Growing up with the Dead

Since my wonderful first experience with Brahms

at age four, I've found music to be, among many other things,

a safety net, a lifeline that remains constant 

when all other mental constructs 

are in total Heraclitean flux.

Phil Lesh, bassist, Grateful Dead

This is who I am.

Every thing makes sense now. After reading Phil Lesh's biography Searching for the Sound I felt like I was hanging out with a version of my childhood buddies and myself, just from a time 30 years before my childhood.

Like Lesh, I was raised on classical music and then I became entranced with Jazz and then rock n' roll. Kind of the backwards route for most people.

I love how Lesh describes his first encounter with music and his earliest memory. Brahms. First Symphony. Age 4. I, too, remember when I first "discovered" music. KKHI, the Bay Area's great classical music station in the seventies and eighties, had this Sunday afternoon opera show. My parents had KKHI on 24/7 growing up and I remember this opera show's opening tune blended perfectly with the idyllic backyard patio I grew up knowing in Menlo Park.

Menlo Park, my hometown, is really the birthplace of the Dead, though usually it's Palo Alto that takes the credit because it has a strong claim, too.

Jerry and Phil, cornerstones of the Dead, met up in Menlo Park, at the Chateau, Ken Kesey's house, somewhere near my local drinking hole the Dutch Goose. The Dead's first gig, at Magoo's Pizza, 635 Santa Cruz Avenue, which is now a fancy French restaurant, is where the band discovered the wonderful power of improvisational music. Early folk gigs and meet-ups among the band and Jerry's other folkie friends took place at Kepler's, which is still in Menlo Park but moved across the street, and was a place where you could drink coffee and read books, quite a novelty at the time.

So glad that there was another band called the Warlocks, so the Dead could come up with a much better name. The centuries old Grateful Dead myth is the essence of the band, their community, and is a good rule to live by.

Pigpen learned to sing the blues in blues clubs in East Palo Alto, when I grew up the "other side of the tracks," and now the home of Facebook. Jerry taught guitar at a music shop that might have been where I first took sax lessons, where he met Bobby Weir, who was attending M-A, my old high school, and the idea for the Dead began its embryonic stage. Of course, Weir never graduated. The dyslexic was expelled from every school he ever attended. Quite a prankster!

After their beginnings in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, the Dead became the greatest touring improvisatory band in the history of music blending so many influences (folk, blues, country, jazz, rock, avant garde classical) into one collective and totally unique American experience. They really are an American Beauty.

Dead, circa 1965.

The Dead were 5 non-prodigies. I only trust musicians who are ugly and the Dead were five of the ugliest (in physical appearance) that ever existed. Just think. Pigpen. Organically greasy. I love Lesh's side note on how he never saw Pigpen without his leather vest which was glued onto him. Jerry was the only member of the Dead who exhibited any extraordinary talent, but even his talent was of the kind that is purely from working hard, literally practicing every waking hour of the day his banjo, guitar and pedal steel. Nobody practiced as hard as Garcia in the 60s and 70s.

Pigpen, one of the ugliest dudes ever. Which is why I trust him as a musician.

What made the Dead great is that they all learned how to play together. They didn't develop individual talents and then form. When they formed, they had no real individual talents (except for Jerry). Phil was a classically trained trumpet player who learned to play bass on the fly. As Lesh notes, "For more than 2 months we played together every day and I can't exaggerate the importance of this experience. The unique organicity of our music reflects the fact that each of us consciously personalized his playing to fit with what others were playing and to fit with who each man was an an individual, allowing us to meld our consciousnesses together in the unity of a group mind." The Dead took the concept of "bleshing"--mesh + blend--from Theodore Sturgeon's sci-fi novel More Than Human bringing their freakish X-men like idiosyncratic powers to make music in a completely group think mind-melding experience.

Music, for me, is all about contrast and compliment. Tension and release. These are the 2 big laws of music. And those are the rules that guide the Dead. Build tension, epic tension, and then find beauty in the release. Contrast--Jerry's guitar and Phil's bass were like a Bach counterpoint, contrasting but fitting together in a sort of puzzle, with Weir complimenting and filling the in between sounds.

The show that most impressed Lesh was seeing John Coltrane in a small San Francisco club. Oh how I wish I could take a time capsule to go see Trane, particularly in '59 with Miles, or the Classic Coltrane Quartet in the glory years '64-'65. I'd also of course love to take a time capsule to see the Dead in their most classic shows (2-14-68, 2-13-70, 5-2-70, 8-27-72, 9-21-72, 12-19-73). Oh my! That's all I'd do with a time capsule. That and maybe talk to Lincoln.

Lesh talks about how Coltrane's version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things" was one of the blueprints for the Dead. Listening to Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things" was a moment when music changed for me, too. It really is the quintessential essence of Jazz. Taking a standard and making it completely unique is what Jazz is and what the Dead did so well.

Jerry in the early days playing pedal steel guitar with David Nelson and the New Riders of the Purple Sage

Reading the book was like being in a conversation with my childhood buddies. Lesh has been a musician I've worshiped my entire life. Not worship in an untouchable Jimi Hendrix or Mozart kind of way. Those guys were superhuman meteors and not really of this earth. But worship in the sense that "If I could play bass, this is how I'd play" kind of way. Lesh seems approachable. I try to play my bari sax with a lot of the same influences that Lesh had (from Stravinsky to Coltrane).

Note the Red, White and Blue wristbands. That's my workout gear, too.

The Dead led me to discover Johnny Cash long before he became re-popularized with the movie and the recordings he did in his twilight years with Rick Rubin. Also Chuck Berry--not many kids my age were listening to Chuck Berry, who just about smokes any of the music being made nowadays. Lesh also brings influences from the world of classical like Charles Ives or Brahms. Which brings up 3 wonderful anecdotes Lesh tells about Jerry:

1) Lesh was invited to be a guest conductor for the Berkeley Community Orchestra conducting Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a benefit. It was in the later years when the band had grown apart and wasn't spending as much time together when they weren't on the road. Lesh didn't tell anybody in the band, thinking none of the guys would show up anyways. But who does he see in the front row when he goes to conduct but his best buddy Jerry. Surprise! It took Lesh aback when Jerry later brought some paintings of him conducting.

2) Lesh tells another story of how he rented a box at the San Francisco Opera for Wagner's Ring Cycle, some 24 hours of German opera. He invited the band. The only member to come for more than 2 nights was Jerry, who came all nights except for the last one, because he had promised to take his teenage daughter to see the Phil Collins concert. It's a pretty funny mental image to imagine Jerry at either a Wagner opera or a Phil Collins concert and it makes me howl out loud laughing to think about.

3) SCUBA diving--Apparently Jerry found peace from all the pressures of being a cultural icon by going SCUBA diving. Phil was always afraid of activities like that but Jerry insisted he come with him. And Phil describes just how happy it made Jerry to be under water. One more anecdote just to close it up: Jerry loved water and Phil describes coming to his house and watching Jerry just swim with his giant New Foundlands in his pool. Lesh describes the immense closet in Jerry's house that is empty except for 8 black t-shirts, the only attire Jerry ever wore.

If anything, Lesh's memoir of playing with the Dead, the greatest touring band of all time, is a story of friendships. Especially, his friendship with Jerry. Although there are some really great anecdotes about Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. That's what it's all about. Traveling with your buddies. Having adventures. Living a dream. Being kind to people in between and making people happy. I have tremendous gratitude for the great work Lesh and his buddies did for the thousands of people they made happy.

Always good to see a happy Jerry (and a wild Weir).

5-14-1974. Missoula, Montana. Dave's Pick 9: A Review

After missing gems like 11-17-1973 and 10-22-71 in the first 2 rounds of the Dave's Picks subscriptions series, I finally succumbed to ordering the third round of subscriptions. Yes, they're CDs. And CDs are dead as a media form. But who cares?

And the beauty is in the surprise. Like being at a concert and waiting for a particular tune and then they either play it or surprise you with something even better, it'll be like Christmas here the 4 times this year that a Dave's Pick, a selection from any one or a combination of the Grateful Dead's 2500+ shows, comes to my house. I'm really game for anything from any era. 60s Primal Dead, the Glory Years of 72-74, with the totally original blend of Americana and jazzy psychedelia, the almost perfectly perfect years of the late 70s, the sometimes off but really-on-when-they're-on shows of the mid-80s, there's always a surprise. I'll even take a pick from the 90s. There is so much to choose from with the huge body of work the Dead left us in their 2500+ shows. Some fans have complained that there is too much emphasis on the 70s with the Dave's Picks series, but there really is a deep, deep well to tap there.

Though I'm a fan of all eras of the Dead, let's be totally honest. I'm totally overjoyed that the first pick is from 1974 and features the Dead at the very peak of their jamming. If you believe in the dichotomy of songs versus jams or 1st set versus 2nd set tunes or warm-ups versus deep spacey space jazz hiatuses, 1974 is the year of some of the most powerful jams, which isn't to say the songs are bad. It's just that the jams are what make the year stand out. But this pick has both wonderful extended jams and tasty songs. 

And as a historical side note, the most recent pick represents the Dead's only show in Montana, which is surprising given that Montana, with its strange country vibe, seems like a very Dead kinda place.

Love the Moose and Dancing Bears here. Perfect for Missoula.

5-14-1974 from Missoula, Montana has arrived and it's time to dig into it a bit here, and here are my impressions after several listening sessions:

The first thing I need to mention about the show is its crystal clear sound. With 23 tons of equipment that took 12 hours to set up, the 459-speaker Wall of Sound wasn't about blasting people's eardrums away but making laser sharp clear sound, which is the case for all recordings from 1974, when the Dead were so ahead of their time in terms of sound. (Check out my post here about the Dead's revolutionary sound equipment.)  All fans of this era know that there is one slight defect with the tinny effect to the vocals. But that's a compromise to be made when there is the huge booming bass of Phil Lesh coming in full effect. I can think of no other time other than '73-'74 when Phil's bass shines so clearly and spectacularly. And I'm the type of guy that if I'm reading reviews of a show and someone chimes in with "Phil's dropping huge bass bombs on this one," then I'm in. And Missoula is no different. Phil explodes across both sets, and so do the rest of the band members. Sound: 5/5 stars.

Setting up the Wall of Sound. Sheer work of genius.

Though "Bertha" is a great opening song, after my first listening I thought that the first set didn't really get cooking until the Dead do their rendition of Johnny Cash's "Big River," and in 1973-74 the Dead's version beats any Grand Ole Opry version--just smoking, it leaves the audience exuberant and the band also seems to take note of the high emotion they created in the crowd. The"Brown Eyed Women" that follows deserves multiple listens, as it doesn't have the long, sweet, smooth Jerry solos of versions from '77 or the more down home country feel of '72 versions, but the Dead are lock tight, playing on all cylinders, and this might be my new favorite version. When I listened to the first set again, I don't know what I was thinking on my first listen: just about every song here is cooking, starting with that "Bertha," one of my personal favorites "Me and My Uncle;" "Loser" is powerful, even "Mexicali Blues" is good. But I must have been sleeping on the new at that time "Scarlet Begonias"-->"It Must Have Been the Roses" played with energy and verve. Even the audience is singing a nice harmony with Jerry and Donna on "It Must Have Been the Roses." Great versions here, folks! 

The "Playing in the Band" that ends the first set is slow, introspective and at one point sloppy. There is a missed transition before the reprise, and because of  it we are treated to not just one but two Donna howls in the reprise of the melody. But the meat in the middle of the song is where it happens.When the drums stop for a bit, Phil, Bobby, Jerry, and even Keith take the spaceship out to the ninth dimension. Phil's bass is, as mentioned before, just booming and grooving, especially on this "Playing." And at no time I can think of is Bobby Weir's comping on rhythm guitar just so rhythmically and harmonically original. Nobody was doing what Bobby was doing. Bobby's big hands give him the ability to construct totally wacky, jazzy chords, and the best comparison I can think of is how his strange chords and heavily rhythmic playing are like those of McCoy Tyner, pianist in John Coltrane's quartet. Missoula is one of the best examples of this unique playing style and this version of "Playing" is just an absolute clinic on Bobby's totally original rhythm guitar strumming. 

"Playing" was always a vehicle for Jerry to display his rich grasp of American music in long solos, and you can identify the Jazz, Folk, Space Rock influences here, just like any of the other just marvelous versions of "Playing" that were consistently on display in the 72-74 period, but it's Phil and Bobby who are really cooking here.The unsung hero of this "Playing," who I do not praise nearly enough on this blog, is Billy, whose drumming is just masterful and defines the genre of Space Jazz drumming. Like a number of Dead songs, "Playing" has a strange time signature, 10/4, and Billy really kills it with hyperkinetic work on the cymbals, snare and high-hat, and really moves the band throughout most of the song. Great version at a slower tempo than the classic '72 versions, and if it weren't for the sloppy transition at the end, which gave the spaceship a bumpy landing, it would really reach into the canon of utter Dead greatness.

Jerry and Bobby circa 1974 in deep jam form

1st set: 5/5 stars

Another song that requires multiple listens to really appreciate is "Row Jimmy" in the second slot of the second set. Slow, tender, felt, you could miss it if you weren't paying attention, but it's subtle swaying beauty and Jerry's slide solo are a real treat. The band, once again, is lock tight with a shy groove.

Then we move into the real meat of the show: the spacey jam section. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bobby Weir mentions how songs grow and age and take on a life of their own. Songs are living things and this notion is especially true with the Dead, who play a song differently every night. Weir even mentions how some songs go to sleep for awhile. ""Dark Star" went to sleep for a long time and then came back," Weir said, referring to how the Dead stopped playing one of their most requested tunes between 1974 and 1978 (and at other times). 

The Dead only played "Dark Star" 4 times in 1974 and this version is as deep and as dark as they come during an era when the Dead were peaking in their ability to explore deep space with long jams. The Dead weren't just playing in paragraphs but long, detailed and textured novels. And the "Dark Star" from Missoula is an outstanding example of the Dead's ability to play novels. It comes in a wonderful sandwich squeezed between "Weather Report Suite" and "China Doll," so that we get just under 52 minutes of uninterrupted brilliance from the band at the peak of their abilities to extend long-winded improvisation together. "Weather Report Suite" just streams out of the mountains crystal clear, exploratory but tight and then the deep, dark pull of "Dark Star" pulls us out of the perfect Western landscape of the "Suite" and takes us, once again, way out to outer space. The "Weather Report Suite" is so good it almost made me cry on first listen and rivals the wonderful '73 Winterland versions of it, but the 6-28-74 version captured on Dick's Picks 12 and the 28-minute medley jam that follows it still might take the cake. The "Suite" builds and we have a quick transition into "Dark Star" that builds slowly but deliberately in the 12-minute prelude to the first verse and is filled with very intricate rhythm guitar work from Bobby and delicate, masterful soloing from Jerry and some polyrhythmic drumming from Billy. Minutes 10-12 are extraordinary with some subtle work by Phil who plays his bass like a cello or the tenor in the quartet: swift, in line with the guitars, rather than below them. Keith is quietly shining here, too, on the keys as he does in most of this show, standing out in his "Loser" fills, a "Big River" solo that cooks and at a few other moments, like the "Not Fade Away" that will come after the "Dark Star." 

At about 19 minutes into the "Dark Star," we hear Jerry's fingers going warp speed across the fretboard, taking us to one of the weirdest sounds I've heard since the wild droning of the space rocket engines taking off in the middle of the "Other One" jam from 12-19-73, which is quite literally the most interesting sound I've ever heard in my life and is something I can only listen to about once or twice a year because the sound makes my bones tingle in such a strange way. This is the most out I have ever heard the Dead play and is really not for the uninitiated. The sounds made in minutes 19-21 of the "Dark Star" are about as weird as they come. 

The last 4 minutes of this "Dark Star" come at a blustering pace--hyperkinetic, polyrhythmic, explosive, this is the Dead taking music and sound to another level--and then suddenly, magically, we transition into the quietest, prettiest moment of the show as "China Doll" begins. One wonders what hand signals or musical cues are given between the band members because this switch between wild, chaotic, exuberant playing to a quiet, clear "China Doll" happens so smoothly and quickly and really reveals the band playing as a collective unit--beyond telepathic, one mind, completely focused.

What's hilarious is how a reviewer of the concert from the Missoulian just didn't get what the Dead were all about and wrote of this section: "But the night was not all roses. One incoherent jam in the four-hour concert rambled on for 40 minutes." Just listening to the recording of this "Dark Star" 40 years later is frightening, but it must have been truly mind-bending at the show, and easily impossible to grasp for the uninitiated. Had I been there, I might have run out of the building screaming in absolute fear. The ethereal quality of a well-played "Dark Star" can be almost too much to handle. But really that's what the Dead were really about: Taking music to places it had never been before. And as much as I love this version of "Dark Star," and the wonderful places it can take the listener, it's the Dead's ability to follow the seeming "rambling incoherence" of a deeply spacey "Dark Star" with a song that is so crystal clear, so pristine, so focused with such rich poignant purpose in "China Doll" that does it. The Dead could go from the ninth dimension of a universe far, far away to a deeply rooted laudanum-laden country western tale about a pistol play gone bad told with an absolute precision at the turn of a dime. 

Missoula's version of "Dark Star," by the way, belongs in the canon of 2/27/69, 2/13/70, 10/31/71, 8/27/72, 9/21/72, and 11/11/73 "Dark Stars," all perfect but different. We can see a natural progression over the years and the growth of the song over time. And wow did it grow. It's nearly impossible for me to pick a favorite from these--lately I've been partial to 11/11/73, but re-listening to this Missoula version and especially the last 5 minutes shows the total progression of the Dead and their dedication to each other and to improvisation. Absolutely spellbinding. Each "Dark Star" shows a deep development and this one fits into the progression. 

What's crazy is that after 50 of the most intensely serious minutes of music, we get a rousing, barn-burning, totally un-serious version of Chuck Berry's 1964 "Promised Land," which is just a warm-up for a "Not Fade Away"-->"Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" that knocks the socks off. If Jerry was at an 11 for the earlier part of the show, following the logic of Nigel in the mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap" (check this link to watch the discussion of amps going to 11), Jerry goes to 13 during both Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and Woody Guthrie's "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad." He really knocks it out of the park here, folks! What's amazing is that after the spacey section of the second set, we go from Chuck Berry to Buddy Holly to Woody Guthrie, 3 of the most important American composers I can think of. Second set: 7 out of 5 stars.

It's this sort of versatility displayed in the "Weather Report Suite"-->"Dark Star"-->"China Doll" collective stream of consciousness that makes me believe that the Dead probably had/have the richest repertoire in American music. Their songwriting is genius in its storytelling abilities, both in a musical and a lyrical way, as Hunter's lyrics tell the story of the nomadic West in a way that is poignant but leaves so much up to the imagination. It's not just their songwriting but their interpretation of other American classics, like those of Buddy Holly, Woody Guthrie and Chuck Berry.The Dead took their songs and made them their own. They were deliberately apolitical and the power of their message was so palpable because it didn't conk the listener over the head with a social or political agenda, leaving the listener to make it up in his/her head and blend into the creative design of the Dead world. For me, the Dead tell a more complete story of the West, of a wild America of the sixties and seventies and times before, like the gold mining days in California, with just as much richness as the best of the folk troubadours. 

The Dead's creativity still seems under-appreciated, as their ability to create utterly new music with new twists and turns every night left us with a body of work that is staggeringly immense, unique and utterly telling of us as a people: the American West in its most purest form. 

What we get in '74 is a band that has been together at least 200 nights a year for almost 10 years straight, who'd see one key band member die and another leave (temporarily), whose bonds of brotherhood must have been so incredibly strong (almost frayed and fatigued by 1974, which is why they took their hiatus in 1975 and 1976. But the word hiatus is a strange because of the sheer volume of work they were able to achieve in those "hiatus" years.) And because of those bonds the band's collective mindset was perfect for orchestrating longwinded, incredibly sophisticated and drawn-out Jams that I believe are the peak of American improvisatory music, rivaling even the works of two of my favorite Jazzers, Miles Davis and John Coltrane and all of the players who played with them, who also are at the pinnacle of improvisational music. But what also surprises with Missoula is not just the jams, but the songs are really at their peak here, too. Between "Row Jimmy,""Brown-Eyed Women,""Loser," a brand new "Scarlet Begonias," even "Tennessee Jed" impresses, you've got some subtle yet distinctively beautiful tunes for the American songbook. The Wild West at its best. 

There have been many "jam bands" that have followed in the wake of the Dead--some, more technically proficient--but they pale in comparison with the rich body of work the Dead have offered us. The Dead were master imitators, and I mean this in the best way, before they had many imitators themselves. They were studied scholars of American musical history, perfectly synthesizing so many genres that are distinctly American--country, bluegrass, Jazz, minstrel, blues--in a totally unique way. The "Weather Report Suite"-->"Dark Star"-->"China Doll" stream is really the American West at its best. Wild with reckless abandon, one sees landscapes beyond description in their mind's eye while listening. 

Like all meaningful music and most music by the Dead, Missoula demands multiple listens in order to appreciate. And it's staggering once you appreciate it. Unfathomable that it hadn't been released commercially before. 



kendall.whitney@gmail.com

1980 Dead: On the Cusp (again)

Every year for the 30-year history of the Grateful Dead’s touring history is a year of transition. You could calmly and sanely assert that 1972 is a transition year. And so are 1973 and 1974, it could easily be argued. 1971 and 1977 are transition years, too. Oh, but 1970, what a year of transition that was. And 87 and 90, too, man. And you could keep going for hours, debating how each year is a year of transition.

Blindfold a Dead aficionado and put on a recording from just about any show and they will easily  be able to tell the vintage of the show. Because each of these years of transition is so marked, so inherently different from the other years of transition. Because they’re all years of transition with wild change, exploration. Each song takes on a new life depending on the year, the show, the synergy with the audience, which is why I can’t get my hands on enough Dead show recordings. So, I picked up Dave’s Picks Volume 8 from 11/30/1980 from the Fox Theater in Atlanta, and we find the Dead in fine form.

In 1980, the Dead are really on the cusp. Once again, they're just always on the cusp of something great because they’re always in transition, never afraid of changing and digging deeper and going further. It’s what’s missing, what would send them to the other side of the cusp, that makes the journey worth it for the Dead. And makes collecting the next show so worth it.

1980 Dead

1980 is a vintage that I wanted in my collection and this show is a fine representation of that year. I had to get my hands on some 1980 Dead because my old Dead Set CD wore out from playing it so much.

I also had a theory about 1980 that I wanted to test out. I like all eras of the Dead but I definitely lean toward that magic window of 1972-74 as my preferred era. Even still, Brent has the most technical chops of the Dead keyboardists (if we’re not including Bruce, who most Deadheads seem to ignore when considering this question) and his tenure during the 80s is outstanding. But while Brent has the most chops, both on keys and certainly as background vocalist, with his harmonies much cleaner than those of Donna, what I don’t like about the Brent years is that there’s just a bit too much Brent. What was great about Keith, and is probably the reason I like 72-74 as my favorite years, is that he knew how to get out of the way. Keith’s magic was in the understatement. While Brent’s essence is the overstatement. When Keith is on, he’s brilliant. But he never dominates. Brent, particularly in the late 80s, is consistently brilliant but dominates to the point that we don’t hear the magic from the other guys in the band. In fact, in many instances, Brent must be covering up for Jerry and the rest of the boys’ bad nights.

A young Brent Mydland on the keys

But here’s my theory: In 1980, Brent was still the new keyboardist and he was still unsure of himself and he didn’t drown out the other members of the band with the brash 1980s sound of his synthesizer sounds, which every once in a while are titillating, but too often are just plain cheesy. I base my theory also on Dick’s Picks 5 from 12/26/79 Oakland, which has some outstanding playing by Brent but nothing in which he dominates too much.

Despite the fact that every year is different, there is one overarching thesis behind the music of the Grateful Dead: A Rainbow of Sound. In 1980, Brent takes the baton from another great piano player and continues this musical mission. And indeed, he adds his own very unique textures to The Rainbow of Sound. And I don’t mean to take away from his brilliance by noting his tendency toward cheesiness because the Rainbow of Sound is very much alive on this recording, and Brent is a big part of this colorful sound that we love about the Dead.

1980 Garcia with Tiger. He got really good sounds with this guitar

There  was another reason I picked up 11-30-1980. The setlist. There were a couple of songs that were a bit lacking in my collection--a “Saint of Circumstance,” the promise of a truly exploratory post-hiatus “Playing in the Band,” a “Bird Song” (always one of my favorites), an extraordinary “Scarlet Begonias-->Fire on the Mountain,” which does really cook and is different but stands up to the 77 versions of this mammoth combination of songs. Jerry's playing is really sizzling. But what stuck out, besides the songs I wanted, were the little details. One of the best versions that I know of “Little Red Rooster.” “Feel Like a Stranger” has an extended and very worthy Jerry solo. A tender but powerful “Loser.” “Ship of Fools” has never been performed with such vigor, such tenderness and depth--really enjoyed that one. Another standout is the as-advertised “era-defining ‘Deal.’” The first set clocks in at 100 minutes; “[F]ast or slow, Jerry or Bob, routine or rare: they nail them all.”

My personal favorite from the recording is “The Wheel,” which is one of the slower versions I’ve heard and it’s very serene, calm and uplifting and profound at the same time. Definitely worth having in your collection if you’re a fan of The Wheel. There’s a moment at the end where it sounds like they’re going to transition into Playing, but we go straight into China Doll. (The setlist is not unlike that of Dick’s Picks vol. 29 (May 19th, 1977, also from the Fox Theater.) It’s funny to hear this hesitation, the reluctance between the players--the drummers are off for the Playing segue but Jerry takes it back down to China Doll. Here, we know the band is just really making it up as they go. It truly is fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants music. Totally unplanned. Seemingly unorganized, yet still it has its own system and the parts fit very well when it all works itself out. And certainly there are musical blunders by our heroes in this recording. But that’s the inherent risk of making music as you go, literally composing a new song every night.

Flawless this show is not but good and worthy it most definitely is.

The sound must also be commented. The Matrix recording--a blend of a Dan Healy soundboard and a Bob Wagner audience tape--sound makes for an imperfect yet warm sound. Big, meaty, spacey, deep, like being stuck in a deep forest with a pagan ritual going on. I’ve been listening to too many (not enough) perfect soundboards lately, so it was nice to hear a more ragged recording but with a deeper verosimilitud.

During the transition from “Space” to “The Wheel,” you can actually hear someone in the crowd quietly ask, “What song is this?” There are a couple of other moments in which we are very close to the intimate conversations that those people around the recording device are having. And these interruptions do not take away from the recording. In fact, they make it more real and more warm. The crowd’s energy is well integrated into the sound of the music. There are certainly imperfections in the recording but these imperfections give it life.

(Another added bonus are the liner notes by Nick Paumgarten, whose New Yorker piece on the Dead is about as canonical as a 2/13/1970 “Dark Star.” Worth checking out.)

I've always loved how the Dead had Oriental rugs on stage, making for a loose atmosphere. It was like they were playing in their own living room

As always for the Dead, the beauty is in the paradox. The imperfection makes for perfect listening. Their playing is serious fun. When they are really tight, telepathically playing each note as if it’s their last, there is a looseness that holds them together. Each individual part is so good that it makes the collective that much better than the sum of all the parts. We're in the meat here for the Dead--they're not in their wild youth of the 60s and early 70s, and they've most definitely hit their stride, but they haven't yet taken that stride for granted. And there’s just enough Brent to keep it very colorful but not too much that we lose what's good about the Dead: the Dead.

Just Outside of Outer Mongolia: Paul Pena and Tuvan Throat Singing

I’m not one to repeat watching a documentary but, though the filmmaking process was kinda shoddy and unprofessional, Genghis Blues is right up my alley and for the second time in two viewings it brought me to tears.

 

The poster for Genghis Blues

The premise of Genghis Blues is the journey of blues man Paul Pena to Tannu Tuva after he learns the techniques of Tuvan throat singing, hearing it come in on a Moscow radio station on his shortwave radio but, like any great story, goes a lot deeper than that and hits me at an intersection of a number of my interests.

Firstly, the documentary strikes at probably one of my hugest passions: Music. Paul Pena was an underappreciated San Francisco bluesman who played with T-Bone Walker’s band and opened for the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band, and is probably most famous for writing “Jet Airliner,” made popular by the Steve Miller Band. He only really made 2 albums, the most famous being New Train, which has an upbeat barbecue rock sound perfect for happy picnics. Pena, though, could play a sophisticated blues infused with the knowledge of Jazz scales, and it’s tweaked a little bit. Just how I like it.

What blew me away about the story told in the documentary is Pena’s enormous effort and passion put into learning not only Tuvan throat singing but learning the Tuvan language. If you’ve never heard of Tannu Tuva, it’s just outside of Outer Mongolia and was only a recognized country between 1921 and 1944, after which it was swallowed by the Soviet Union, and is now part of the Russian Federation. Like any country engulfed by an empire, its language, culture and traditions are threatened by extinction, a fact made starker by the Tuvans’ nomadic tendencies, which make it difficult to exist in our current world.

Tuvan throatsinging utilizes the art of hitting up to 3 notes at a single time in complicated overtones and strange pitches and harmonies, unrecognizable by the western musical language. Sonically, hearing the singing is like visiting another dimension. At one of the last Grateful Dead shows I went to, I was able to hear the Gyuto Order of Tibetan monks chant with their overtone chordal chant style of singing. And though it wouldn’t be something I’d want to listen to for more than a half hour, hearing otherworldly voices with 25,000 people was an extremely powerful experience. The Tuvan throat singing is also powerful but, in many cases, it’s just one singer who is making these strange sounds and the tones that the Tuvans can achieve are even much wilder.

Secondly, the movie hit me at my second biggest passion: Travel. Paul Pena is the perfect traveler. Pena is such a huge bear of a man and emanates an enormous warmth and kindness. Paul’s character is one that the Tuvans immediately gravitate toward because of his generous spirit. Pena is completely blind and has to be led around through the strange country by a wonderfully friendly and adventurous Tuvan guide, and you can see the strong bond that develops between the two in their travels. It must be so wild and difficult to travel through such a strange country in a world in which people get 95% of the information about their surroundings through their eyes.

 

Pena and Kongar-ol Ondar on a river, the subject most common to Tuvan throat singing songs

Tuva is about as strange as it comes in the world of travel. At a topical glance, the wild steppes don’t look too much different than Montana, but clearly we are in another world when we hear the strange languages and see the customs of the nomadic Tuvan people, who are made up of Uyghurs, Turks, Huns and other ethnics groups. It’s another time’s forgotten space, and produces a feeling I experience when I ponder the central steppes of Asia. If you’ve ever read Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, you know what I’m writing about. There is just something so otherworldly that it becomes almost like another planet. One imagines a world from a science fiction film the 1950s, but just a bit more weird.

Pena’s humility is such that people know that he is genuinely blown away that the Tuvans find him to be such an excellent throat singer, and it’s amazing that he has such deep appreciation for this random far flung place. The Tuvans respect his genuine passion for the music and the place because he genuinely respects them. This mutual respect is real and powerful.

 

The friendship develops between Pena and Kongar-ol Ondar, master Tuvan throat singer

Pena is versatile as a musician—his great ears are what allow him to learn both the Tuvan language and the strange singing style. I’m no expert in Tuvan throat singing, but it’s clear that Pena gets all of the little nuances that make it unique, and that is why he wins the throat singing contest. There’s something about his spontaneous demeanor, one that is so essential for a musician who works in improvisatory music styles, and this spontaneity also makes him a great traveler. He doesn’t break stride when his guitar string breaks on stage and he is handed a traditional Tuvan instrument that he plays as if he was born with it in his hands.

Pena’s generous spirit of adventure gave me deep homesickness for the San Francisco Bay Area, where people are so open to new experiences and different kinds of people.

This is the Holy Grail: Sunshine Daydream; 8/27/72, Veneta, Oregon

This is the Holy Grail. Not just for admirers of the Grateful Dead. But for humanity.  Sunshine Daydream, the commercially released audio and video recordings from the 8/27/72 Veneta, Oregon Springfield Creamery Benefit show, captures the Dead doing what they do best: Putting on a party with a family atmosphere. The Springfield Creamery Benefit was billed as a picnic, and when you see the footage from that day, it was in many ways a gigantic picnic--kids running around having fun, adults dancing naked in a total state of bliss, and general good-natured outdoor afternoon fun. 

The show was also a benefit, not just for a struggling creamery, but for humanity (those 15-20,000 people lucky enough to bask in the sunshine of the day at the show and those of us lucky enough to rely on the ingenious recording and re-mastering techniques of the Dead family's magicians who were able to create such a faithful document to the day that we can listen to and enjoy today). Asked about doing benefit shows, Jerry Garcia said, “When we do them, it’s usually for our friends [...]. The benefit for us is to be able to give people music, that’s a benefit, that’s the real benefit that we can provide.” What a deep benefit the Grateful Dead have left us with their 2,300+ shows, many of which are available commercially or for free through taping networks and websites. I can’t count the number of times the Dead have made me feel blissful and remind me of just how beautiful this world is, and Sunshine Daydream just might be the pinnacle of that expression. 

Jerry Garcia with his Sunburst Strat in Veneta, Oregon

In a time of government shutdowns, another Garcia quote worth remembering is from a conversation with a Yale law professor: “I’ve always thought that the Grateful Dead should be sponsored by the government or something. It should be a public service, you know, and they should set us up to play at places that need to get high.” The happiness the band left with attendees, particularly at this show, was extraordinary. And even when we struggle with the budget, one wonders just how much better the world would be with happiness brought to us by a house band--Lord knows we need it.

8/27/1972, otherwise known as the Springfield Creamery Benefit, played at the Renaissance Grounds in Veneta, Oregon, on a improvised stage put together with trees fallen by the Merry Pranksters of Ken Kesey fame, is 3 hours of happiness and rightfully one of the top 5 most requested Dead shows. But listening to this recording made me reflect on just how wonderful 1972 was for the Dead. I’ve already spent considerable digital ink reflecting on just how wonderful 1973 was, but 1972 is just as extraordinary and sets the tone for ’73. 1972 has more of the bluesy Americana sound while ’73 is more about what I’ll call the space jazz. The difference might reside in Jerry switching from his Strat to the custom-made Wolf guitar, which gave his playing and the band’s sound a more jazzy feel. 

Jerry Garcia in 1972 with the 1957 Fender Stratocaster "Alligator" that Graham Nash gave him. He's using his Sunburst Strat in the Sunshine Daydream concert

I originally fell in love with the Dead listening to the original ’72 Europe recordings. I still consider many of the songs on that album to be the definitive versions-- “Jack Straw,” “Cumberland Blues,” and “Sugar Magnolia” stick out, but we could point to many nearly perfect songs from that album. After going through other recordings from 1972, the 9/21/1972 show from the Philly Spectrum, captured on DP 31, really sticks out. As a review from the time indicated: “On a smoggy, soggy evening, in a large, darkened concert hall, the Dead managed to take every member of the capacity audience (17,500 people) to the top of a mountain on a bright sunny day. From a troubled city to wide open country.” The Spectrum has moments that might eclipse those captured on Sunshine Daydream. The 37-minute “Dark Star”--> “Morning Dew” is absolutely extraordinary and might even beat the stellar “Dark Star” from Veneta, but Veneta has many other moments worth remembering. 

Garcia in '74 with the custom-made "Wolf," with a more jazzy sound

Another indispensable recording from 1972 is Hundred Year Hall from a magical night in Frankfurt, Germany. If Beethoven died before composing the 9th, we’d still have one of the greatest composers of all time, but with the 9th he gave us something that is truly out of this world, as if it were written by a non-human entity, some deity from another galaxy. That’s how I feel about the “Other One” from Hundred Year Hall. The album is great and then we get to this 36 minutes of sounds from another universe, a peak into the Dead at a creative pinnacle. Parts of it are almost unlistenable for the uninitiated, but at 19 minutes in, we get a Space Groove Phil laying down a vamp that will propel them far. At 21 minutes out they’re a million light years from Earth. One worries that they’ve lost the song. It then becomes almost totally unlistenable, even for the initiated, but it goes further and further into other dimensions. At 32 minutes, they’re doing this insane polyrhythmic wildness beyond tribal and incorporating it back into the melody of the song which kicks back in again. No sane person would listen to this but that’s why I’m OK with not being sane. And I think most Deadheads that are fans of the Dead’s improvisatory prowess will appreciate this jewel.

The Dead understood timing. A pinnacle moment with "Dark Star" played at sunset

What sticks out from Sunshine Daydream is the visual documentary from the show. Prior to making a film of the Dead, Garcia asked why would anyone want to see a movie of us. “We just stand there.” But there’s something striking about the loose, family atmosphere that the band create on stage. My wife and I were lucky enough to catch the film of the show on the big screen at the annual Deadhead Meet-up. The visuals really capture the mantra oft-repeated: “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” Besides images of the blissful Deadheads dancing, what sticks out from the show is Garcia’s picking on “Dark Star.” Technique-wise, Garcia had one of the best right hands that I can think of and his missing finger made his picking styles really unique. He truly was a banjo man playing an electric guitar and that made his sound so unique, so Americana. 

The loose atmosphere created on stage at Veneta, Oregon

There are clips of Garcia in the midst of some deep, profound, introspective and dazzling technical guitar licks that counterposes with a hippie hanging naked from a pole behind the stage, deep in a state of trance, totally mesmerized by the band’s playing, looking almost like Jesus hanging from the cross. This image says a lot about the band, Garcia, and the hippie movement, already in a state of decadence in 1972; yet, here on the Renaissance Fair Grounds in Oregon on this hot day, this was the time’s idealism at its most perfect state, a truly beautiful capturing of what was beautiful about the Deadheads. 

You can see the naked Jesus just above Garcia's left shoulder

I’m much more interested in the Dead’s music than in the scene that developed around the band, which unfortunately unraveled in a number of hypocrisies, but when it was good, it was really good. The Deadheads brought a warm environment, based on communal sharing, and a spirit that was genuinely driven to create a better world. At its worst, Jerry suffered the same fate that Jesus did: Too many of his followers misinterpreted the message and used it for evil rather than good. And evil isn’t really the right word here, but more of a misguided close-mindedness might hit closer. Which is also part of the naive experience that the spirituality of a Dead show or a religious experience can do to people.

The Veneta show could be any show from 1972, good but not any better from the year, until we get to the “China Cat Sunflower--->I Know You Rider,” in particular the bridge between “China Cat” and “Rider.” Phil starts the first song with a really loose and huge slide down his bass that gets the selection off on the right foot, but it’s Bobby’s “rhythm guitar solo,” a lead solo played by and like a rhythm guitarist that triggers Jerry’s virtuosity on a lead guitar solo that streams so smoothly and elegantly that it takes the listener to a far-off better place in only the way that the Grateful Dead can do. As drummer Mickey Hart said, the Dead aren’t in the music business per se, but the transportation business. Their music is the perfect traveling music--nomadic, wandering, deeply western in its looseness and themes of rambling gamblers and old West shoot outs. So far West that it goes East in its spacey mysticism. It moves and it moves the listener. The music transports the listener to other times and places. This “China-Rider” is just as good as it gets. I’ve always thought the 1972 versions of the selection were the best with the 1973 space jazz transition into the funkier, almost comic book-like or cartoonish, decadent “China-Riders” of 1974 were also profoundly amazing. 1972 is the year when it’s clear that Bobby can carry his weight. Fired at one point because he was always late on the chunk of his rhythm guitar playing, Bobby has slipped into his role and he starts leading the band at points. When the Dead as a whole are really on, it’s Bobby’s  playing that adds that extra spark.

The Veneta versions of “Bird Song” and “Playing in the Band” are definitive. “Playing in the Band” has become the soundtrack of the Adventure Buddies, what I call my wife, 2 dogs, and myself, and here the song is in its most adventurous incarnation. It’s almost as if it’s a game for the band to see how far they can take the song out as far as it can go into spooky spaciness and then somehow they bring it back and slowly work the melody back in and bring it back to the head. This really is the holy grail.  

The Veneta version of “Bertha” is lively and colorful. The images of the tie-dye shown during the movie will forever be ingrained in my head when I hear “Bertha;” they’re really done so well.  

In between selections, we get water reports (“save your water, it’s hot!”) and the report of a fire truck coming to spray water on the crowd in 100+ degree heat, which gets a huge rise from the crowd. We also get reports on lost kids and kids missing their parents. What’s special about a Dead show, which is really more an experience or a jubilee, the town dance, a spectacle, is that the Dead experience is all about a family atmosphere. 

The liner notes include the petition that Deadheads signed requesting that this show be released. Though now regarded as a legendary show, what’s truly spectacular is that this was just another show during that year. That similar enthusiasm, similar energy was brought by fans coming to the Renaissance Fair Grounds. But like several other shows from 1972, the 8/27/72 show stands out as one of the best shows the band ever played. It just might be the holy grail.

Winterland 1973. The Complete Recordings: A Review

Normal bands release a live concert from a single date or release a single or double disc of “best ofs” from a tour. Not the Dead. Because of their fans, the Dead don’t just release the entire concert, zits and all, the Dead (and their business people) release 3-night runs (on 9 discs) capturing a particular moment in time. Or in the case of “Winterland 1973. The Complete Recordings” 3 nights in a row. November 9-11, 1973, a Friday night through Sunday night run of shows in San Francisco that captures the band doing what they do best: playing live improvisational music.  

What’s curious about this box set released in 2009 is that in 1973 the Dead played only 3 nights in their home base of San Francisco. In a year in which they played over 150 shows. Yes, they kicked off 1973 at Maples Pavilion (in Stanford). But these 3 are the only concerts they played in the place they put on the map in their own musical way. Yet here we have the historical documentation of how they sounded in late 1973. Which is a really good but difficult and somewhat dark time for the Dead (Pigpen’s recent passing). 

Every Deadhead has their favorite era. Many point to the Cornell May 8th, 1977 show, which is in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. But I’m not entirely convinced that Cornell was the best show of the spectacular Spring ’77 tour. Then there are Deadheads who believe that the only true Dead is the Pigpen era (1965-maybe late ’71, because Pigpen really stopped having an impact on the Dead once he got sick and eventually passed in ’73), punctuated by the extremely intense playing from ’68 to ’70. Personally, I’m very fond of ’72 and the post-Pigpen ’73-74, although I do find myself coming back frequently to the intensity of ’69-’71 (2/13/1970 is such a spookily intense show!). As much as I appreciate the blues songs that Pigpen sang perfectly with so much soul and the tremendous energy that Pigpen brought to the band, it took Pigpen passing for the Dead to make the natural progression from country psychedelic rock band with a blues background to one with credible Jazz chops. 

In ’73, Jerry was learning jazz scales from his friend, pianist Merl Saunders, and these scales were giving incredible depth to his improvisation. Jerry’s soloing is really peaking at this time. It is still quite unfathomable for me to imagine that not only did the Dead play some 150+ shows, each in front of thousands of people, in 1973, but that Jerry would get incredibly bored when not on tour and would play clubs in San Francisco and Palo Alto with the Merl Saunders or Jerry Garcia Band (which had a more gospel and funky sound than the Dead) and would play an incomparable banjo with Old and In the Way (though he wasn’t quite old in ’73). It is entirely conceivable that Jerry played live on some 320 nights or more in ’73. By some accounts, his favorite pastime was buying Fender chord books and practicing chords. Literally, Jerry’s life at the time must have been Play-Travel-Sleep. Play-Travel-Sleep. Do it over again. And Play-Travel-Sleep.   

What strikes me about the box set “Winterland 1973. The Complete Recordings” is how perfectly it is suited for us Dead historians. Beautiful liner notes written by Dennis McNally capture the essence of the Dead in ’73 and how they came to be where they were on those nights in early November 1973. Luscious murals of the band and colorful characters of the time. A mailing list for fans wanting info on the upcoming tour from an era so pre-band website it is not even funny. And a great pin, which is now on one of my hats, and reads: “Good Ole Grateful Dead.”

Then there’s the sound. And for the audiophiles out there, this recording really is a treasure in its own special way. The shows were recorded on 2-track tapes on a Nagra IV as part of the band’s normal documenting procedures of the time, which employed a mic split permitting a different mix to tape than that to the PA system, with minimal processing allowing the clearest possible signal path to tape. These are far from your average 2-track recordings! An incredible restoration process took place to transfer the tapes to digital format using the highest possible digital resolution (192KHz/24bit). A standard CD is 44.1 KHz/16bit for reference. Processing and mastering procedures are described in great detail in the liner notes. The result: stunning sound quality. Each of the instruments are captured in their glory. The booms of Phil’s bass are deep and frightening. The high notes and intricate arpeggios of Jerry’s Wolf guitar are faithfully captured. Bobby’s presence is ever more important for the band at this time and his rhythm guitar pushes the band along. If there’s a weak point, it’s the vocals which do fade away slightly at points but not in a distracting way at all.  

The energy of the shows transfers nicely to the recordings. The Dead were notoriously inept at making albums in the studio (true Deadheads will argue that point, but let’s face it: with the exception of American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, it’s perfectly okay to skip the studio albums and head straight to their live recordings in order to appreciate the band's contribution to music). Because the Dead made their music on stage and not in a studio, there are volumes of the most essential Dead tunes that were never recorded in the studio (“Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “Ramble On Rose,” and many more). Jerry captured the essence of the Dead, which had to be appreciated live, when he said: “Working in the studio is like building a ship in a bottle. Playing live is like having a rowboat out on the ocean...You can't manufacture intensity [in a studio].” The Dead loved to be flung out deep to sea, where the intensity happened organically in the conversation between audience, venue and band. You can hear the energy streaming through the building on these recordings, like you can on all great Dead recordings. Steady waves of intensity cycle between all those involved. You can feel the telepathy between the band members and then the telepathy between the band and the audience (“Jerry smiled at me and I knew what he was going to play”). This energy is felt even to listeners like me 40 years later who were not even born yet in 1973. 

One of my favorite recordings that faithfully captures this energy is an audience recording of 6-22-1973. The sound quality is poor by modern studio album standards, but if you listen carefully to the “Bird Song” from that show, what you hear is a perfect experience of communion between band members and audience and an energy that is absolutely sizzling.  

But back to the 1973 Complete Winterland Recordings. Friday night’s show is worth 3 out of 5 stars. Good, not great. As my wife, a budding Dead appreciator noted, “There was no moment that sent me to Jupiter.” When the Dead were really on, they can send you to Jupiter, and there is no deep space wildness in Friday’s show. Highlights include a tight first set with a unique “They Love Each Other” and a 21-minute “Playing in the Band,” which almost got me to Jupiter but not quite. 

Saturday night’s show features a “Playing in the Band>Uncle John’s Band>Morning Dew>Uncle John’s Band>Playing in the Band” which occupies just about an entire disc. Deep space travel is required and it is quite excellent. The first set is also smoking. And there's a good "Truckin'" leading into a stellar "Wharf Rat" with a Nobody's jam in the middle. Amazing show, not quite magical. 4 out of 5 stars. Sunday night’s show takes the cake for me. A very long, tight energetic first set, punctuated by a monstrous “China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider,” one of the best versions that I can think of. The second set is anchored by a 35-minute subtle, exploratory “Dark Star” which blends nicely into a “Eyes of the World>China Doll.” The "Dark Star" from this night is not the crowd pleaser that the legendary 2/13/1970 version is, but man is it extraordinary. Very deep space travel with some very strange and wonderful Phil bass bombs dropped in the middle, and just when you think the band is going to lose it, they bring it back so beautifully for a truly transcendental, maybe even mature-sounding "Dark Star" that is deeply satisfying, especially on repeated listens. I enjoyed it the first time I listened to it, but did not really love until I was driving through some deep pea-soup fog, completely driving on memory and not sight, and getting lost. I made it back alive to my house just as the "Dark Star" was getting out of the deep space and into the transcendent "coming home" section with Bobby laying down that line that indicates they were near the end. I had to sit in the driveway and listen to the transition to the wonderful "Eyes of the World" and felt quite blissful. This is the deepest "Dark Star" I can think of. Let's give Sunday night's show a 5. 

As a bonus, I'll give the sound for the 3 shows a 6 out of 5. 

The benefit of having 3 nights in one box set is that we get to compare each of the shows very scientifically. The only songs the band played on all 3 nights were Bobby’s brand new “Weather Report Suite” (WRS) and “Big River.” WRS smokes on all 3 nights, and a reason to purchase this set is just to compare the WRSs. In fact, the band and Jerry especially is playing it so intensely on Saturday night that while Bobby and Phil lead the song to its conclusion, Jerry is still urging to burn up for way longer on his guitar. And while the band concludes the song, Jerry continues to solo in an almost space mariachi John Coltrane sound. You can hear the influence of Villa-Lobos, Albéniz and Miles Davis. Jerry does not want to stop playing and it’s quite wonderful to hear this magic enthusiasm. 

McNally correctly identifies that the band’s playing of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” could have earned them a place in the Grand Ole Opry on all 3 nights. A really tight country feel that would have you confused if you didn’t know. Are these boys from the hills of Tennessee or are they beatniks from the Peninsula and San Francisco? What’s great about the Dead is not just that they can do the Grand Ole Opry as well as any country musicians, but they can turn on a dime and then do a modal jazz 20+ minute “Eyes of the World.” And that’s really why I love the Dead in late 1973.

What you hear are live show veterans. You hear a band that has been playing 150+ shows a year, on the road for the vast majority of their "adult" lives. They purposefully went to places outside of the comfort home environs of San Francisco to test themselves in 1973. The “polished” (this is a difficult adjective to apply to the Dead, because when they are not just good but great, there’s an important element of unpolished looseness that is essential) sound of the band in 1973 bothers some fans. And it’s true, on these recordings there aren’t the magically intense spontaneous concerts that you would hear from the younger, much more unpolished but extremely energetic band in a 2/11/1969 or a 5/8/1970 show, for example. But what you have are moments. Really wonderful, technically proficient moments. And what are they? A rock band? A psychedelic band? (Though certainly part of the “psychedelic” culture of the late ‘60s, I would strongly argue that the Dead’s sound isn’t really “psychedelic” at all.) A country band? A Jazz combo? One can even hear the influence of Bach’s counterpoint in the dueling solos one hears between Phil and Jerry with Bobby comping like McCoy Tyner on a “Dark Star.” What makes the Dead special is the blend of styles that gives the band their own unique sound. And what a special sound it is. 

I do not recommend 1973 Winterland Complete Recordings for neophytes. (I highly recommend the 12-19-1973 show for those newbies wanting to get a taste of the Dead in late 1973 and to hear Jerry's improvisational talents and the Dead's space jazz chops really peaking). But for the historians, this is a great compilation not just for the wonderful artifacts collected in the box, but the great sound quality of the recordings, and the energy of the music. Complete. Warts and all.