Grateful Dead Live

The Grateful Dead were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California.  The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long musical improvisation.  Their music, writes Lenny Kaye, touches on ground that most other groups don't even know 7exists.  These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world. The Grateful Dead's early music (in the mid 1960s) was part of the process of establishing what "psychedelic music" was, but theirs was essentially a street party form of it.  They developed their psychedelic playing as a result of meeting Ken Kesey and becoming the house band for the Acid Tests he staged.  The Dead were not inclined to fit their music to an established category such as pop rock, blues, folk rock, or country/western.  Individual tunes within their repertoire could be identified under one of these stylistic labels, but overall their music drew on all of these genres and more, frequently melding several of them.  It was doubtless with this in mind that Bill Graham said of the Grateful Dead, They're not the best at what they do, they're the only ones that do what they do.  Often (both in performance and on recording) the Dead left room for exploratory, spacey soundscapes. Their live shows, fed by their improvisational approach to music, made the Grateful Dead different from most other touring bands.  While most rock and roll bands rehearse a standard show for their tours that is replayed night after night, city after city, the Grateful Dead never did.  As Garcia stated in a 1966 interview, We don't make up our sets beforehand.  e'd rather work off the tops of our heads than off a piece of paper.  They maintained this operating ethic throughout their existence.  For each performance, the band drew material from an active list of a hundred or so songs.

Dead Live features Europe 72 in its entirety.  Released November 5, 1972 as a three record set of the Dead's tour of Western Europe earlier in the year.  Despite the band being out of the country, Europe'72 showcased the Dead's mixture of American bluegrass, folk, and country influences, and provided the culmination to the band's early 1970s sound.  Archetypal American images abounded on Jack Straw, while Cumberland Blues and Tennessee Jed were firmly rooted in their regional feeling.  Truckin', which had recently become the band's first hit song, catalogued its own troubled-but-resilient pathway through American life.  The Dead's start-stop-restart segue of China Cat Sunflower into I Know You Rider also linked their psychedelic past into a more traditional context.  Reviews specially praised the track (Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew, a ten-minute rendition of the melancholy folk standard that features guitar crescendoes from Jerry Garcia. The tour represented by this album was Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's (organ, harmonica & vocals) last with the Dead before he died in 1973, and the last album he would feature on as an active member.  It was the first album to feature Keith Godchaux (piano) and his wife Donna Jean Godchaux (back-up vocals). Recording dates and locations: Cumberland Blues – April 8, 1972 at Wembley Empire Pool, Wembley Brown-Eyed Women – April 14, 1972 at Tivolis Koncertsal, Copenhagen Jack Straw, China Cat Sunflower, I Know You Rider, Tennessee Jed – May 3, 1972 at Olympia Theatre, Paris Sugar Magnolia – May 4, 1972 at Olympia Theatre, Paris He's Gone – May 10, 1972 at Concertgebouw, Amsterdam Mr. Charlie – May 23, 1972 at Lyceum Theatre, London, London You Win Again, It Hurts Me Too – May 24, 1972 at Lyceum Theatre, London Truckin', Epilogue, Prelude, Morning Dew, One More Saturday Night, Ramble on Rose – May 26, 1972 at Lyceum Theatre, London

Wanderin' Spirit
November, 2012
"Grateful Dead"

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