Posts Tagged ‘Bob Weir’

GRATEFUL DEAD – ” Skull & Roses ” 50th Anniversary Edition

Posted: March 26, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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On June 25th, Deadheads will get their hands on the new, 50th anniversary edition of the Grateful Dead’s second live LP “Skull & Roses”, The release including 60+ minutes of unreleased audio from the band’s July 2nd, 1971 performance at the Fillmore West.

As 2021 marches along so do the reissues for classic 50th Anniversary celebrations of some titles. For The Grateful Dead, which has a solid following even among newer generations who were not around at their peak, the albums, in their order, are moving along. Last year, “Workingman’s Dead” arrived in definitive CD and LP editions. The year before it was “Aoxomoxoa”. Now, it’s the turn for the ‘Skull and Roses’ collected live tracks album officially titled Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead’s second live release was an eponymously titled double LP whose cover bears the striking skull-and-roses visual motif that would become instantly recognizable and an indelibly linked trademark of the band. As opposed to their debut concert recording, Live/Dead (1969), this hour and ten minutes concentrates on newer material, which consisted of shorter self-contained originals and covers.

Explains GD legacy manager/archivist David Lemieux, “Skull & Roses” captures the quintessential quintet, the original five piece band, playing some of their hardest hitting rock ‘n’ roll (‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘Not Fade Away’), showing off their authentic Bakersfield bona fides (‘Me & My Uncle,’ ‘Mama Tried,’ ‘Me & Bobby McGee’), and some originals that would be important parts of the Dead’s live repertoire for the next 24 years (‘Bertha,’ ‘Playing In The Band,’ ‘Wharf Rat’). Of course, the Grateful Dead were never defined by one specific ‘sound’ and amongst the aforementioned genres and styles the band brought to this album, they also delved deeply into their psychedelic, primal playbook with an entire side dedicated to their 1968 masterpiece ‘The Other One.’.. Skull & Roses sounds as fresh today as the first time I heard it in 1985, and as fresh as it was upon its spectacularly well-received release in 1971.”

To celebrate, Grateful Dead HQ has shared “The Other One” from the previously-mentioned Summer ’71 rarity at San Francisco’s Fillmore West. Grateful Dead perform “The Other One” live from Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA 7/2/71.

The standout centerpiece of the 1971 live album was Side 2’s “The Other One”, and this one from a little over two months later is every bit its equal. Every version of “The Other One” from 1971 is unique and different, but they all maintain a hold on the spirit of the song and can be viewed as one big, continuous piece of music.

The release is out June 18th, Rhino Records will unleash a 2CD and a separately available 2LP (Black) 180g-weight vinyl 50th Anniversary set for fans. The album, of course, will be newly remastered for this package. It will also contain a previously unreleased July 2nd, 1971 concert on the expanded bonus disc. This set will also be made available on DD format in both the expanded edition and the remastered album only. Hi-res DD (FLAC and ALAC) can be purchased at Dead.net. There will also be a limited edition collectable black and white propeller-coloured vinyl set that is limited to 5,000 copies only.

The GRATEFUL DEAD – ” Workingmans Dead ” 50th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue

Posted: May 7, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Grateful Dead‘s first of two 1970 albums, Workingman’s Dead, is about to turn 50 years old this June, and in celebration of that, they’ll put out a 50th anniversary deluxe reissue that comes with a previously unreleased concert recording from Port Chester, New York’s Capitol Theatre on February 21, 1971.

“For an album as important and great as Workingman’s Dead, it seemed appropriate to double the amount of bonus material,” said Grateful Dead archivist and producer David Lemieux.

The show we’ve selected gives a definitive overview of what the band were up to six months after the release of the album and shows the Dead sound that would largely define the next couple of years. From Workingman’s Dead through Europe ’72, the Dead’s sound was Americana, and the live show included here is a workingman’s band playing authentically honest music.”

The original LP was released on June 14th, 1970, and marked a pivotal change for the Dead. Their previous three studio albums, including 1969’s predecessor Aoxomoxoa and the landmark concert LP Live/Dead, also from 1969, emphasized the six-member band’s psychedelic shadings and experimental streak. But with Workingman’s Dead, they scaled back and stripped down for a roots-digging Americana record that gave the Grateful Dead their first Top 30 album. The LP also spawned the Dead’s first Top 40 single, with “Uncle John’s Band”,

The liner notes were written by Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke, who adds, “The Capitol Theatre show was] a great night in what has long been deemed a legendary run, another turning point as the band entered a live era combining the focus of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty with the exploratory verve of Live/Dead. Many of the classic songs spread across Dead LPs in 1971 and ’72… were introduced that week at the Capitol, and many of them are in this concert, still fresh off the griddle.”The Grateful Dead continued this folk-rock sound on the follow-up album, American Beauty which was released less than five months after.

Workingman’s Dead is a great album for a lot of reasons. From the purple mountains’ majesty of inventive steel guitar and pedal steel (“High Time,” “Dire Wolf”) to the fruited plains of goofy choogles (“New Speedway Boogie,” “Easy Wind”) and the nimble flatpicking and banjo (“Cumberland Blues”), this album is a nation of guitar. Also, I just love the sound of Jerry Garcia’s guitar through the Leslie rotating cabinet on “Casey Jones” and “High Time.”

These songs are harmonically unorthodox, with progressions both lyrical and inspired. The surprising minor key outro of “Uncle John’s Band!” The mid-phrase key change in “High Time!” The ninth chords in “Black Peter,” which feel almost like Satie moves! And, lest it all get too muso, this album plays yin to its own yang: for every wonderfully non-repeating labyrinth like the bridge of “Dire Wolf,” there’s a two-chord blues workout like “Easy Wind.”

The way the drums drop in on the second verse of “High Time” — quietly, stuffed entirely into the right channel, but full of character — feels emblematic of Kreutzmann and Hart’s approach. What a melodic and sensitive double-rhythm section team! There are so many details in the kit playing and percussion that elevate these recordings: the brushes on “Black Peter,” the guiro on “Uncle John’s Band,” the handclaps and maracas (mixed surprisingly loud!) on “New Speedway Boogie,” the beautiful snare tuned high on “Uncle John’s Band,” and elsewhere. The carefully calibrated dynamics and drum tuning throughout are really marvelous.

And let’s not forget: the singing is pretty incredible too. Jerry, taking lead duties on every song except the Pigpen-fronted “Easy Wind,” is at his most commanding and soulful. (“New Speedway Boogie,” “Casey Jones,” “Dire Wolf” and “Black Peter” are particular faves). His performances are brought into sharper relief by the blithely loose harmonies from Bob, Phil and Pigpen that pepper the record and remind me, happily, more of the Wailers than of the Dead’s smoother Californian contemporaries like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or the Byrds.

There are the occasional hokey old-time tropes about miners and trains and gin — which, hey, Jerry almost pulls off — but many of these images and rhymes have a kind of legitimately out-of-time uncanniness. “Come on along or go alone, he’s come to take his children home” sounds like a lost couplet from a 300-year-old nursery rhyme. These songs feel like stories, but often the particulars aren’t quite clear — like old tales that have shed so many details in retelling that they’ve lost literal sense, but acquired a kind of sculptural presence.

And that’s what Workingman’s Dead is to me: a totem — of America, of a band.

The fiery rendition of “Casey Jones” from that show is streaming now, and you can listen to it and check out the full track list below. The reissue comes out July 10th.

Workingman’s Dead 50th Anniversary Reissue CD Tracklist
Disc One — Original Album Remastered
1. “Uncle John’s Band”
2. “High Time”
3. “Dire Wolf”
4. “New Speedway Boogie”
5. “Cumberland Blues”
6. “Black Peter”
7. “Easy Wind”
8. “Casey Jones”

Disc Two — Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY (2/21/71)
1. “Cold Rain And Snow”
2. “Me and Bobby McGee”
3. “Loser”
4. “Easy Wind”
5. “Playing in the Band”
6. “Bertha”
7. “Me and My Uncle”
8. “Ripple” (False Start)
9. “Ripple”
10. “Next Time You See Me”
11. “Sugar Magnolia”
12. “Greatest Story Ever Told”
13. “Johnny B. Goode”

Disc Three — Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY (2/21/71)
1. “China Cat Sunflower”>
2. “I Know You Rider”>
3. “Bird Song”
4. “Cumberland Blues”
5. “I’m a King Bee”
6. “Beat It on Down The Line”
7. “Wharf Rat”
8. “Truckin’”
9. “Casey Jones”
10. “Good Lovin’”
11. “Uncle John’s Band”

Meanwhile, Bob Weir continues his ‘Weir Wednesdays’ streaming series tonight (5/6) at 8 PM ET with his Wolf Bros show from 11/5/2018 in Nashville. Tune in for free at Facebook.

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GRATEFUL DEAD – ” Aoxomoxoa ” 50th Anniversary Edition

Posted: March 29, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of their experimental 1969 release Aoxomoxoa, Grateful Dead Inc. has prepared a special, deluxe edition of the record, featuring two exclusive mixes of the album (“one fully remastered from the original 1969 mix and the other remastered from the definitive 1971 band-produced mix”), as well as a third disc of unreleased live music dating back to January 24th-26th, 1969.

“Aoxomoxoa” is a 1969 album by the Grateful Dead. One of the first rock albums to be recorded using 16-track technology, fans and critics alike consider this era to be the band’s experimental apex. The title is a meaningless palindrome, usually pronounced “ox-oh-mox-oh-ah”.

“In 1969, for their third album, the Grateful Dead eschewed outside producers and created Aoxomoxoa themselves, beginning a run of self-produced albums that would continue until 1977,” Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux said in an official statement. “Scrapping the first sessions, which were recorded to eight-track tape, the Dead now had 16 tracks with which to experiment their psychedelic sound, with an album that included entirely Robert Hunter-penned lyrics for the first time.”

The newly compiled edition of Aoxomoxoa will be available on June 7th in a CD and digital format. The band will also release a limited edition picture disc vinyl of the record, boasting the remastered version of the LP (only 10,000 available). The reissue’s bonus disc of live music recorded January 24th to 26th, 1969 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, California (the recordings were among the first live performances recorded to 16-track tape). including two early versions of Aoxomoxoa tracks, “Durpee’s Diamond Blues” and “Doin’ That Rag,” as well as the final live performance of “Clementine,” a song the Dead began playing in 1968 but never released on a studio album. The Dead lineup at the time of the Avalon shows was Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, Tom Constanten, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann.

UNITED STATES - CIRCA 1968: 1968, California, San Francisco, Grateful Dead, L-R: Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart (standing). ((Photo by Malcolm Lubliner/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images))