Grateful Dead: Birth of the Dead
CD212 - 2 CD set
Grateful Dead: Birth of the Dead
Disc:
1
1. Early Morning Rain
2. I Know You Rider
3. Mindbender (Confusion's Prince)
4. The Only Time Is Now
5. Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
6. Can't Come Down
7. Stealin' (Instrumental)
8. Stealin' (With Vocals)
9. Don't Ease Me In (Instrumental)
10. Don't Ease Me In (With Vocals)
11. You Don't Have To Ask
12. Tastebud (Instrumental)
13. Tastebud (With Vocals)
14. I Know You Rider
15. Cold Rain And Snow (Instrumental)
16. Cold Rain And Snow (With Vocals)
17. Fire In The City
Disc:
2
1. Viola Lee Blues
2. Don't Ease Me In
3. Rain In My Heart
4. Sitting On Top Of The World
5. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
6. I'm A King Bee
7. Big Boss Man
8. Standing On The Corner
9. In The Pines
10. Nobody's Fault But Mine
11. Next Time You See Me
12. One Kind Favor
13. He Was A Friend Of Mine
14. Keep Rolling By
When Rhino released the box-set The Golden Road in 2001, not only did they present each of the Grateful Dead's 10 original Warners albums with masses of additional previously unreleased material, they also included a new 2CD compilation of recordings that preceded their debut album. A couple of years later each expanded, re-mastered album was released in its own right, including the new compilation.
Birth Of The Dead comprises previously hard to find tracks recorded in 1965-66 for the Autumn and Scorpio labels, including their early singles, plus, on the second disc, 14 previously unreleased live recordings from the Bay-Area, made by Bear.
Although the band always had a love of American roots music, there is not much evidence on the early sides, which are mostly conventional folk-rock and blues with an eye on the main chance. The 1965 Autumn sessions, made when they were known as the Emergency Crew, were not released at the time but included Gordon Lightfoot's Early Morning Rain, the traditional I Know You Rider, which the Byrds and doubtless other West Coast bands were also performing, and most interestingly the original Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks), a supercharged blues jam which was to turn up on Anthem Of The Sun. By the following summer, when they returned to the studio in a session for the Scorpio label, the band had begun to experiment and evolve, and the material, such as the traditional Cold Rain and Snow, Don't Ease Me In and Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers' Stealin' (their first single), was more indicative of where their hearts lay. A single for Verve on which they backed Jon Hendricks in 1967 is also included.
The live tracks,
from various San Francisco gigs in July 1966, have been sequenced to resemble
a typical concert of the period, beginning with Viola Lee Blues, another
Cannon's Jug Stompers original (written by the harmonica player Noah Lewis),
but transformed by the Dead over nine and a half minutes to mark the start
of the extraordinary journey which they and their audience were to share
over the next many years. Their original Standing On The Corner keeps
company with covers of songs by Henry Thomas, Otis Redding, the Mississippi
Sheiks, Bob Dylan, Slim Harpo, Jimmy Reed, Bill Monroe, Blind Willie Johnson,
Little Junior Parker, Lightnin' Hopkins and Blind Arvella Grey - all songs
they were never to record. The set closer, Keep Rolling By, is listed
as a traditional song but is more probably one of their own, and has the
late Pigpen trading vocals with Jerry Garcia.
(review courtesy of Laurence Upton and amazon.com)