. As you probably know, tapes of their shows have circulated for decades. Loads of them can now be listened to for free on the Internet Archive website.

https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead

Also, the Dick's Picks series of CDs. I have the first one, which is probably a good introduction.

 

In the Dark is one of their later albums and it's pretty good:

 

Being a Deadhead was as much about attitude and lifestyle as it was about the music for many . Good times & kind of a mellow laidback nonstop party . I like their works from the 60's and 70's classic Dead .

 

There are a lot of Dead shows on Apple Music and Spotify. In fact, there are so many that it's hard to know where to start. I like shows from the early 70's, when they had enough songs to jam on but they had yet to get that damn synth. I find that I keep coming back to a 8/27/72 Veneta, OR show. The album is entitled "The Complete Sunshine Daydream Concert." It's got a lot of what you look for. They play a 31 minute Dark Star. My favorite spot in this show, as always, is the improv transition from China Cat Sunflower to I Know You Rider.

I'm not a deadhead in any sense, but their live shows from the early 70's is improv rock at its finest.

 

Europe 72 is a great album to get started on if you want to check out some live material.

 

5/8/77
8/27/72
11/11/73
10/18/74


Live Dead/anthem of the sun/Europe live 72/working man's dead/wake of the flood/American beauty should get ya started down the rabbit hole.

 

Another vote for Europe 72...But check this out, it's the 4/27/77 show at Capitol Theater.

The band was really on that night...And cameras were there! (Who says the always blow the big ones.)

"Estimated Prophet" alone is worth the price of admission.

Put it up on the big screen. If you do it right, you'll see it in color.

 

I was surprised to look it up and find out that Workingman’s Dead (Feb. ’70) and American Beauty (Nov. ’70) were released in the same year and that American Beauty came after. Before that, I would have argued that American Beauty came first, at least in my apparently not-so-accurate memories.

In my memory, I can remember listening to American Beauty in the downtown (Boulder) apartment of a friend who had been kicked out of his parent’s house. I remember this as the winter of 1970. It’s possible that controlled substances were involved.

I then remember going to college in Ohio, the fall of 1970 and Workingman’s Dead was everywhere. I can remember singing along to Uncle John’s Band with all my new friends there.

However, these memories can’t be reconciled with what appears on Wikipedia. Oh well, they’re pretty good memories, anyway.

This is by way of recommending those two albums, even though, as noted above, the live experience was, IMO, generally better than the recordings.

In the interim, I lived through some sh*t. Light, medium, heavy. I think most of us with grey hair or none left, have lived through plenty, in any multitude of different ways.

But I do feel something amazing when I hear the song “Ripple”. It’s kind of like a warm fire at the end of a long, cold, scary day. Reassuring, in it’s own way.

One thing for certain, many of the songs take a few unexpected turns. Learn to play a few, and I think you’ll agree. Maybe not.

 

I'm not a deadhead, but I love several Grateful Dead songs. Hunter and Garcia were a great songwriting team. I'm not much of a fan of the live tapes; except for occasional happy moments, I think they were a pretty flat live act. You might check out Jerry's solo album from 1972 called "Garcia" with the songs "Deal," "Sugaree," and "Loser."

 

What I always liked/hated about Dead music is that you can start listening to a song on the radio, turn it off to take a 30min call and when you turn it back on they are just getting over the intro.
They gave you more in one song than most bands did in a whole album.
Definitely took a leisurely pace while developing a theme

 

Confession: I have been a long time Dead hater for nearly all my life. It's unusual because I get along with all types of music, and I'm constantly expanding my mind with whatever I can get my hands on. But the DEAD, ugh, NO!

It is my fate, therefore, that the love of my life is also a true-blue Deadhead. She has 100s of bootleg CDs, which she traded for. She's followed them, the side acts, the cohorts, all of them, around the country. She even DJ'd a radio show dedicated to them. For this, I now get Bobby, Pigpen, Phil, and Jerry better--I mean, I dig them now--because I associate them with the love of my wife. It's weird--but I no longer want to stab my ears with ice picks when the extended noodling starts. HONEST TO GOD, I love the Dead now!

Now that I like them I find its too intimidating to get in deep. I have come to terms that I can't. I must observe and appreciate them from a distance, even vicariously since I've ignored them most of my life. Its ok, I can live with that, but at least now I've Leaned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dead.

 

Live Dead.

 

Welcome home!

 

You're on the right track. American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Europe 72, Skull and Roses. Digest those then move on to Mars Hotel, Wake of the Flood, and Blues for Allah.

 

Oddly enough, Both Jerry Garcia's and Bob Weir's first solo albums are some of the Dead's best work.

Garcia's is called Garcia
Weir's is called Ace

Then I'd say Live Dead, but I love the older stuff.

 

Lemme confirm y'alls recommendations with my wife....