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Grateful
Dead - Dick's Picks 26
2 CD set featuring
material from two of Dick's favorite shows from one of his favorite periods:
the Electric Theater in Chicago, Illinois on 4/26/69 and the next show
at the Labor Temple in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 4/27/69. HDCD.
GRATEFUL DEAD
Tom Constanten - Keyboards
Jerry Garcia - Lead guitar, vocals
Mickey Hart - Drums
Bill Kreutzmann - Drums
Phil Lesh - Electric bass, vocals
Ron PigPen McKernan - Percussion, Harmonica, Vocals
Bob Weir - Rhythm guitar, vocals
Disc One:
Dupree’s Diamond Blues (4:30)(Garcia, Hunter)
Mountains Of The Moon (6:45)(Garcia, Hunter)
China Cat Sunflower (5:58)(Garcia, Hunter)
Doin' That Rag (7:18)(Garcia, Hunter)
Cryptical Envelopment (3:05)(Garcia)
The Other One (7:20)(Weir, Kreutzmann)
The Eleven (7:59)(Lesh, Hunter)
The Other One (1:04)(Weir, Kreutzmann)
I Know It's A Sin (4:28)(J & M Reed)
Turn On Your Lovelight (20:37)(Malone, Scott)
Me and My Uncle (4:12)(Phillips)
Sitting On Top Of The World (3:37)(Carter, Jacobs)
Disc Two:
Dark Star (26:37)(Garcia, Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir, Hunter)
St. Stephen (9:18)(Garcia, Lesh, Hunter)
The Eleven (10:19)(Lesh, Hunter)
Turn On Your Lovelight (15:25)(Malone, Scott)
Morning Dew (10:47)(Dobson, Rose)
Just as there was
nothing, as the saying goes, like a Grateful Dead concert, there was nothing
quite like hearing the late Dick Latvala describe a Grateful Dead concert.
When Latvala — longtime keeper of the Grateful Dead tape Vault and founding
father of the series of archival recordings known as Dick’s Picks — was
especially enthusiastic about a Dead show he was not stingy with the superlatives.
It was not just a “good” or “great” show — it was the most significant
thing ever achieved in the history of music! A high-water mark in the
annals of Western civilization! And so on. When Dick departed this life
in 1999, he left us with sweet memories of many such raves. So we’re especially
pleased that the latest release in the series that still bears his name
contains one of the shows that Dick liked to rave about the most, from
one of his very favorite periods in Grateful Dead music.
Presenting Dick’s
Picks, Volume 26, a two-CD set featuring highlights from the Dead’s April
26th, 1969 show at Chicago’s Electric Theater, and, in its entirety, the
deserving object of Dick’s over-the-top affections: the next night’s spectacular
performance at the Labor Temple in Minneapolis. The segment of DP26 from
the Electric Theater begins with a batch of tunes from the as-yet-unreleased
Aoxomoxoa, including a tantalizing tease at the end of “Mountains Of The
Moon,” which seems like it wants to be “Dark Star,” but makes an abrupt
prankster’s detour into “China Cat Sunflower.” Other delightful surprises
from this set are a version of “The Other One” with “The Eleven” stealthily
tucked into the middle, and a major rarity — Jimmy Reed’s “I Know It’s
A Sin,” which the Dead only played about a dozen times.
To listen to the next
night’s festivities in Minneapolis is to understand why Dick Latvala worked
himself into such a lovely frenzy over it. The
band lets us know that they mean business early on, opening the set with
a song that usually marked the climax of a Dead show in those days: Pigpen’s
signature showstopper, “Turn On Your Lovelight,” which morphs into John
Phillips’ classic cowboy-movie-in-miniature, “Me and My Uncle,” which
in turn gives way to “Sitting On Top Of The World.” Having thrown down
the gauntlet so decisively, the Dead then head straight for parts unknown,
with one of the great versions of “Dark Star” of that era, continue headlong
through “St. Stephen,” “The Eleven,” and then, right back where they started,
to “Lovelight.” Pigpen, acting as though the astral travels of the previous
hour had been a mere digression from the business at hand, picks up the
narrative with a nonchalant “…like I was tellin’ ya, some ol’ time ago…”
and proceeds, like Lord Buckley’s Nazz, to lay it down. So that it stays
there. A cacophonous end to “Lovelight” and a lovely encore of “Morning
Dew,” and then the Dead ride off into the Minnesota night, leaving the
audience (including you, the home listener, decades later) to retrieve
what’s left of its senses.
Recorded by Owsley
Stanley
CD Mastering by Jeffrey Norman
Tape Archivist: David Lemieux
Archival Research: Eileen Law/Grateful Dead Archives
Design and Layout: Robert Minkin © 2001
Special thanks to Becky and Gary Halonen
HDCD provides higher
resolution when played in an HDCD-equipped CD player, and offers superior
sound when played in regular CD players. HDCD CDs can be played in all
CD players.
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