The Grateful Dead

I suppose I should open with a disclaimer before I hear all kinds of noise from serious Deadheads. I'm not a serious Deadhead, or anything close, I don't own all their records, and there's many of them that I used to own that have been removed from the stacks. But I like some of their music a lot.

Overall I think of them as having a less than stellar recording career. I tend to like studio records more than live ones, and the Grateful Dead struggled to make the most of their studio time. More on that after I very briefly deal with their recorded live legacy.

The Grateful Dead made a lot of live records, and if you include the retrospective releases, the number is quite staggering. I know Deadheads that swapped tapes and talk about this show or that show as classics, but I just don't have the time to listen to three years of Dead shows to find the great ones. I like Live/Dead 1969 a lot, and the Dark Star/St. Stephen/The Eleven medley that takes up the first three sides is very fine. I also liked Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses) 1971, which included two sides of concise tunes that feature a super hot band and great songs. Europe '72 is a solid and sprawling 3-LP set featuring more acoustic guitar driven versions. After that I never felt like I needed more live material, although I do own a few of the retrospective releases on CD, and they document good shows. The trouble is finding the ones you might want in an overwhelming sea of choices.

Back to their studio work. The early records never quite did it for me. Grateful Dead 1967, Anthem of the Sun 1968, and Aoxomoxoa 1969 are all generally well regarded, but only Aoxomoxoa ever really impressed me. I'm not a huge blues fan, and much of their work is blues twisted around folk and psychedelia that just doesn't connect with me. Your results may vary. While I'm delving into their lesser studio work, let me just say that most of what they did in the studio is disappointing. They made a total of thirteen studio records (fourteen if you count Ace- see below) from Grateful Dead 1967 to Built To Last in 1989. Everything after 1976 is less than terrific- Terrapin Station, Shakedown Street, Go To Heaven, In The Dark, and Built To Last. These records aren't terrible, but there always seems like something is missing. The 2015 2-CD The Best of The Grateful Dead on Rhino is a fine collection that touches on all of their studio recordings, and is as good a sample as one could expect.

So which records are worthwhile? Well, 1970 was a good year, producing both Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, what I would say are their two best studio records. Both feature a lot of acoustic guitars and folk/country/blues sounds, and both include stellar songs. American Beauty had the hits with Truckin', Sugar Magnolia and Friend of the Devil, and also maybe their most beautiful song lyric, Ripple. Workingman's Dead is my vote for their best work, with Uncle John's Band, Casey Jones, Easy Wind, Dire Wolf, and Cumberland Blues, and not a single clunker. Consistently solid clear through. 

That just leaves 1972-1975 left to discuss. Both Wake Of The Flood 1973 and Blues For Allah 1975 have moments of brilliance. Both also see the band's sound branching out into jazz and world music influences, and both sold quite well. I bought them both when they came out, and purged them both many moons ago. They're not bad, but they're also not their best work. Two more from the early seventies do qualify with their best work. The first is From The Mars Hotel 1974. It contains many great songs and relatively upbeat performances with U.S. Blues, Scarlet Begonias, Unbroken Chain, Pride of Cucamonga, and Ship Of Fools. It is hard to believe that it came between Wake of the Flood and Blues For Allah, as it is a pretty straight forward rock record between two seemingly odd diversions. And that leaves only Ace 1972, Bob Weir's solo debut, but a Grateful Dead record in all but name only. And a mighty fine one at that. Packed with great songs Playing In The Band, the lovely Cassidy, the humorous Mexicali Blues, the rocking Greatest Story Ever Told, and frequent live staple One More Saturday Night.

So, here's my personal best of their studio work, ranked in this order: Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, Ace, and From The Mars Hotel. For live material, I'm partial to Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses) and Live/Dead (interestingly, their first two live releases).

There are no less than 165 (!) retrospective live recordings to choose from including the Dick's Picks series, the Road Trips series, the Dave's Picks series, and some seventy one-offs released between 1991 and 2022, not including six others released while they were still together. So if you're really interested (or crazy), you can fill your head with live performances from throughout their 20 year career, and decide for yourself which version of Dark Star is the best.