Dick's Picks vol. 21
Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks 21 CD
CD046
3 CD set with material from the 11/1/85 at the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia plus some tunes from 9/2/80. HDCD.

Listen! Real Audio required.

GRATEFUL DEAD
Jerry Garcia - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Mickey Hart - Drums
Bill Kreutzmann - Drums
Phil Lesh - Bass, Vocals
Brent Mydland - Keyboards, Vocals
Bob Weir - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals

Disc One:
Dancing In The Streets (6:52) Stevenson, Gaye, I. Hunter
Cold Rain and Snow (7:31) Grateful Dead
Little Red Rooster (8:22) Dixon
Stagger Lee (5:56) Garcia, Hunter
Me And My Uncle (3:04) Phillips
Big River (6:19) Cash
Brown-Eyed Woman (4:55) Garcia, Hunter
Jack Straw (5:25) Weir, Hunter
Don't Ease Me In (3:14) Trad. Arr. by Grateful Dead

Disc Two:
Samson and Delilah (7:35) Trad. Arr. by Bob Weir
High Time (8:44) Garcia, Hunter
He's Gone (11:07) Garcia, Hunter
Spoonful (4:55) Dixon
Comes A Time (8:26) Garcia, Hunter
Lost Sailor (7:28) Weir, Barlow
Drums (9:03) Hart, Kreutzmann

Disc Three
Space (11:27) Garcia, Lesh, Weir
Saint Of Circumstance (6:53) Weir, Barlow
Gimme Some Lovin' (4:28) Davis, M & S Winwood
She Belongs To Me 7:54 Dylan
Gloria 6:52 Morrison/Smith
Keep Your Day Job 4:11 Garcia/Hunter
Community War Memorial - Rochester, NY 9/2/80
Space 8:33 Garcia/Lesh/Weir
Iko Iko 7:46 Crawford/B&R Hawkins/Johnson
Morning Dew 11:06 Dobson/Rose
Sugar Magnolia 9:14 Weir/Hunter

Dick's Picks vol. 20
CD045 9/25/76 Cap Centre and 9/28/76 Syracuse.

CD 1: Bertha; Minglewood Blues; Ramble On Rose; Cassidy; Brown Eyed Woman; Mama Tried; Peggy-O; Loser; Let It Grow; Sugaree; Lazy Lightning>Supplication

CD 2: Mississippi Half Step; Dancing in the Streets>Cosmic Charlie; Scarlet Begonias; St. Stephen>Not Fade Away>Drums>Jam>St. Stephen>Sugar Magnolia

CD 3: Cold Rain and Snow; Big River; Cassidy; Tennessee Jed; Minglewood Blues; Candyman; All Over Now; Friend of the Devil; Let It Grow>GDTRFB

CD 4: Playing in the Band>The Wheel>Samson and Delilah>Jam>Comes A Time>Drums>Eyes of the World>Orange Tango Jam>Dancing in the Streets>Playing in the Band; Johnny B. Goode

DP 20 press release:
After a 20-month hiatus from touring (during which they recorded "Blues For Allah" plus various solo projects, and gave four unannounced live performances in San Francisco), a revitalized Grateful Dead returned to the road with a vengeance in the late spring of 1976 and continued through to autumn, starting out with multi-night runs in small theaters and graduating to arenas and stadiums.

The repertoire on the tour featured some material the band had seldom (or never) played live, plus revivals (and, in some cases, radical reworkings of) some old favorites. By the time they got to the Capital Centre near Washington, DC and, three nights later, the Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, NY, the Dead, with some thirty shows under their belts, were playing with renewed confidence and fire, powered by the reunited percussion tandem of Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, touring together for the first time since 1971.

Dick's Picks 20 presents these two shows in their near-entirety (due to length and/or technical considerations, one song per show has been excised. Fortunately, these two songs were performed at both shows, so each is represented here). Among the highlights on the four discs are: an early live Dead performance of Bob Weir's "Lazy Lightning Supplication" medley (which Weir had premiered the previous year with his extra-curricular band, Kingfish); the Dead's twisted-disco rearrangement of the Motown classic "Dancing in the Streets," which segues into the band's last performance ever of "Cosmic Charlie" (an early-90s instrumental "tease" of the song by Jerry Garcia notwithstanding); an unusual coupling of "Let It Grow" and "Going Down The Road Feeling Bad"; and the epic, seamless second set from the Syracuse show, bookended by "Playing in the Band" and featuring, among other delights, a driving "Samson and Delilah," the gorgeous "Comes a Time," and a soaring "Eyes of the World."

Dick's Picks vol. 19 (3CDs)
CD044 Oklahoma City, 19. October 1973

CD 1:
Promised Land - Sugaree - Mexicali Blues - Tennessee Jed - Looks Like Rain - Don't Ease Me In - Jack Straw - They Love Each Other - El Paso - Row Jimmy

CD 2:
Playing In The Band - China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider - Me And My Uncle - Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo - Big River

CD 3:
Dark Star > Mind Left Body Jam > Morning Dew - Sugar Magnolia - Eyes Of The World > Stella Blue - Johnny B. Goode

Dick's Picks Volume 18 (3 CDs)
CD043 Dane County Coliseum, Madison, Wis. ~ 2/3/78
Cedar Falls, Iowa, 2/5/78

CD One
Bertha - Good Lovin' - Cold Rain and Snow - New Minglewood Blues - They Love Eachother - It's All Over Now - Dupree's Diamond Blues - Looks Like Rain - Brown-Eyed Woman - Deal - The Music Never Stopped

CD Two
Estimated Prophet - Eyes Of The World - Playing In The Band - The Wheel - Playing In The Band - Johnny B. Goode

CD Three
Samson and Delilah - Scarlet Begonias - Fire On The Mountain - Truckin' - Drums - The Other One - Wharf Rat - Around and Around

It took nearly seven years and 18 releases, but the Dick's Picks series finally made it to the landmark Grateful Dead year of 1978. '78 was notable for several reasons: it was the last full year of Keith and Donna Godchaux's tenure with the Dead; the year of the historic shows at the foot of the Pyramids in Egypt; the year that ended with the New Year's Eve closing of Winterland, the venerable San Francisco ice arena that the Dead called home for years. But most of all, 1978 was memorable for a whole mess of excellent Grateful Dead shows. Dick's Picks, Volume 18 focuses on two stops on a winter tour of the Midwest. The first found the Dead in the famously radical college town of Madison, WI. Then it was on to Iowa, a state whose principal role in rock history is a sad one. The Iowa town of Clear Lake was the fateful site of the last concert by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson, on February 3, 1959 -- 19 years, almost to the day, before the Dead arrived in the state, to play up the road a piece in Cedar Falls (with much happier results).

Highlights from the opening halves of each show have been selected and sequenced on Disc One, to create a convincing composite "first set." The other two CDs contain generous hunks of the second sets from both shows. The Madison set on Disc Two features an exceptional version of "Estimated Prophet," a crisp "Eyes of the World" and a stratospheric "Playing In The Band" (with "The Wheel" woven into the middle). The Cedar Falls second set, heard on Disc Three, gets off to a most unusual start, as Bob Weir's uncooperative microphone inspires the band to play "Samson and Delilah" as an impromptu instrumental for several minutes before the vocals kick in. Once the technical glitch is out of the way (or, as Weir puts it, "now that the sound crew is done having their cruel little joke), the Dead really get down to business, with one of the longest (and, some Deadheads believe, one of the best) versions ever of the "Scarlet/Fire" pairing. Later in the set there is a ferocious "Other One," a lovely "Wharf Rat," and finally, a hard-rockin' "Around and Around" to take it home.

Dick's Picks Volume 17 (3 CDs)
CD042 Boston Garden ~ 9/25/91

CD One
Help On The Way - Slipknot! - Franklin's Tower - Walkin' Blues - It Must Have Been The Roses - Dire Wolf - Queen Jane Approximately - Tennessee Jed - The Music Never Stopped

CD Two
Victim Or The Crime - Crazy Fingers - Playing In The Band - Terrapin Station - Boston Clam Jam - Drums - Space

CD Three
That Would Be Something - Playing In The Band - China Doll - Throwing Stones - Not Fade Away - The Mighty Quinn
3/31/91
Samson And Delilah - Eyes Of The World

Boston always seemed to bring out the best in the Grateful Dead. Small wonder, then, that this is the third Dick's Picks release to feature a performance from that historically and culturally rich city. The band seemed to especially thrive in the cavernous, resonant confines of Boston Garden (or, to locals, "the GAH-den"), the ancient, hallowed sports arena that was the longtime home of the great Boston Celtics dynasty, as well as the NHL's Bruins. Dick's Picks, Volume 17 captures the 1991 edition of the Grateful Dead on one of those nights when that big old barn rocked as hard as it ever did when Bill Russell was crashing the backboards or Bobby Orr was slamming home slap shots to win the Stanley Cup. This was the period of the Dead's two-keyboard configuration, with Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby combining their talents to help produce the most densely orchestral sound of the bandsÕs career. Bruce and Vince had been on board for one year as of September of '91, and listening to DP17, you can tell that things were really cooking by the time the fall tour made it to Boston. Hornsby is, as ever, the playful provocateur on piano, throwing in sly quotes from everything from bebop tunes to "Maria" from West Side Story, and Welnick provides a vast and varied palette of electronic keyboard textures (check out his "fiddle" playing on "Tennesee Jed"). The band plunges into some serious extended jamming from the very start, with the "Help on the Way/Slipknot!/Franklin's Tower" medley, and the pace just picks up from there. Especially noteworthy is the show's second set, which sprawls out across the second and third discs in a continuous, nearly two-hour-long chunk of music, featuring powerful performances of "Victim or the Crime," "Terrapin Station," "Throwing Stones," "Not Fade Away," and much more, including such treats as "That Would Be Something" (a song from Paul McCartney's first solo album) and an encore of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn."

And there's even more for all of you music-hungry Deadheads out there: Two bonus tracks ("Samson and Delilah" and "Eyes of the World") from a performance earlier in 1991 in Greensboro, NC.

Dick's Picks Volume 16 (3 CDs)
CD041 Fillmore Auditorium, S.F., CA. ~ 11/8/69

CD One
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl - Casey Jones - Dire Wolf - Easy Wind - China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider > High Time - Mama Tried - Good Lovin' - Cumberland Blues

CD Two
Dark Star > The Other One >Dark Star > Uncle John's Band Jam > Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven >

CD Three
Caution > The Main Ten > Caution > Feedback > We Bid You Goodnight - Turn On Your Lovelight

An Earwitness Report:

There is something overwhelmingly potent about this show. This second set will mine for any possible remnants of psychoactive chemicals in your being whether they were last placed there twenty minutes ago, or twenty years ago. It will even create them out of the pure ether of your life force if you never added them to your mix personally. This show is a spark that lights a technicolor bonfire in your mind. A roaring, pulsing, groaning beast. This is, after all, 1969. And it is completely obvious why Dick found this to be a crown jewel. There is something overwhelmingly potent about this show.

The Dark Star begins with whispers. They ebb out into the air like flowers opening to greet the morning sun. This is the band’s unique ability to give you reason to feel completely safe within their world. No matter what happens, you are being guided by a friend. A brother holds your hand.

Slow passages rise and fall on the way to the first verse of the song. You can sense the craft at work in the band’s collective hand. They have become masters at this over the last three or four years. Gentle smoke rings dance and twist in still air. There are a few moments of slight crescendo before Jerry gets things centered, and the first verse begins.

On the tail of the verse, the drummers open the gates that held back the breezes that would just as easily put ripples into time itself as brush back the hair on your head. Cymbals sing and time signature buckles. The floor opens up and we tumble into a space that is restrained, given what is to come. But we don’t know that yet. Right now, music is gone and the band is running its fingers through our veins and skin. Things climb in intensity. The drummers find a foothold and Jerry returns to earth with his guitar in one hand, and yours in another. Safe again.

Most remarkable about the ensuing music is the myriad of directions being explored. It starts with a nice Dark Star jam that continues to ebb and flow, rise and fall. Phil leads the way into a Feelin’ Groovy jam that acts as the highest peak of the set thus far. The beast is fully awake now, eyes darting in all directions. This peak sets the band at a tremendous energy level. After a brief bit of breathing room, Phil leads the way into Other One.

The Other One was another tune displaying the absolute master craftsmanship of the Dead this year, and this one is up for the challenge. Tremendous. There is a wash of layer upon layer of theme rising out of the surging music, like small fires that ooze and glow from the corners of your eyes. After another mild passage things build with Phil throwing in the Feelin’ Groovy line again. Things settle some more and we find Phil enter with a hint of Alligator under Jerry’s Other One lines. Then it’s as if three or four songs are being played at the same time. Even a small Me and My Uncle is oozing around. This is unbelievably moving. Finally we get to the verse. But nothing can quite prepare us for the jamming that comes out of the Other One and through the next many miles of road. The interplay of the band is remarkable. With so much being hinted at over and over again, that base of primal chemical life force in your brain is completely melded to the mothership at the center of everything. You are "there". For a long while nothing is happening and it is truly magical. In between Other One and Dark Star we have ascended to a place where the distinction between I and Band are gone. No song is being played. No themes are explored. Everything is just stretched out in all directions. The music just "is". Words fail. Dark Star prevails.

It returns, lilting on a bubbly Garcia, hopping through fields of flowers. Only enough Dark Star to know we are there. There’s more of the Feelin’ Groovy underpinning while colors and lights whiz by.

Not good enough for you? Just another Dark Star ho-hummedly trekking toward St. Stephen? No. What’s that theme? Everyone seems together on it, but I can’t quite pin it down? It seems so well rehearsed. But what is it? Then…

Jerry leads the band through an instrumental verse of Uncle John’s Band that is too good to be true. You will never forget the first time you hear this. Ever! It is a joyride of the highest order. When they eventually get back to that theme you couldn’t quite pin down, of course it’s Uncle John’s. The theme quickly passes into a nice transitional state. Then it is Dark Star completely. Amazingly, it is Dark Star of all songs that is acting as our lifeline to reality. But safe once again we are, all cuddled around the band as Jerry finishes this story of so many things. "Shall we go…?"

It’s St. Stephen, piled on thick. It has a slaphappy feel to it, maybe a tad slower the normal. The Lady Finger verse finds the audience in true silence, and the band plays ever so quietly behind. The riotous build after "One man gathers what another man spills" is real nice, getting almost completely out. But not quite. Fear not, we will get completely out just a little later.

The Eleven is a whip cracking good version, and charges right along. Near the end, as they enter the slightly more bluesy jam after the Eleven theme is explored for the last time, we get the over blending of themes again. Death rears it’s head, but the Dead show no mercy. There is too much raw power coursing through the room. Things start to boil ferociously. The world is about to split apart at the seams. The time signature rolls in and out of 11/8 and then Phil is again hinting at Alligator. The rest of the band is just latching on when Phil gets right into Caution. From here we slide into a nice lazy jam of sorts. You gotta think that they are looking for Pigpen at this point. And sure enough, things truly simmer way down and we hear Jerry call after the amazing lead singer. No luck? Okay, Jerry is content to start hinting at Me and My Uncle. But then Pig must make his way to the stage because the band finds a bit of focus in the direction of Caution again.

This is it. The beat quickens and electricity is brimming all around. This Caution embodies so much of what the Dead were so good at, as really most all Cautions do. They could get a fast paced Bluegrass rhythm going and completely fuse it to the deepest extremes of raw psychedelic space in such a way that you just couldn’t know which way was up. Add in what might be Pigpens finest improv rap ever, and you have yourself one of the best Cautions ever on tape.

As promised, the band does make it completely out right on cue. "Just a touch!" After an amazing drop out into feedback with Pigpen cooing and calling in the background, Caution rebuilds itself one small piece at a time. Amazingly, the beat returns from out of nowhere, Jerry’s licks start rockin’ along, but there is still all this deep groaning and flowing all around us. No matter how far back into the song we make it, there is always this element of deep space hovering like a cat waiting to pounce. We get back in the groove, but it is clear from that last break with reality that this band can get much farther out there than anything that has gone down in the last hour. Hold on.

It’s all gloriously too much. Just when it seems that the song is back for a while they really flip out into Space. But Jerry is slamming out the Caution rhythm even faster now and Pigpen comes right back to the microphone. His inspired rap follows.

Work fine for me
And my grandmother too
It work purdy good
I know it gonna work for you
Ain’t no way
To get around it
I know
Somebody good found it

The entire rap is amazing. Pig assembles the words, story, and rhythms as if he spent months getting it just exactly perfect. He’s more in a personal zone. His lines sort of swim and slide along. It’s an eyes closed sort of thing. After some time, you can hear the band putting together The Main Ten behind him.

This version of The Main Ten is well explored. It has that unmistakable Playin’ In The Band feeling, but it is peppered with all sorts of great tangents. At its end the band seems sure to go into Death Don’t. But then Jerry is beating out an even faster Caution. There really is no better place to go from here. As it climbs its way back into Caution there is an aura taking shape that begins to defy description. The feathery edges of nerve endings are all rippling in a tide of an effervescent ocean. It’s another period in the show where the distinctions between I and Band are lost. Caution Caution Caution. Eventually there is the block step chords, first in threes, then in fours. This kind of things really must have struck a chord for anyone in the audience who had seen the band over the years, or listened to Anthem of the Sun under the right conditions. The slamming chords erupting out of a sea of madness, then altering the structure again by going from three to four could not help but stir up a haunting recollection of having been here before. Then Jerry is shredding the way into Feedback.

It’s some eight or nine minutes long, and I can’t think of any reason to attempt to lend a linear tour through what happens. You are on your own.

And we bid you good night, good night, good night

Review Courtesy of Noah Weiner

Dick's Picks Volume 15 (3 CDs)
CD040 Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ ~ 9/3/77

CD One:
Introduction by John Scher - Promised Land - They Love Each Other - Me & My Uncle - Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo - Looks Like Rain - Peggy-O - New Minglewood Blues - Friend of the Devil - The Music Never Stopped
CD Two:
Bertha - Good Lovin' - Loser - Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World - Samson and Delilah
CD Three:
He's Gone > Not Fade Away > Truckin' - Terrapin Station 

Dick's Picks Volume 14 (4 CDs)
CD039 Boston Music Hall ~ 11/30/73 & 12/2/73

CD One:
Morning Dew - Mexicali Blues - Dire Wolf - Black Throated Wind - Don't Ease Me In - Big River - They Love Each Other - Playing In The Band
CD Two:
Here Comes Sunshine - Weather Report Suite > Dark Star Jam > Eyes Of The World > Sugar Magnolia
CD Three:
Cold Rain and Snow - Beat It On Down The Line - Brown Eyed Woman - The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down - Beer Barrel Polka - Jack Straw - Ramble On Rose - Weather Report Suite - Wharf Rat > Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo >
CD Four:
Playing In The Band > Jam >  He's Gone > Truckin' > Stella Blue - Morning Dew

BEAUTY IN THE COMBAT ZONE       

Throughout the Grateful Dead's career, one of the band's major homes away from home was the historically and culturally rich city of Boston, Massachusetts. Although it is a relatively small city, Boston has an unusually large concentration of colleges in its immediate vicinity, and it's likely that it was the area's huge student population that ensured a fresh supply of Deadheads at the ready whenever the band came to town. One of the all-time favorite Grateful Dead venues was the Boston Music Hall, a slightly run-down but still ornate old jewel of a theater, located in a famously gone-to-seed neighborhood full of strip joints and shady characters, universally referred to by the locals as "The Combat Zone." But combat was the last thing on anyone's mind when the Grateful Dead came to town, and the band played many memorable shows at the Music Hall. It was the happy site of Pigpen's return to the lineup after he was sidelined by illness in 1971, and when the Dead resumed touring in 1976 after a nearly two year hiatus, the Music Hall was the first East Coast stop.

Deadheads were particularly delighted when the band played a 3 - night engagement at the Music Hall toward the end of 1973 -the last time the Dead had been in town, it was at the cavernous Boston Garden, and fans feared that the days of smaller theater shows were gone forever. So the return to the Music Hall was a pleasant surprise, to say the least. The Dead, who had recently released Wake of the Flood, the debut album for their very own independent record company, also seemed most pleased to be back in such cozy surroundings, engaging in much jocular banter with the audience and playing the kind of subtle, fluid, uncannily telepathic improvised music that characterized so much of the band's early-70s work. The intimate listening experience was immeasurably enhanced by the extraordinary sonic quality delivered by the Dead's P.A. system, an early incarnation of the legendary Wall of Sound (which made its official debut the following spring). This somewhat more compact precursor to The Wall made it possible for the band to deliver astonishingly clear, undistorted sound to every part of the room - during this run of shows, Bob Weir told an interviewer that the new P.A. "gets me a lot closer to my fantasy of playing jazz guitar in a rock band." The Dead went to some very jazzy places indeed, over those three nights in Boston. But at any given moment, they could also be as delicate as a chamber ensemble, could sound like something straight outta Bakersfield, or rock out like the raunchiest of bar bands.

All the peak moments of the first and third nights at the Music Hall have been gathered on the 4 CDs comprising Dick's Picks, Volume 14, with two epic versions of "Morning Dew" serving as the beautiful bookends.

Dick's Picks Volume 13 (3 CDs)
CD038 Nassau Coliseum ~ 5/6/81

CD One:
Alabama Getaway - Greatest Story Ever Told - They Love Each Other - Cassidy - Jack-A-Roe - Little Red Rooster - Dire Wolf - Looks Like Rain -  Big Railroad Blues - Let It Grow - Deal
CD Two:
New Minglewood Blues - High Time - Lost Sailor > Saint of Circumstance + 2 hidden tracks!
CD Three:
He's Gone > Caution/Spanish Jam > Drums > Jam > The Other One > Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad > Wharf Rat > Good Lovin' - Don't Ease Me In

Located about an hour east of New York City, the Nassau Coliseum has always lived in the shadow of its counterpart, Madison Square Garden. Despite the many Stanley Cups brought home by the Coliseum's primary tenants, the New York Islanders, the building has never had the mystique of its far more famous rival in Manhattan, not to mention such other fabled arenas as Boston Garden. Nonetheless, the Grateful Dead and thousands of Deadheads managed to find their way out to Nassau for some 42 shows between 1973 and 1994. Among these were some pretty great ones - none more so than the one that took place on May 6th, 1981, which is now immortalized on the latest in that ongoing series of highly - coveted releases from the Grateful Dead tape vault, known as Dick's Picks.

"This is the big one! " vault archivist Dick Latvala once wrote of 5/6/81, and this show has indeed loomed extra - large on the wish lists of Dead tape collectors for many years. Dick has even gone so far as to say that this might be the best show of the 80s, period. Now it's all available on 3 CDs - every note of it - sounding better than ever, thanks to the digital mastery of the wizards of Club Front.

It begins with a bang  - the one-two punch of Alabama Getaway and Greatest Story Ever Told  -  and just builds from there. Among the highlights of the crisply - played first set are a version of Cassidy that Dick calls one of the best he's ever heard, and a knockout set-closing combo of Let It Grow and Deal. But as good as all that is, it just sets the table for what follows  - a remarkable second set, featuring the first released live version of the Weir/Barlow epic Lost Sailor/Saint of Circumstance, a haunting He's Gone (dedicated on that night to martyred Irish rebel Bobby Sands), and some jamming that Latvala says is quite unlike anything he's heard from the Dead, before or since 1981. And if Dick has never heard anything like it, no one has!

Dick's Picks Volume 12 (3 CDs)
CD037
Providence Civic Center and Boston Garden
6/26/74 and 6/28/74

CD One:
Jam > China Cat Sunflower > Mind Left Body Jam > I Know You Rider - Beer Barrel Polka - Truckin' > Other One Jam > Spanish Jam > Wharf Rat > Sugar Magnolia
CD Two:
Eyes of the World - Seastones - Sugar Magnolia > Scarlet Begonias - Big River - To Lay Me Down - Me & My Uncle - Row Jimmy
CD Three:
Weather Report Suite > Jam - U.S. Blues - Promised Land > Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad > Sunshine Daydream - Ship of Fools

There was a strange, forbidding kind of buzz in the air when the Grateful Dead made yet another of its swings through the northeastern United States in the Summer of 1974. The region, and particularly New England, had always had a high concentration of Deadheads, and the band played in the area often, to the point that it had become a kind of second home. This time was different, though  -  there were rumors zipping along the Deadhead grapevine that the Summer '74 tour might be the band's last  -  the dreaded word "breakup" was bandied about in hushed tones. It was said that if you didn't see them on this tour, you might not see them again. Ever.

The Dead's days were  numbered, of course  -  the band only lasted another 21 years! But the rumors persisted (the Dead did, in fact, take a much-needed two-year hiatus from the road shortly after this tour), so the mania for tickets for these shows was extreme, and the audience energy more intense than it had ever been up to that point (so much so that we can hear Phil Lesh, during the Boston show, admonishing some particularly rowdy folks who thought setting off firecrackers inside Boston Garden was a swell idea). The Dead responded to that energy with performances whose intensity matched, and sometimes surpassed, that of the audience. This was the age of the wildly impractical, insanely expensive P.A. system known as the Wall Of Sound, and the Dead used it to maximum effect in the summer of '74  -  never more so than at the two shows whose second sets are captured here, at the venerable and cavernous Boston Garden and the somewhat cozier Providence Civic Center. The Boston Garden material is especially powerful, owing, perhaps, to that old barn's amazingly resonant acoustics and its equally resonant history   -  the Dead interact with the same dazzling sleight-of-hand grace that characterized the great Boston Celtic teams that put all those championship banners and retired uniform numbers in the Garden's rafters.

Dick's Picks Volume 11 (3 CDs)
CD036 Stanley Theatre, Jersey City, NJ ~~ 9/27/72

CD One:
Morning Dew - Beat it on down the Line - Friend of the Devil - Black - Throated Wind - Tennessee Jed - Mexicali Blues - Bird Song - Big River - Brokedown Palace - El Paso
CD Two:
China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider - Playing in the Band - He's Gone - Me and My Uncle - Deal - Greatest Story Ever Told - Ramble on Rose
CD Three:
Dark Star > Cumberland Blues - Attics of my Life - Promised Land - Uncle John's Band - Casey Jones - (encore) Around and Around

Emerging triumphantly yet again from the unfathomable depths of his audio fortress of solitude, Grateful Dead vault archivist Dick Latvala has delivered, in true superhero fashion, another winner  -  Dick's Picks, Volume 11, the latest in a seemingly ceaseless series of rare gems from the Dead's tape archive.

This time around, it's a complete show from the banner year of 1972, recorded at the Stanley Theatre, located in downtown Jersey City, NJ. Opened in 1928, the 4,300-seat Stanley (now a Jehovah's Witnesses Assembly Hall) is a gorgeous relic of the pre-multiplex era, when movie houses were like cinematic palaces or cathedrals, rather than the personality-free cubicles to be found at the local mall nowadays. For three nights in September of '72, the Grateful Dead held court in the Stanley, and created music every bit as breathtaking as the theater's sumptuous Italianate decor. The show heard on "DP11" was the middle night of the three.

In the estimation of a good many Deadheads, 1972 was one of the truly great years in the Grateful Dead's musical history, highlighted, perhaps, by the mighty swath that the band had cut across Europe that Spring, but also including such epochal events as the legendary "field trip" show in Veneta, Oregon, one month to the day before this Jersey City show. The Dead's new lineup, with the husband - wife tandem of Keith & Donna Godchaux completing their first full year in the band, had coalesced into a powerful, flexible, free-blowing unit, one that could play with the delicacy of a chamber ensemble, howl like a free-jazz beast, or rock like the greatest bar band on Earth. In a year as good as 1972, it's hard to imagine any single show emerging as a "standout," but as many a serious tape collector can attest, 9/27/72 does just that. Here is a band playing at peak power, with a paradoxical combination of control and abandon. The high stakes are set at the very beginning, as the band kicks off the evening with "Morning Dew," a song that more often than not provided the emotional peak of a Dead show late in the second set. After that bold opening gambit, one might expect a letdown of sorts, but the word "anticlimax" simply did not exist in the Dead's vocabulary that night. For well over three hours, the band sailed through a dizzying array of styles and moods, from the old-west ambiance of "Mexicali Blues," "El Paso" and "Me and My Uncle" through the jazzy polyrhythms of "Playing In The Band" and on into the deep space of an epic half-hour-long "Dark Star" (which makes a stunningly off-the-wall U-turn into "Cumberland Blues"). Every golden note was captured on two-track tape by Owsley Stanley and Bob Matthews, and brought into the digital domain with all the sonic brilliance intact by the resident techno-alchemists at Club Front.

Dick's Picks Volume 10 (3 CDs)
CD035 Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA ~~ 12/29 - 30/77

CD One:
Jack Straw - They Love Each Other - Mama Tried - Loser - Looks Like Rain - Tennessee Jed - New Minglewood Blues - Sugaree - Promised Land
CD Two:
Bertha > Good Lovin' - Playing In The Band > China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider > China Doll > Playing Jam > Drums > Not Fade Away > Playing In The Band
CD Three:
Terrapin Station - Johnny B. Goode
(12/30/77) Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World > St. Stephen > Sugar Magnolia

The Grateful Dead played somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,300 shows in the course of the band's 30-year journey. There were great nights, there were good nights, and there were the occasional ...um... less-than-good nights. And then there were THOSE nights - the ones that aroused the evangelical tendencies in certain audience members. The ones that were spoken of either with hushed reverence or full-tilt speaking-in-tongues incoherence. The nights where people swore that their lives had been irrevocably changed. According to a considerable number of Deadheads, the night of December 29, 1977 was one of THOSE nights.

For years, tapes of 12/29/77 - tapes of widely varying quality - have been finding their way into the hungry hands of Grateful Dead tape collectors. For years, those who were there have been hoping, dreaming, praying for an official release, one of pristine, digitally remastered quality, of the show that had such a profound impression on their thoroughly blown minds.

Well, kindly, wise Grateful Dead tape archivist Dick Latvala heard their plaintive cries, and has bestowed upon the eagerly waiting world "Dick's Picks, Volume 10," a three-CD set documenting (almost) all of the sonic wonders of that wonderful night (with a generous portion of 12/30/77 thrown in as a bonus). And now the rest of the world can get some idea what it was like to be there.

Consider the testimony of a few who were there.

In the album's liner notes, writer/musician Michael Nash (one of Bob Weir's collaborators on the eagerly awaited musical theater project on the life of Satchel Paige) says:

"On a crisp, clear late-December night in 1977, the Grateful Dead transformed the black-lit concrete barn that was San Francisco's Winterland into a stage of grand drama and mystery. An oft-told tale. So what else is new? Yet, so bold and unbridled, so new and riotous was their playing that 20 years later this night still remains wild and deeply resonant for those who were there, its lines etched so sharply that it seems like just yesterday."

Or this, from Rob Bleetstein, founder of the "Americana" radio format and one of the most passionate members of the Church of 12/29/77, who, at the tender age of 16, had ventured West from his Long Island home for this, his very first San Francisco show:

"From the outset of this evening, there was magic in the air. The proverbial 'eighth' member of the band was in the house tonight. While the band had been working on 'getting their space together' and 'getting things absolutely perfect' for most of the fall tour, this was the night they christened themselves the 'Just Exactly Perfect Brothers Band." The playing, singing, energy and committment to nailing the sucker right to the wall shines from start to finish."

(That "eighth" member of the band Rob refers to is that amazing intangible - that indescribable energy circuit, that synchronicity, that existed between the Dead and the Deadheads - a special something that no other band and audience ever had together, before or since.)

 Also in the house that night was Dan Levy (ubiquitous bicoastal man-about multiple-towns, and creator and administrator of the official Bob Dylan Website, www.bobdylan.com), whose experience closely matches that of our other witnesses:

"San Francisco had a lot to do with it. I was still living in L.A. at the time...I was very enthralled with San Francisco and Berkeleywith the whole countercultural history of the place. It was an amazing magic night, my first in Winterland also! Permanently forced me to consider San Francisco my home, and showed me my place in the legacy of the town."

So, what was it about that night? Something in the air? Something in the water? Some strange alignment of the planets? Maybe the Dead were especially inspired by the multiple visits some of the members had made to the Coronet Theatre to see "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" during that film's opening week - that the band was quite taken with the film is evident in the little bit of noodling on a certain five-note pattern, which you can hear as they tune up for "Bertha" at the show's start.

Whatever the reason, there was a spectacular degree of electricity in the cavernous old ice rink that night. Although Bob Weir had joked about the Dead taking on the new "Just Exactly Perfect Brothers Band" handle, the music they played that night was, blissfully, gloriously imperfect  -  in a way that was better than perfect. The playing was fearless, reckless, with a wild careening momentum that just wouldn't let up, and which reached its apex in the second set with a phenomenal, nearly hour - long segment starting and ending with "Playing In The Band," with plenty of otherworldly jamming and several other songs folded into it (including the first performance in more than three years of "China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider").

And now, one of THOSE nights is one of THOSE Dick's Picks. As another noted San Franciscan, Sam Spade, said about the Maltese Falcon, it's the stuff that dreams are made of.

Dick's Picks Volume 9 (3 CDs)
CD034
Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY ~~ 9/16/90

CD One:
Hell in a Bucket - Cold Rain and Snow - Little Red Rooster - Stagger Lee - Queen Jane Approximately - Tennessee Jed - Cassidy - Deal
CD Two:
Samson and Delilah - Iko Iko - Looks Like Rain - He's Gone > No MSG Jam > Drums >
CD Three:
Space > Standing on the Moon  > Lunatic Preserve > I Need A Miracle > Morning Dew  It's All Over Now Baby Blue

When last we left Grateful Dead vault archivist Dick Latvala, he had just helped turn a lot of Deadhead dreams into reality with the long - awaited release of one of the all-time most - requested shows, the epochal Harpur College 5/2/70 set. Never one to rest on his laurels, Dick has now taken a two - decade leap to his latest pick, a stellar complete - show recording from the Madison Square Garden run of September 1990 - the first in the Dick's Picks series to feature the two-keyboard version of the band featuring Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby.

It was a time of adversity and renewal for the Grateful Dead - less than two months after being shaken to its foundations by the sudden passing of Brent Mydland, the band sprang back to life in dramatic fashion on the fall tour, with the energy and musicianship of Welnick and Hornsby helping to suggest some exciting new creative avenues.

 While Bruce was finishing up some prior committments, the band had returned to the road with Vince as the sole keybordist, with Hornsby joining in on the second night of the Madison Square Garden run. The show captured on Dick's Picks 9 was the third show of that run, only the second featuring the new 7-piece line-up. One small concession to the situation was made - the band temporarily abandoned its customary practice of not working from a pre-planned set list, in consideration of the steep learning curve involved in absorbing the Dead's 200 - plus - song repertoire. A written list was prepared each night, to give the new guys a little less to worry about. Other than that, it was business as usual, and from the sound of the music played on September 16, it seems that little or no thought was given to "holding back" or "playing it safe." The band played with focus and purpose, and the new instrumental voices blended into the band's already dense orchestration remarkably well. Once again, like the mythic phoenix, the Dead had risen again.

Dick's Picks Volume 8 (3 CDs)
CD033
Harpur College, Binghamton, NY -  5/2/70

CD One:
Don't Ease Me In - I Know You Rider - Friend of the Devil - Dire Wolf - Beat it on Down the Line > Black Peter - Candyman > Cumberland Blues - Deep Elem Blues - Cold Jordan - Uncle John's Band
CD Two:
St. Stephen > Cryptical Envelopment > Drums > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment > Cosmic Charlie - Casey Jones - Good Lovin'
CD Three:
It's a Man's World - Dancing in the Streets > Morning Dew - Viola Lee Blues > We Bid You Goodnight

We've been hearing it for years, over and over, from every corner of the globe: "when are ya gonna put out Harpur, man?!?" For more than a quarter of a century, it has been one of the tapes  -  the stuff of legend, coveted above all others among Grateful Dead tape collectors. Well, you wore us downyou talked us into itso here it is: Dick's Picks, Volume 8  -  Harpur College in Binghamton, New York, May 2, 1970. More than three hours of peak Grateful Dead, both acoustic and electric.

One of the first things that jumps at you when you listen to the Harpur College show is the enthusiasm, the energy, the volume of the audience. It was a wild bunch out there   - so much so that Jerry had to deliver the above gentle admonition during the acoustic set. Of course, East Coast audiences were always famous for turning things up a few extra notches on the intensity scale, but this night had a little something extra in that department, even by New York standards. Part of this - maybe all of it  - was inextricably connected to the general air of electricity and tension that prevailed on campus, not just at Harpur but all over the United States on that May weekend - Richard Nixon, elected in 1968 as the "peace" candidate, had just expanded the war in Southeast Asia to an unprecedented level with his decision to invade Cambodia, and the anti - war movement was roused to action, including student strikes at hundreds of colleges and universities. Campuses in the New York and NewEngland areas were particularly active in the student strikes, and the Grateful Dead were there, in part, to express their solidarity - to entertain the "troops," as it were. Coincidentally, the Dead's San Francisco compatriots, Jefferson Airplane, were also in the vicinity that weekend, playing a May Day show for the strikers at Yale. But while the Airplane's approach was explicitly political, delivering powerful rock 'n' roll battle cries with such incendiary songs as "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers," the Dead took a different approach, seeking, it seemed, to relieve some of the palpable tension with sweet songs to soothe the soul - after all, as the great folk/protest troubadour Phil Ochs once wrote, "Ah, but in such an ugly time, the only true protest is beauty."

And beauty is what the Dead delivered in abundance on that spring night. This East Coast tour was the first time that the band tried out a new format, dubbed "An Evening With Grateful Dead, featuring New Riders Of The Purple Sage." These marathons consisted of an acoustic Dead set, followed by the New Riders, and capped off with a long, all - out electric Dead finale (Since Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart were both members of NRPS at the time, this meant a lot of long nights for those guys!). The acoustic set was a special delight, with the band mixing songs from the about-to-be-released Workingman's Dead and the yet - to - be - recorded American Beauty (including "Dire Wolf," "Cumberland Blues," "Friend Of The Devil," "Uncle John's Band") with some old chestnuts from their folkie/jugband past ("Don't Ease Me In," "Beat It On Down The Line," "Deep Elem Blues," etc.).

After the New Riders set (not included on DP8), the Dead returned, plugged in, and let it rip. The band doesn't let up for a second, from "St. Stephen" (well, part of it, anyway - the master tape is missing the first few minutes) to the end. It's hard to pick out "peak moments" here, because there are no valleys. There's a great version of the complete "That's It For The Other One," a couple of major Pigpen roof - raisers ("Good Lovin'" and "It's A Man's World"), a lovely "Morning Dew," a long "Dancing In The Streets," an even longer "Viola Lee Blues" and finally, tucking everyone in for the evening with the sweet Bahamian lullaby "We Bid You Goodnight".

And it's all here (except for that bit of "St. Stephen" and one song excised by the band for technical and/or aesthetic reasons), captured on tape by Bob Matthews, nurtured in the vault until the peak of ripeness by archivist Dick Latvala, sonically scrutinized by "ferromagnetist" John Cutler and magnificently mastered by Jeffrey Norman. Even if you've heard some generation or incarnation of this tape before, you've never heard it like this!

The CD package features the hilarious, stream-of-unconsciousness review of the show that ran in the Harpur student paper later that week. As the writer, Richard Walinsky, put it:

"It's in the Kool - Aid...It's in the water...It's in the Music".....

Dick's Picks Volume 7 (3 CDs)
CD032
Alexandra Palace,  September 1974

CD One:
Scarlet Begonias - Mexicali Blues - Row Jimmy - Black-Throated Wind - Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo - Beat it on Down the Line - Tennessee Jed - Playing in the Band
CD Two:
Weather Report Suite > Stella Blue - Jack Straw - Brown-eyed Woman - Big River - Truckin' > Wood Green Jam > Wharf Rat
CD Three:
Me and My Uncle - Not Fade Away - Dark Star > Spam Jam > Morning Dew - U.S. Blues

Pleasure Palace
by Gary Lambert

1974 was a newsworthy year in many ways. Most people will remember it as the year Richard Nixon checked out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sports fans might fondly recall the Oakland A's third straight World Series title. And for those with a taste for slightly tacky Americana, there was that whole Evel Kneivel-Snake River Canyon thing. But for Deadheads, 1974 will always be the year of the Wall Of Sound. The culmination of years of experimentation, The Wall was the rock 'n' roll P.A. equivalent of all 7 Wonders Of The World, rolled into one - a towering edifice of pure audio power, pumping out the biggest, loudest and cleanest sound rock audiences had ever heard. And the Grateful Dead played music that was more than worthy of the P.A. - 1974 was one of those years that fans still speak of with reverence. '74 was also the year that the Dead decided, after nearly a decade of relentless motion, to take some time off from the road, to sit down and patch their bones, as it were. After completing a strenuous summer tour and just prior to a series of "farewell" shows in San Francisco, the Dead attended to one more bit of unfinished (and rather pleasant) business: a quick jaunt - 7 shows in three countries - to Europe, starting with three nights at London's Alexandra Palace. Armed with only his unerring ears, Grateful Dead archivist Dick Latvala has ventured yet again into the band's tape vault, and emerged with another winner, Dick's Picks, Volume 7, culled from the highest of the many high points from those three London shows.

Maybe the knowledge that these would be among the last tour dates for quite a while gave the Dead a special sense of urgency about these shows. Or maybe it was just in the stars. Whatever the reason, they hit the stage ablaze, and pretty much stayed that way throughout. The playing and singing is full of passion, wit and wild abandon, as the band careens headlong across stylistic boundaries, moving with ease from sweet, folkish tunes to fearless sonic exploration.

As always, the wizards of Club Front have done a splendid job of digitally mastering these discs from the original two-track source tapes, capturing the essence of the Dead's sound from that era. It's the next best thing to having been there, without the expense and inevitable structural damage of hauling the Wall Of Sound itself into your living room.

Dick's Picks Volume 6 (3 CDs)
CD031 Hartford Civic Center 10/14/83

CD One:
Albama Getaway > Greatest Story Ever Told - They Love Each Other - Mama Tried > Big River - Althea > C.C.Rider - Tennessee Jed  - Hell in a Bucket > Keep Your Day Job
CD Two:
Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain - Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World >
CD Three:
Drums > Spinach Jam > The Other One > Stella Blue > Sugar Magnolia ( Encore) U.S Blues

Well, now he's gone and done it - intrepid Grateful Dead tape vault archivist Dick Latvala has taken the plunge into the vast waters of the band's 1980s output. This complete-show, Three-CD set, recorded at the Civic Center in Hartford, CT, is the first non-70s show in the Dick's Picks series. As always, this is from the original, raw Two-track tape, straight off the soundboard. In this case, the resident technical wizards had to work overtime, because for the first time they were working with a cassette tape rather than the customary reel to reel master. But, being wizards, they've beautifully captured the ragged-but-right essence of things and dragged it kicking and screaming into the digital domain. Among the highlights here are stellar performances of "Althea," "Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain," "Eyes Of The World," "Sugar Magnolia" and plenty more, including the first-ever recorded release of the long-lost Hunter/Garcia gem "Day Job," and the sinuous, exotic-sounding "Spinach Jam".

Dick's Picks Volume 5 (3 CDs)
CD029
Oakland Auditorium Arena 12/26/79

CD One:
Cold Rain and Snow - C.C. Rider - Dire Wolf - Me and My Uncle > Big River - Brown - Eyed Women - New Minglewood Blues - Friend Of The Devil - Looks Like Rain - Alabama Getaway > Promised Land
CD Two:
Uncle John's Band > Estimated Prophet > Jam 1 > He's Gone > The Other One > Drums
CD Three:
Drums > Jam 2 > Not Fade Away > Brokedown Palace > Around and Around > Johnny B. Goode - Shakedown Street > Uncle John's Band (reprise)

DICK'S DECADE
By Gary Lambert

Every Deadhead has his or her Golden Era, a favorite period of Dead music, often reflected in the dates of the tapes they covet. Grateful Dead vault archivist Dick Latvala is no exception. Dick, the guy who does the pickin' for the wildly acclaimed series of releases known as (what else?) Dick's Picks, is, unabashedly, a Seventies kinda guy. Pretty much any time in the 1970s is fine with him, and the remarkable two-track tapes he's dug up so far to be so brilliantly remastered by the Dead's studio alchemists are strong testimony that Dick knows his decades. The releases in the series so far have gone like this (in order of release): 1973, 1971, 1977, 1970. Volume Four was from shows just a few weeks (February 1970) out of the 60s, and now, Dick has gone almost as far as he could have in the opposite direction without winding up in the 80s. Welcome to Dick's Picks, Volume 5, recorded in the last week of Dick's fave decade, on December 26, 1979 at the Oakland Auditorium Arena (later known as Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center), which became the Dead's primary "home court" after Bill Graham shut down the seedy-but-wonderful San Francisco ice rink called Winterland on New Year's Day, nearly a year before this show. This edition of Dick's Picks satisfies the clamoring of many Heads that were asking for a show featuring Brent Mydland, who was completing a very successful rookie year with the Dead at the time of this performance. Brent was plucked from the ranks of Bob Weir's extra-curricular band to join the Major League squad, and he brought a lot of good musicianship and new energy to the band, as well as a new palette of sounds. His electric piano playing bore the influence of jazz players like Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, and his bluesy Hammond organ chops gave the Dead something that had been missing since Pigpen's untimely departure. He also brought a new quality to the ensemble vocals, with a high and soulful tenor that was at once rough and sweet. With the "new kid" helping to spark things, and already comfortable in the confines of their new - found dance hall, the Dead came into the final week of '79 with batteries well-charged, and ready to charge into the Eighties.

Dick's Picks, Volume 5 is a fine portrait of the band in this period. Significantly, it is the first release in the series that presents a complete show from start to finish, and so the first to show how a Dead show told the whole story - the nice gradual exposition, the plot getting more complex, the suspense building to a fever pitch, and the big, happy ending. As on all the Dick's Picks releases, you're hearing this stuff just as they played it, no overdubs, no cosmetic repairs, no studio trickery. There are, in other words, mistakes! But the Grateful Dead, on a good night, had a way of turning straw into gold, and what mistakes are here are indicative of the bracing recklessness that characterized the Dead at their best.

There are times, especially in this show's amazing second set, when you get that scary/exhilarating feeling of being in a car with no brakes, careening down a preposterously twisty mountain road fraught with hairpin turns and no guard rail, clinging to the faith that you'll get to the bottom in one piece. There are times where the music seems destined to rip apart at the seams, only to coalesce into something utterly startling in its power and clarity. Take, for example, a sequence coming out of "Estimated Prophet," that you're sure is going to segué into "Terrapin Station," but instead turns into a completely over-the-top jam that sounds like a little like a bluegrass tune gone mad, with musical references to everything from John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" to Isaac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft". And if you're a lover of that quintessential Phil Lesh moment known to fans as "dropping The Bomb," you'll be pleased to know that this set features one of the more spectacular and surprising examples of the species.

We won't try to tell you more about what's here (because writing about music is, after all, like dancing about architecture). Suffice it to say that Dick picked it, and he's never let us down yet!

Dick's Picks Volume 4 (3 CDs)
CD028 Fillmore East New York, NY 2/13 - 14/70

CD One:
Introduction By Zacherle - Casey Jones - Dancing In The Street - China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider>High Time - Dire Wolf - Dark Star
CD Two:
That's It For The Other One > Turn On Your Lovelight
CD Three:
Alligator > Drums > Me & My Uncle > Not Fade Away > Mason's Children > Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) > Feedback > We Bid You Goodnight

Highlights from the epic Valentine's Day run of shows at Bill Graham's fabled East Coast rock shrine. Among the shows most coveted and requested by collctors, and it's easy to hear why.

f you find yourself on the Lower East Side of Manhattan nowadays, on the north side of 6th Street between Second and Third Avenues, you'll see a gigantic hole in the ground where a building used to be, and where a condo tower will someday stand. Not an unusual sight in any big city. But if you stand before that yawning chasm for a while, you may hear some glorious, ghostly sounds issue forth...because on this ground once stood an old movie house, first known as the Loew's Commodore, then the Village Theater... and then, most significantly, as one of the more fabled shrines in rock history, Fillmore East. From 1968 to 1971, the great impresario Bill Graham ran this satellite site to his Bay Area empire, and in that short time presented almost every important rock act then touring: The Who, Cream, Hendrix, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and countless others graced the Fillmore's stage as did jazz and blues greats like Miles Davis, B.B. King, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Muddy Waters and Pharoah Sanders, to name but a few. And it stands to reason that Graham used Fillmore East to give many New Yorkers their first exposure to the bands that put San Francisco on the musical map, including Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service and, of course, The Grateful Dead. In the 3 years of Fillmore East's existence, the Dead played more shows there than anyone else (39, to be exact), and there was always a special synergy between the band, the building, and those famously avid New York "Dead freaks". In fact, many fans and tape collectors believe that the band played some of its best music ever on that stage. And among the Dead's Fillmore East appearances, none are more highly regarded than the epic three - night stand of February, 1970. Some gems from those shows were gathered on the 1973 album "History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1: Bear's Choice," but there were so many golden moments that could not be contained on that single LP set. Now, at long last, thanks to the unerring ear of vault swami Dick Latvala and the Dead's technical genies, there is more -much more  -  music gathered from the memorable evenings of February 13 and 14, 1970, on Dick's Picks, Volume 4. DP4 is the most generous dose of live Grateful Dead ever served up  -  more than 3 hours on 3 CDs, including several tunes which have never appeared on a live Dead album, like "Alligator," "Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)" and "High Time" and one major rarity never released anywhere until now, "Mason's Children" (it was played just 15 times in late 1969 and early '70, then inexplicably vanished from the band's repertoire Ñ this, in fact, was its final performance). There's plenty more too, played just as fierce and sweet and weird as you like, from start (including the hilarious intro by legendary NY deejay/TV horror - movie host Zacherle) to finish (the lovely Bahamian gospel lullaby "We Bid You Goodnight"). It's likely that no recording has ever captured so well the feeling of those sublime evenings (stretching toward dawn) on Second Avenue. Say, we sure could go for an egg cream from Gem Spa right about now, couldn't you?

Dick's Picks Volume 3 (Two CDs)
CD026 Sportatorium, Pembroke Pines, FL 5/22/77

CD One:
Funiculi Funicula - The Music Never Stopped - Sugaree - Lazy Lightning > Supplication - Dancin' In The Streets - Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower
CD Two:
Samson and Delilah - Sunrise - Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World > Wharf Rat > Terrapin Station > (Walk Me Out In The) Morning Dew

From another golden era of live Dead music, this late - 70s entry builds to a remarkable climax, culminating in an extraordinary "Wharf Rat/Terrapin/Morning Dew" triptych.

Dick's Picks Volume 2 (One CD)
CD024 Ohio Theatre Columbus, OH 10/31/71

 Dark Star > Jam > Sugar Magnolia > St. Stephen > Not Fade Away > Going Down The Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away

DICK PICKS AGAIN!
Eureka! Grateful Dead vault archivist Dick Latvala has, at long last, emerged from way down deep in the mine with another choice sampling from his mother lode of pure gold. Lovingly remastered from the original two-track source tape, Dick's Picks, Volume Two is finally here!

Dick's Picks, Volume Two (GDCD40192) features a solid 58 minutes and 33 seconds of choice Grateful Dead music, recorded in 1971 at Columbus, Ohio, on that most quintessentially Grateful Deadish of nights, October 31, the Eve of All Hallows. Keith Godchaux was brand new to the band (this was just his 10th show, filling in for the ailing Pigpen). Hobgoblins of the highest order were at play that night - this is clearly music possessed by the spirits. Are they friendly spirits? Friendly? Just listen!

Dick's Picks Volume 1(Two CDs)
CD023 Curtis Hixon Convention Center Tampa, FL 12/19/73

CD One:
Here Comes Sunshine - Big River - Mississippi Half Step - Weather Report Suite - Big Railroad Blues - Playing In The Band
CD Two:
He's Gone  > Truckin' > Nobody's Fault But Mine  > Jam > The Other One > Jam  > Stella Blue - Around And Around

The final show (and one of the best) in what many fans consider to be one of the Dead's peak performing years.