Indispensable: “Live Dead” (1969)
The ultimate live document of the Grateful Dead. A candidate for the best live rock album ever is this double album, which was created during the extensive “Aoxomoxoa” sessions. It contains the final version of “Dark Star”, the holy grail of the Dead setlists, and “The Eleven”, a breathtaking composition by Phil Lesh every 11/8. “Turn on your lovelight” is the perfect document by Ron “Pigpen” Mckernans Hippie-Biker-R & B, and “Death Don’t have no Mercy” shows Jerry Garcia in his dark blue top.
Indispensable: “Workingman’s Dead” (1970)
The band is committed to its love for country music and the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and creates the perfect Americana album-years before the genre was named. In a predominantly acoustic set, the songwriting partnership between Garcia and copywriter Robert Hunter climax. “Uncle John’s band” celebrates the identity and community of the group. And the band gave the “Casey Jones” coks warning fable for the first time.
Indispensable: “American Beauty” (1970)
The sister LP for “Workingman’s Dead”, published only four months later, continued to benefit from the songwriting height flight and new influences. The result is a somewhat full sound, a brighter mood and maybe – song for song – your strongest set ever. “Ripple” and Lesh’s breakthrough “Box of Rain” show the Dead from their most profound side, and “Sugar Magnolia” and “Truckin ‘”, both presented by the young band member Bob Weir, met the “Noodle-dance boogie” style, which made them a stadium-filling appearance from a student cult band.
Indispensable: “Europe ’72” (1972)
After they perfected their stage game, the Dead went overseas-with a mobile 17-track studio in your luggage. The result is one of the rare exceptions: an essential triple album. It mixes revised classics (an inflated “Morning Dew” version, the paradigmatic medley “China Cat Sunflower”/”I Know You Rider”) with first-class new material (“Jack Straw”, “He’s Gone”), all with improvisational energy and almost studio-like sound. It documents the transition of the band from violent psychedelic blues to the gentler, more dance bearer music that should define their shows.
Also good: “Anthem of the Sun” (1968)
The band’s first attempt to capture her head-exploding concerts on tape resulted in this wild ride-a collage of studio and live recordings, epitomized by “That’s it’s for the other one”, a suite, some of which is a tribute to Merry Prankster bus drivers Neal Cassady. Her coda predicts the Beatles’ “Revolution #9”, and her thunderous middle section became a concert stape. Meanwhile, the kazoo-driven “Alligator” is a spectacular crash between Pigpen’s earthy electric blues and the jazzy, lunar sound expeditions of his bandmates-an anticipation of the Allman Brothers, whose debut appeared a year later.
Also good: “Aoxomoxoa” (1969)
Recorded after the collapse of the San-Francisco scene, the highlight of the experimental phase of the Dead reflects an LSD trip in miniature format. In keeping with this, it is a vertebrae of bright light (the opener “St. Stephen” and “China Cat Sunflower”) and darkness (spooky degrees “Mountains of the Moon” and “What’s Become of the Baby”), driven by Hunter’s mischievous poetry and a playground of the latest 16-track recording techniques. To date, one of the satisfactorily craziest rock albums ever.
Also good: “Grateful Dead” (1971)
Another live set (also known as Skull-Fuck and Skull and Roses), this time with overdub that continues the tradition of introducing songs that would never make it into the studio-such as the exuberant “Bertha” and the soulful beggar lawsuit “Wharf Rat”. It established “The Other One” and cover medleys such as “Not Fade Away”> “Goin ‘Down the Road Feelin’ Bad” as a beloved JAM mid-piece. And Kelley-Mouse’s artwork is one of the most iconic album cover in music history.
Also good: “Blues for Allah” (1975)
The Dead musician’s work, perhaps her jazzy and virtuoso set, was created during a rare tour break in Weir’s home studio. The most catchy songs are “Franklin’s Tower” (whose central reef may deliberately remind you of Lou Reeds “Walk on the Wild Side”) and “The Music Never Stoped”, a funky march with duet singing from newcomer Donna Jean Godchaux. But half of the pleasure are the instrumental pieces: the nasty speed “King Solomon’s Marbles”, the twisted “Help on the way” coda “Slipknot!” And the pastoral “Sage & Spirit”.
Also good: “Terrapin Station” (1977)
Hit-veteran Clive Davis signed the Dead near Arista, and this was the first fruit: a high-gloss LP with a side-long title suite-an epic campfire fairy tale, divided by Hunter, sweet sung by Garcia and accompanied by Aaron-Copland-like orchestratations by Paul Buckmaster and brilliant production Fleetwood Mac companion Keith Olsen. Even Garcia’s guitar turned through bubbling Envelope filter effects to “Estimated Prophet”-a sound that later became a fixture.
Deeper layers: “Grateful Dead” (1967)
At the request of her label, the Dead debut in the RCA studio in Hollywood-instead of in her home base San Francisco. The result was a set of electrified folk blues cover that suggests a band on amphetamines. (They were too.) Highlights are a thundering reboot of the 1930s single “Sitting on Top of the World” of the Mississippi Sheiks; the soon-to-be signature cover “Cold Rain and Snow”; a 10-minute development of Gus Cannon’s “Viola Lee Blues” from 1928; And a few fast-sized originals: “Cream Puff War” and “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)”.
Deeper layers: “Wake of the Flood” (1973)
The self -produced debut on your own label is relaxed – sometimes almost too much. But the songs are consistently high quality, many already concert highlights. The pioneer is the stretched dance jam “Eyes of the World”. Further highlights: “Mississippi helped step uptown Toodeloo” with Vassar Clements’ swinging hot club violin and the exquisite stoner-philosophical “Stella Blue”, namesake of countless boats, bars and puppies.
Deeper layers: “From the Mars Hotel” (1974)
Unusually by two songs written and sung by the bass magician and renegade classical students Lesh-the fluctuating “unbroken chain” with extraterrestrial synths and the casual “Pride of Cucamonga”. The rock favorite “Scarlet Begonias” is the keeper. Other highlights: The Post Watergate piece “Us Blues”, which still works today, and the sponged “Ship of Fools”, soulful by Elvis Costello years later.
Deeper layers: “In the Dark” (1987)
The Arista deal was partly a attempt supported by the band to “sell”. They succeeded with the irresistibly cozy “Touch of Gray”. The texts are consistently solid, with the Hunter Garcia ballad “Black Muddy River” as a calm highlight-a recurring nightmare Hunters, embedded in a symbol universe of the Dead, Mondes, Sonnen, Sonnen, Waves and “The Last Rose of Summer”.
Deeper layers: “Cornell 5/8/77” (2017)
The various archive series of the Dead-Dick’s Picks, Dave’s Picks, from the Vault-are their own universe. Based on a widespread boatle, this concert in Ithaca, New York, was considered perhaps as a best dead concert for years. Whether this is true remains controversial-but the burning “Scarlet Begonias”> “Fire on the Mountain” jam and the resurrent majesty of “Morning Dew” leave no doubt.
Single pieces: “Bird Song” (“Garcia”, 1972)
This elegy on Janis Joplin on Garcia’s solo debut does not contain the whole band, but became a wonderful concert fixed point of the Dead.
Single pieces: “Playing in the band” (“ACE”, 1972)
Weir’s solo debut is a Dead LP in everything, and this piece was a familiar jam starting point in the second set over the entire career.
Single pieces: “Hard to Handle” (“The History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. One, Bear’s Choice”, 1973)
A rousing Otis Redding cover, live in 1970 and published tribute to the singer and keyboarder, who died in 1973.
Single pieces: “Stella Blue” (“Steal Your Face”, 1976)
A painful live version of this thoughtful jewel from Wake of the Flood.
Single pieces: “Shakedown Street” (“Shakedown Street”, 1978)
The highlight of what fans and critics described as a “Disco Dead”-with precise production by Little-Feat key player Lowell George.
Single pieces: “All Along the Watchtower” (“Dylan & the Dead”, 1985)
The highlight of an amazingly weak document of this unique tour.
Single pieces: “Mason’s Children” (“So many roads”, 1999)
According to Hunter, this Outtake from the Workingman’s Dead sessions allows Altamont’s horror spectacle.
Individual pieces: “Standing on the Moon” (“Built to Last”, 1989)
A tired blues about human places with specific references to Southeast Asia and El Salvador – one of the band’s more political songs.
Single pieces: “Days Between” (Los Angeles Sports Arena, 19.12.94, Archive.org)
The last masterpiece of Garcia and Hunter: a dark, beautiful meditation over the arch of life.