Grateful Dead: Road Trips
Vol. 1 No. 3 - Summer ' 71

CD358 - 2-CD set
GRA2-6003
Grateful Dead Productions, 2008

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Road Trips Vol. 1 No. 3
Summer 1971

The third installment in our new Road Trips series features smokin' tracks from the summer tour of 1971, including highlights from shows in New Haven and Chicago.

Road Trips Vol. 1 No. 3 includes...
- Two full CD's, lovingly compiled and painstakingly mastered (in HDCD) by Jeffrey Norman

- A booklet boasting scads of great photos and an essay by Dead scholar Blair Jackson

Disc 1: 7/31/71 Yale Bowl, New Haven CT
1. Big Railroad Blues
2. Hard To Handle
3. Me and Bobby McGee
4. Dark Star>
5. Bird Song
6. Not Fade Away>
7. Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad
8. Not Fade Away
9. Uncle John's Band>
10. Johnny B. Goode

Disc 2: 8/23/71 Auditorium Theater, Chicago IL
1. China Cat Sunflower>
2. I Know You Rider
3. Truckin'
4. Sugaree
5. Cryptical Envelopment>
6. The Other One>
7. Me and My Uncle>
8. The Other One>
9. Cryptical Envelopment>
10. Wharf Rat
11. Sugar Magnolia

Press release:
More Lost and Found From the Hot, Hot Summer of’71 on this Two-Disc Set!

If you’re up on your Dick’s Picks releases—and we know you are—you’ll recall that Dick’s Picks 35, released in 2005, featured some smokin’ performances from the summer of 1971. The master reels from which it was culled, long believed to have been lost, had turned up miraculously on a houseboat owned by the parents of former GD keyboardist Keith Godchaux, discovered more than 30 years later by Keith’s brother, Brian, and son, Zion. And Keith had these masters because the band wanted him to be able to hear their most recent tour in preparation for his taking the piano seat that fall. It was quite a find, to say the least—the Grateful Dead world equivalent of uncovering a new royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

So imagine our surprise when two years later, under completely different circumstances, even more great, previously uncirculated master tapes from the summer of ’71 turned up unexpectedly. Surely that was a sign, too, that this music needed to come out and be shared with all of you. Which brings us, happily, to Road Trips Volume One, Number 3. This release offers up the brightest of these recently discovered gems: Disc One is taken from the famous show at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, July 31, 1971, anchored around an out-of-this-world “Dark Star” and a version of “Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road” that also includes a short “Darkness, Darkness” jam. Hot stuff!

The material on Disc Two is from the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago about three weeks later—8/23/71 (the following night, 8/24, was spotlighted on DP35)—and its big highlight is probably the very jammed out version of “That’s It for the Other One,” which in my humble opinion stands with the best they ever played (yes, even ones from the Fillmore West box). Spread across the discs you’ll also find outstanding versions of “China Cat > Rider,” “Uncle John’s Band > Johnny B. Goode,” “Wharf Rat,” “Sugar Magnolia” and lots more. Like the DP35 performances, these are a Phil-lover’s-delight, with massive bass on almost every track—careful if you’re driving or operating heavy machinery when you crank up these CDs!

(Blair Jackson)

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