Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 4: The Grateful Dead with John Fogerty

Here's the fourth and last out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one mainly features the Grateful Dead. However, there's a section in the middle where John Fogerty sang four songs while backed by the Dead. 

But there's more. Neil Young also showed up to sing lead vocals on a song, again backed by the Dead. He sang the Bob Dylan song "Forever Young." I believe the only other time he sang this song in concert was at the Bridge School Benefit that same year. Furthermore, John Popper of Blues Traveler played harmonica on one song. And for the concert finale, the Dead left the stage so Joan Baez could sing "Amazing Grace," with backing vocals by Graham Nash and Kris Kristofferson.

The Grateful Dead were extremely close to Bill Graham, from the very start of their career. He took control of the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1966, the first year of the band's existence. They would go on to play concerts managed and promoted by Graham probably hundreds of times.

In my write-up for Volume 1 of this concert, I mentioned a quote from Bob Weir of the Dead, who called Graham "the most important non-musician in music." Here also is a quote from band member Jerry Garcia: "Bill was our power guy, he's the guy that made rock and roll into an art-form. He loved dickering with agents and managers, that's what was fun for him. Bill himself was larger than life and an amazing guy. I've just missed the friend."

And here's a quote from band member Mickey Hart: "Bill always took great pride in everything he did. Whether it was The Fillmore or the Winterland, you could see him before the show, with his watches and his clipboard, making sure the chairs were right… He was a saloon keeper, he was a proprietor at the beginning – that's what his license said, 'saloon keeper.' He took great pride in bringing people into an environment, making them feel really great, then making sure they got safe. He was like a warrior promoter, and he really cared, he would sit up at night and dream this stuff. It wasn't like he just went to work and punched a clock; he was driven."

Typically, the Dead played whatever they wanted to play, without much thought about time limits or the specific circumstances of the concert. But for this concert, they came pretty close to playing an abbreviated "best of." They kept the overall length of their set short, compared to their usual standards of playing two or three hours, while skipping the usual long "Space" and "Drums" solos. And they played some of their best known songs. They even finished with "Touch of Grey," their sole Top Ten hit in the U.S. I'm not saying that was a good thing or a bad thing; I just think it's interesting.

The most memorable part about their set, however, had to be the songs sung by John Fogerty. In 1989, Fogerty sang a few songs backed by some members of the Dead, though it wasn't the full band. You can find that recording here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/in-concert-against-aids-oakland_19.html

That collaboration probably led to this one two years later, where he was backed by all of the Dead. These two concerts turned out to be the only two times Fogerty and the Dead played on stage together. (There were no more opportunities after Jerry Garcia died four years later.) This was also only the fourth time he played any of his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs at a formal concert after a long hiatus. Due to a legal dispute with his record company, he didn't play them from 1972 until 1987. After this, he began playing them on a regular basis. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

61 talk (David Graham)
62 Hell in a Bucket (Grateful Dead)
63 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
64 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
65 Wang Dang Doodle (Grateful Dead with John Popper)
66 talk (Grateful Dead)
67 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
68 Green River (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
69 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
70 talk (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
71 Proud Mary (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
72 Truckin' (Grateful Dead)
73 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
74 Wharf Rat (Grateful Dead)
75 Sunshine Daydream (Grateful Dead)
76 talk (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
77 Forever Young (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
78 Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead)
79 talk (Joan Baez)
80 Amazing Grace (Joan Baez with Graham Nash & Kris Kristofferson)
81 talk (David Graham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/G1KUGAmb 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S3aMhOemSjAIHE3/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows John Fogerty in front, with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in back, with glasses and a beard.

Bob Weir & Warren Haynes - Weir Here, TRI Studios, San Rafael, CA, 7-31-2013

Once again, I feel obliged to begin this write-up by pointing out that Bob Weir, formerly a member of the Grateful Dead, died last month. (I write this in February 2026.) I've already posted three albums celebrating his musical legacy. But when I putting the last one, which was an episode of his 2013 webcast "Weir Here," I got interested in another episode of that webcast and decided to post it too. For this one, Weir was joined by lead guitarist Warren Haynes.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Haynes:

"Warren Haynes (born April 6, 1960) is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his work as longtime guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey Betts Band. Haynes is also known for his associations with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, including touring with Phil Lesh and Friends and the Dead."

Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist for the Grateful Dead, was born on August 1, 1942. So this performance took place one day before the anniversary of his birth. The episode had Garcia in mind. As a result, most of the songs were ones that were usually co-written and sung by Garcia, not Weir. Both Weir and Haynes sang lead vocals, separately and together.

Weir and Haynes were supported by a small backing band, while generally staying in acoustic mode: Jeff Chimenti on keyboards, Lincoln Schleifer on bass, Jeff Sipe on drums, and Alecia Chakour and Jasmine Muhammed on backing vocals. Some of these other band members sang lead vocals occasionally, especially on "The Weight."

Like the other "Weir Here" episode, I converted the video to audio, then cut it into mp3s. I haven't seen this circulating as an audio bootleg, but hopefully that will change now. Everything here is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

Also like that other episode, there were two long discussions that took place during breaks in the middle of the performance. I made those two bonus tracks, so one can hear the music without interruption. 

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks. 

01 Walkin' Blues (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
02 talk (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
03 The Weight (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
04 Bird Song (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
05 West L.A. Fadeaway (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
06 Sugaree (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
07 talk (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
08 Crazy Fingers (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
09 talk (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
10 Shakedown Street (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
11 China Cat Sunflower - I Know You Rider (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)

Discussion 1 (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)
Discussion 2 (Bob Weir & Warren Haynes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ijoSHxFp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pAZtoA5ZfQ0WKVE/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a YouTube video. I used KreaAI to improve the image quality.

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA, 5-18-1968, Part 3 - The Grateful Dead

This is the third album out of seven albums I'm posting from the 1968 Northern California Folk-Rock Festival. This set features the Grateful Dead.

I said quite a lot in my write-up for the first album I posted from this festival, the Youngbloods set. I recommend you read that, because most of that applies to this set too. Most importantly, note that this is sourced from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality isn't up to my usual standards. I had to do a lot of work to fix all sorts of flaws. The final results sounds pretty decent for a 1968 concert, in my opinion, but you need to be tolerant about the flaws that still remain.

At the time of this concert, the Grateful Dead were still in a formative stage. They had only released one studio album so far, the cleverly titled "The Grateful Dead," in 1967. Most of the songs performed in this short set were from the second side of the band's second album, "Anthem of the Sun." But that album wouldn't be released until a couple of months after this concert.

The Dead weren't originally scheduled to perform at this festival, so they didn't appear on the poster, or in articles announcing the festival from a few days earlier. However, they did get listed in the official program, as well as in an article that came out a day before the festival. 

In the two write-ups I've done for this festival so far, I extensively quoted a review of this concert from the San Francisco Examiner. It didn't say much about the music, but the reviewer highlighted a few favorite performers. In addition to calling the Steve Miller Band "astonishing", it said "Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles in the Electric Flag, Jerry Garcia's guitar with the Grateful Dead, and the blues of Taj Mahal were also outstanding over the weekend." 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 Alligator (Grateful Dead)
02 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
03 Alligator [Reprise] [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
04 Caution [Do Not Stop on Tracks] [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
05 Feedback [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V37q7cce

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/cLQFR8qFjNuyunf/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's Jerry Garcia in the middle, before he fully grew out his distinctive beard. And Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's head can be seen in a cowboy hat.

Bob Weir & Phil Lesh - Weir Here, TRI Studios, San Rafael, CA, 3-13-2013

Last month, January 2026, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead died. He was 78 years old. I've already posted a couple of things to celebrate his musical legacy, but I want to post another one.

In 2012, Weir opened up his own music studio, called Tamalpais Research Institute Studios, or TRI Studios for short. In 2012 and 2013, he hosted about a dozen concerts in this studio, which were broadcast on the Internet. Generally speaking, he performed acoustic in front of a very small audience, with different guests each episode. I found this episode the most interesting, because his main guest this time was Phil Lesh, the long-time bassist for the Grateful Dead. After Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and the Dead broke up, Weir and Lesh did perform sometimes, for instance in the band the Other Ones. But they almost never performed together in acoustic mode, especially in a studio setting like this. All the songs performed were originally done by the Grateful Dead.

Some other people took part in this concert as well. For the first four songs, it was just Weir and Lesh as a duo, with Lesh coming in halfway through the first song. Then, for tracks 5, 6, and 7, they were joined by Jason Crosby and Joe Russo. For the last song, "Friend of the Devil," Lesh left and was replaced by Cass McCombs. Apparently, that's Lesh who sang lead vocals on "Operator." (The original version on the "American Beauty" album was sung by Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.)

Twice, between songs, the band members stopped playing and had an extension discussion amongst themselves. All that talking has less relistening value for me. So I took those two discussions and put them at the end as optional bonus tracks.

When I found this on YouTube, I did my usual thing of converting the video to audio format, and chopping it into mp3s. I was surprised that I haven't seen it shared as audio files, even though it seems everything Dead-related gets shared that way. So hopefully it can spread around now. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Sugar Magnolia (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
02 Cosmic Charlie (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
03 Loose Lucy (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
04 Jack Straw (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
05 Operator (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
06 Lazy River Road (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
07 Playing in the Band (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
08 talk (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
09 Friend of the Devil (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
10 talk (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)

Discussion 1 (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)
Discussion 2 (Bob Weir & Phil Lesh)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pbTUdbF6 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/c9mqDtoSUMBgZ42/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Bob Weir is the one with the beard.  

Bob Weir - Solo Acoustic Live, Tower Theatre, Upper Darby, PA, 9-10-2012

Bob Weir, one of the two main singer-songwriters in the Grateful Dead, died about a month ago as I write this. (He died on January 10, 2026, at the age of 78.) I wanted to post some music in tribute to his musical legacy. So I posted a series of concerts for the closing of the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco that included a Grateful Dead concert. But I also wanted to post something that focused more on him. So I'm posting this, which is a solo acoustic concert he did in 2012.

In the Grateful Dead, Weir was always considered kind of second fiddle to Jerry Garcia. In fact, there's a documentary about his life showing on Netflix right now called "The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir" that expresses that second fiddle role right in the title. But had Weir led a band on his own, I think he would have been quite successful, because he was a very talented singer and songwriter. His solo career began as far back as 1972 when he released his first solo album, "Ace." (It's a great album, by the way, as good as the Grateful Dead albums at the time, and so is "Garcia," the 1972 Jerry Garcia solo album.) 

But his solo career didn't become his full time career until 1995, the year Garcia died and the Grateful Dead came to an end. He performed in a variety of bands, including Kingfish, the Other Ones, Furthur, RatDog, Bobby and the Midnites, and the Wolf Bros. It was pretty unusual for him to perform in solo acoustic mode, but that's what he did here. This was part of a short solo tour, while he also did an acoustic trio tour that year.

After the Dead broke up, Weir's songwriting slowed down quite a lot. (That's not so unusual for someone who has been in the music business three or more decades already.) As a result, I think only two of the songs here are songs he wrote after 1995: "Ashes and Glass" and "Big Bad Blues." Most of the rest are original songs once performed with the Grateful Dead or covers.

As for the sound quality, I read that, during this tour, each concert was recorded and then one could buy a CD of it immediately after this concert was over. If so, that would explain the soundboard sound quality. However, I don't know if that's true, because this one gets around in bootleg trading circles some, but I haven't seen the other ones from the tour shared in the same way.

This album is two hours and nine minutes long. 

01 talk (Bob Weir)
02 The Music Never Stopped (Bob Weir)
03 Shakey Ground (Bob Weir)
04 The Music Never Stopped [Reprise] (Bob Weir)
05 New, New Minglewood Blues (Bob Weir)
06 talk (Bob Weir)
07 My Brother Esau (Bob Weir)
08 Loose Lucy (Bob Weir)
09 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob Weir)
10 talk (Bob Weir)
11 Artificial Flowers (Bob Weir)
12 Weather Report Suite (Bob Weir)
13 talk (Bob Weir)
14 Ashes and Glass (Bob Weir)
15 Big Bad Blues (Bob Weir)
16 Easy to Slip (Bob Weir)
17 Peggy-O (Bob Weir)
18 talk (Bob Weir)
19 Hell in a Bucket (Bob Weir)
20 Dear Prudence (Bob Weir)
21 Sugar Magnolia (Bob Weir)
22 talk (Bob Weir)
23 Brokedown Palace (Bob Weir)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UiNPi3Qq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/U3CBuMTDkWOf2W3/file

The cover is taken from a poster for this exact concert. The poster was rectangular, as posters usually are, so I had to make some edits to make it fit a square space. The main thing I did was I chopped out a section in the middle that included a lot of flowers under the skull. 

Our Final Week - The Closing of the Fillmore West, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 7-2-1971, Part 3: The Grateful Dead

Here's the third (and final) set from the third day of five days of concerts that closed the Fillmore West venue in San Francisco in 1971. (See my write-up on the Boz Scaggs set for general information about the closing.) This set features the Grateful Dead.

I had created all these albums in this series a year or two, but never got around to posting them on my blog. The recent death of Bob Weir (I'm writing this in January 2026) gave me the motivation to post them sooner rather than later, mostly so I could get to posting this set. Finally, here it is. But there's a lot more to come, with two more days of the series of concerts still to be posted.

This is a fitting tribute to the passing of Weir, I think because it's a good show of the band in their prime. In my opinion, they had many great years, but their absolute peak was probably 1970 or 1971.

This is a typical Grateful Dead concert for the era. It's long, at nearly three hours. (As is usual for Dead concerts, there was a lot of dead air between songs, but I generally cut that out.) And it consisted of two sets. The first one consisted mostly of shorter songs, often acoustic, while the second set is where the band got spacey and jammed a lot more. 

Some of this has been officially released. Two songs were released on the "Fillmore - The Last Days" album: "Casey Jones" and "Johnny B. Goode." Then, in 2021, many more were released when the "Skull and Roses" live album from 1971 was rereleased in an expanded edition. There were ten songs from this concert on the extra disc (tracks 15, 17 through 22, 25, and 26). However, all those together make up about an hour and fifteen minutes. So that still is less than half of what's here.  

By the way, here's a good blogpost by a Deadhead about this very concert:

Grateful Dead Listening Guide: 1971 July 02 - Fillmore West 

This album is two hours and 41 minutes long. 

01 talk by Bill Graham (Grateful Dead)
02 Bertha (Grateful Dead)
03 Me and Bobby McGee (Grateful Dead)
04 Next Time You See Me (Grateful Dead)
05 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
06 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
07 Playing in the Band (Grateful Dead)
08 Loser (Grateful Dead)
09 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub] (Grateful Dead)
10 Me and My Uncle (Grateful Dead)
11 Big Railroad Blues (Grateful Dead)
12 Hard to Handle (Grateful Dead)
13 Deal (Grateful Dead)
14 Promised Land (Grateful Dead)
15 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)
16 Sugar Magnolia (Grateful Dead)
17 Sing Me Back Home (Grateful Dead)
18 Mama Tried (Grateful Dead)
19 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
20 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
21 That's It for the Other One [Reprise] (Grateful Dead)
22 Big Boss Man (Grateful Dead)
23 Casey Jones (Grateful Dead)
24 Not Fade Away (Grateful Dead)
25 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Grateful Dead)
26 Not Fade Away [Reprise] (Grateful Dead)
27 talk (Grateful Dead)
28 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xUZsaYbF

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/uJ3AYFRLyXngCGF/file

The cover photo of Jerry Garcia is a screenshot taken from this exact concert. It's from the "Fillmore" movie. Given Bob Weir's recent death, I wanted to use a photo that had Weir in it. But the only one like that I could find would have been very tricky to colorize, due to it being dark and murky. Plus, I'm not completely sure if it's from this exact concert or not. But here it is anyway. If nothing else, it's good way to help imagine the ambience of the concert, since it shows the audience too.

In Concert Against AIDS, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA, 5-27-1989, Part 4: The Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons

Here's the fourth and last out of four albums I made from the "In Concert Against AIDS" concert in 1989. This one consists of a set by the Grateful Dead. Furthermore, they were joined by saxophonist Clarence Clemons for more than half of the songs they played.

In the late 1980s, the Grateful Dead had a surge of popularity. This was due to their 1987 hit album "In the Dark," and especially one song from it, "Touch of Grey," which was their only song to ever reach the Top Ten of the U.S. singles chart. As a result, they were the headliner for this benefit concert. 

They proceeded to play a typical concert, with a typically long length. This album is nearly two and a half hours long, and that's after I cut out many lengthy pauses between songs. But they did make a nod to the fact that many in the crowd weren't the usual devout Deadheads by performing their two best known songs, "Touch of Grey" and "Truckin'." 

By most accounts, their performance wasn't extraordinary or unusual compared to their many other concerts that year. But what did set it apart was the presence of Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band joining with his saxophone on a majority of the songs. I mentioned Clemons in Part 2 of this concert, because he also played saxophone on a couple of John Fogerty's songs.

I looked it up, and it turns out Clemons joined in a Jerry Garcia Band concert earlier in 1989. But this was the first time he played with Garcia in an actual Grateful Dead concert. His soulful style added an interesting element. It was so successful that he went on to play at about a dozen more Dead concerts later that year. He sometimes played with the Dead and/or splinter bands after that, but not as frequently.

This album is two hours and 23 minutes long. 

53 Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead)
54 Greatest Story Ever Told (Grateful Dead)
55 Althea (Grateful Dead)
56 Walking Blues (Grateful Dead)
57 Iko Iko (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
58 Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
59 Bird Song (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
60 Promised Land (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
61 Hell in a Bucket (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
62 Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
63 Blow Away (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
64 Truckin' (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
65 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
66 Space [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
67 I Will Take You Home (Grateful Dead)
68 The Other One (Grateful Dead)
69 Wharf Rat (Grateful Dead)
70 Turn On Your Lovelight (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)
71 Brokedown Palace (Grateful Dead with Clarence Clemons)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Mg13oudf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xe9CMacMKAPTz4f/file

The cover photo shows the band's lead guitarist Jerry Garcia at this exact concert. 

In Concert Against AIDS, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA, 5-27-1989, Part 2: John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead

Here's the second out of four albums I made from the "In Concert Against AIDS" concert in 1989. This one consists of a set by John Fogerty, backed by the Grateful Dead. Well, kind of the Grateful Dead, as I'll explain in a minute.

At the time, Fogerty hadn't been on tour since 1985, and he didn't have a backing band, so he got some very talented musicians to support him just for this concert. Specifically, he was supported Jerry Garcia on lead guitar, Bob Weir on rhythm guitar, Randy Jackson on bass, and Steve Jordan on drums. Jackson and Jordan were very well respected session musicians at the time. Jackson would later go on to greater fame as one of the judges on the "American Idol" TV show. And if you know anything about the Grateful Dead, you'd know the two best known members were Garcia and Weir. They were the lead vocalists and songwriters for the vast majority of the band's original songs. So whether one can consider this the Grateful Dead is debatable, since the other band members were missing. But in my opinion, at least, I'd consider anything with Garcia and Weir in it to be the essence of the Grateful Dead, even if it was just the two of them in a duo.

On top of that, Clarence Clemons added his saxophone playing for the last two songs. He was a long time member of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band, but he also had a hit of his own in the 1980s. 

Fogerty is best known as the leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) in the 1960s and early 1970s. He effectively retired from the music business from 1976 to 1985. But then he came back with a big hit album in 1985 ("Centerfield") and another album in 1986. When he went on tour in 1985 and 1986 to support those albums, he avoided playing all of his many CCR hits, due to a dispute with his record company. But in 1987, he was persuaded to resume playing his CCR songs, and did so at a one-off benefit concert that year. I think this was the second big concert where he played those songs, and it was a big deal at the time. Furthermore, the fact that Garcia and Weir were going to back him on was announced in advance, adding to the anticipation.

Here's what a Los Angeles Times article from the day after the concert had to say: "Fogerty's set... [was] a wonderful occasion in and of itself. It wasn't just that Fogerty devoted most of the show to old Creedence Clearwater Revival hits that he rarely plays because of bitterness toward his old record company. It was the sheer, smiling delight and vocal aplomb he brought to the performance. Grateful Dead guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir lent unremarkable support, but Fogerty, drummer Steve Jordan, and bassist Randy Jackson supplied all the sizzle one could ask. Saxophonist Clarence Clemons, the day's only surprise guest, turned up to haunt through an encore rock-out to 'Suzie Q' and 'Long Tall Sally.'" 

As the article noted, Garcia and Weir were pretty restrained in their playing. Fogerty's songs were short and simple, so they respected that. That meant Garcia didn't go off on lengthy solos like he did with the Dead, but stuck to what the songs needed, based on the original versions. They also added backing vocals on some songs, with Weir singing more than Garcia. It looked like Garcia was having a ball, smiling through most of the set. Probably, he enjoyed simply being a backing musician through a bunch of classic songs that he loved, instead of having to be the main star, which was almost always the case for him. 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

24 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
25 talk (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
26 Green River (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
27 Down on the Corner (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
28 talk (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
29 Rock and Roll Girls (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
30 talk (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
31 Centerfield (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
32 Proud Mary (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
33 Midnight Special (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
34 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
35 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
36 talk (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead)
37 Suzie Q (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead & Clarence Clemons)
38 talk (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead & Clarence Clemons)
39 Long Tall Sally (John Fogerty with the Grateful Dead & Clarence Clemons) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eLjiHABc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MZAspsTu9FmVaWK/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Fogerty is wearing the baseball cap, while Garcia can be seen further back.

US Festival '82, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 9-5-1982 - Day 3, Part 1: The Grateful Dead

The first act presented here from Day Three of the 1982 US Festival is a set by the Grateful Dead. This was the start of the final day of the festival.

By the early 1980s, the Dead were a musical institution that seemed to defy cultural trends. However, they were at their best performing in their own way to their own fans, the Deadheads, and generally tried to avoid this type of festival playing to most who only knew their music a little bit or not at all. 

However, I saw an interview with band drummer Mickey Hart who said they made an exception for this festival because they were inspired by festival funder Steve Wozniak's effort to try something new and different. And even though it might seem just like another big rock festival many years later, at the time it was innovative in many ways, especially with technological innovations, such as the sound system, which used digital delay to prevent the echo-like problem of the sound being slightly off from speaker to speaker. In fact, it's not an exaggeration to say the first US festival became the template for how all big music festivals were run afterwards. 

Anyway, the last studio album the Dead released was "Go to Heaven," in 1980. But that wasn't the point with this jam band, and they didn't even bother to play any songs from it. Instead, they did a "short" version of their usual concert format, complete with the instrumental "Drums" and "Space" sections.

One unusual aspect of this concert was that it started about nine-thirty in the morning. The festival organizers nicknamed this "Breakfast with the Dead." One of the band members commented that although they'd played past sunrise at various concerts, this was the first time they'd had such an early start time in their long career. It seems the crowd reaction to their set was quite positive.

This album is an hour and 53 minutes long.

001 Playing in the Band (Grateful Dead)
002 Shakedown Street (Grateful Dead)
003 New Minglewood Blues (Grateful Dead)
004 talk (Grateful Dead)
005 Samson and Delilah (Grateful Dead)
006 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
007 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
008 Sugaree (Grateful Dead)
009 Man Smart, Woman Smarter (Grateful Dead)
010 Truckin' (Grateful Dead)
011 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
012 Space [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
013 Not Fade Away (Grateful Dead)
014 Black Peter (Grateful Dead)
015 Sugar Magnolia (Grateful Dead)
016 U.S. Blues (Grateful Dead)
017 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Grateful Dead)
018 talk (Grateful Dead)

https://www.imagenetz.de/k9QKU

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3gGcVH35

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sePp0A8lulLw5iJ/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It's shows the band's two main lead singers, Bob Weir (in shorts) and Jerry Garcia (with glasses and a beard).

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 6: Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman

As I mentioned in my write-up to the last album in the Woodstock '94 Festival, I believe this technically was a continuation of that set by the Band. For instance, I don't believe there was a separate billing for this. But as a practical matter, the Band left the stage and Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman took over, so I've made this a separate album.

Bob Weir is best known as one of the two main singer-songwriters in the Grateful Dead along with Jerry Garcia. At the time of this festival, the Dead were near the end of their long, strange trip due to Garcia dying, though nobody knew that at the time. 

Although was very busy with the Dead, he'd had occasional solo side projects since the early 1970s. Around this time period, he was doing some touring with bassist Rob Wasserman. In early 1994, Wasserman put out a studio album called "Trios" that had many famous guest artists on it. Weir was on it, singing his original song "Easy Answers." That's performed here. In 1998, Weir and Wasserman would release a live album as duo simply called "Live." It would feature many of the songs here.  

Bruce Hornsby guested on at least two songs during the Band set, and he guested on at least four more here. I say "at least" because it's very possible that he played on some others here in a low key way. He sang one of his hits with "The Valley Road."

It seems most of the musicians from the Band set returned for the encore here, "I Shall Be Released." I didn't carefully check the YouTube video to see who was on stage. But I could hear some lead vocals from Rick Danko of the Band, and Roger McGuinn formerly of the Byrds. Additionally, blues singer and guitarist Rory Block was mentioned by name and could be heard singing a portion of the lead on that song too. 

Weir and Wasserman mostly did cover songs in this set. The only well known Grateful Dead song performed here was "Throwing Stones." "Eternity" and "Easy Answers" were performed by the Dead a few dozen times in 1994 and 1995, but the band ended with Garcia's death before studio versions of those could be recorded.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Fever (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
02 Eternity (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
03 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
04 Throwing Stones (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
05 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction [Instrumental] (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
06 Easy Answers (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
07 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
08 The Valley Road (Bruce Hornsby with Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
09 Take Me to the River (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman with Bruce Hornsby)
10 talk (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman)
11 I Shall Be Released (Bob Weir & Rob Wasserman, Rick Danko, Roger McGuinn & Rory Block) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RXB4y8mR 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wczr0Ihhz7RsmiD/file

The cover photo shows Weir on guitar and Wasserman (with beard) on bass. It's from this exact concert.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 2: The Grateful Dead

The second major act to perform at the 1975 SNACK benefit was the Grateful Dead. 

Note that this was a very unusual concert for the Grateful Dead. That probably explains why the band appeared quite early in the day, to lower expectations. 1975 was a strange year for the band. They went on touring hiatus in October 1974, and only resumed touring on a regular basis in June 1976. In 1975, they just played four concerts, including this one.

Technically, this act was billed as "Jerry Garcia and Friends." But actually, it was every member of the Grateful Dead plus Merl Saunders on organ and Ned Lagin on keyboards. 

What really sets this concert apart for the band though was the set list. For one thing, they were used to playing two hours or longer each concert. But here, they were limited to a 30-minute long set. (They went a little over.) They decided to fill nearly all of that with a completely instrumental performance, except for the encore. Furthermore, their big instrumental section was music that they'd never put on record or performed in public yet. According to media reports, they called the entire thing "Space Age." However, later in 1975 they would release the studio album "Blues for Allah" and most of it was on that album in different forms, so we can assign names to the parts of the instrumental sections.

That was a pretty ballsy move to perform such experimental music, especially in front of a crowd that mostly did not consist of their usual "Deadhead" fan base. The only thing they did to appeal to the masses was the encore, a lively cover of the Chuck Berry standard "Johnny B. Goode," with vocals. This has to be one of the most unique concerts the band ever did. The only times they played versions of this "Blues for Allah" song making up most of their set was in their four 1975 concerts.

This album is 37 minutes long.

Note that the track numbering continues where the numbering for the previous album from this concert left off. All the rest of the albums from the concert follow that same pattern.

08 talk by Bill Graham (Grateful Dead)
09 Blues for Allah [Instrumental Version] (Grateful Dead)
10 Milking the Turkey [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
11 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
12 Milking the Turkey [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
13 Blues for Allah [Reprise] [Instrumental Version] (Grateful Dead)
14 talk (Grateful Dead)
15 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17209138/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA197502GrteflDed_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y8zQGFnP

I was ready to post the albums from this concert weeks ago, but I was held up by the cover art. I found photos for six of the eight acts from this exact concert, but all of them were in black and white. So it took me a while to get around to colorizing them with the help of the Palette program. This photo only shows the band's two lead singers, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. I know I got the colors right for Garcia, because I found a color photo of just him. I preferred this one though. I had to guess the colors for Weir, and stuck pretty closely to what the Palette program chose.

UPDATE: On October 7, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-27-1982, Part 1: Bobby and the Midnites

The first act of the third and final day of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was Bobby and the Midnites. This was a short-lived solo project by Bob Weir, one of the two main singer-songwriters in the Grateful Dead.

I have to confess I'm not terribly impressed with Bobby and the Midnites. I think Bob Weir has have an excellent music career. But pretty much all of his good songs were used by the Grateful Dead, including the songs from his first solo album, 1972's "Ace." His later solo albums generally weren't that memorable. There were two Bobby and the Midnites albums, one in 1981 (simply titled "Bobby and the Midnites") and the other in 1984. Naturally, with this concert taking place in 1982, it largely drew on the 1981 album, although two songs performed here, "Rock in the '80's" and "Thunder and Lightning," eventually ended up on the second album.

Weir decided that his solo project would play no original songs also played by the Grateful Dead, so virtually all of his best original songs were excluded. (Although the cover "Man Smart, Women Smarter," performed here, was often played by the Dead, including in their set at this very festival.) So he was left with a fairly weak bunch of original songs. But that was partially made up by a lively performance, as well as some classic covers, such as "Young Blood," "Easy to Slip," "Bahama Mama," and "Book of Rules."

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 talk (Bobby & the Midnites)
02 [I Want To] Fly Away (Bobby & the Midnites)
03 Festival (Bobby & the Midnites)
04 Young Blood (Bobby & the Midnites)
05 Easy to Slip (Bobby & the Midnites)
06 Bahama Mama [Instrumental] (Bobby & the Midnites)
07 Rock in the '80's (Bobby & the Midnites)
08 Little Junkie Girl (Bobby & the Midnites)
09 Jah Laughs (Bobby & the Midnites)
10 Man Smart, Women Smarter (Bobby & the Midnites)
11 Heaven Help the Fool (Bobby & the Midnites)
12 Drums [Instrumental] (Bobby & the Midnites)
13 Josephine (Bobby & the Midnites)
14 Thunder and Lightning (Bobby & the Midnites)
15 talk (Bobby & the Midnites)
16 Book of Rules (Bobby & the Midnites)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17314990/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-27-1982Prt01BbbynthMdntes_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1DGJWcfZ

The cover photo of Bob Weir comes from this exact festival, but I manipulated it a lot. The original photo was a black and white one of Weir standing with Jimmy Cliff backstage at the festival. I blackened everything else but Weir, and then colorized it using the Palette program. It was the only decent photo of him from the festival I could find. I also used the Krea AI program to help add detail.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 5: The Grateful Dead

The fifth and final set from the first day of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was performed by the Grateful Dead. But don't worry, there are two other days to the festival after this.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say this took place on November 26th instead of the 25th, because the band started playing after midnight... well after midnight! The festivals started at 7 P.M. each "day" of the festival, so it was probably dark by the time the first acts got on stage. But then there were delays common to such festivals. Apparently, by the time the Grateful Dead took the stage, it was about four in the morning!

The Dead played one of their typical sets, going for about two hours. However, it seems to me that they were inspired by the Jamaica festival setting to play more of their upbeat songs than usual, including some that came close to having a reggae sound.

One interesting note is that the song "Throwing Stones" played here hadn't been released on album yet, and in fact wouldn't be released until five years later, on the band's 1987 studio album "In the Dark." They had just started playing it in concert a couple of months earlier.

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long.

65 talk (Grateful Dead)
66 Sugaree (Grateful Dead)
67 New Minglewood Blues (Grateful Dead)
68 Loser (Grateful Dead)
69 Man Smart, Woman Smarter (Grateful Dead)
70 Althea (Grateful Dead)
71 Let It Grow (Grateful Dead)
72 talk (Grateful Dead)
73 Samson and Delilah (Grateful Dead)
74 Scarlet Begonias (Grateful Dead)
75 Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead)
76 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
77 Space [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
78 Throwing Stones (Grateful Dead)
79 Not Fade Away (Grateful Dead)
80 Black Peter (Grateful Dead)
81 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dmUEX

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hyStHwiC

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Kqkz3cffmHWtLrc/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I used the Palette program to help convert it into color. From right to left, that's Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Jerry Garcia. The three other band members weren't in the photo.

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 4: 1973

Here's the fourth and last volume in this series of albums of cover versions by the Grateful Dead from their "golden era" of 1969 to 1973.

This one is a bit different than the others in the series, because virtually all the songs in previous volumes were officially released, but six out of the ten songs here are still unreleased. But never fear, because the sound quality is excellent throughout, with everything coming from soundboard recordings.

Actually, the first two songs have been officially released (and just last week as I write this in July 2023, for one of them). However, I didn't use the official version because it actually sounded a bit worse than the bootleg version I already had.

You may notice that six songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Those are all the unreleased ones. For some weird reason, all those had the lead vocals way down in the mix, even though they're from three different sources. So I did my usual thing, using the audio editing program UVR5 to boost the vocals relative to the instruments. 

You may notice this volume is significantly shorter than the others in the series, although it still has a reasonable length. That's because I did most of the volumes in this series by year, and the band did fewer covers in 1973. Their golden era was a tremendous burst of creativity, but by 1973 they were slowing down. They continued to tour into 1974, but then went on touring hiatus for a year and a half. Strangely, from 1974 through the rest of the 1970s, they did almost no new cover songs in concert, so this is a good place to end the series.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
02 That's All Right, Mama [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
03 You Ain't Woman Enough (Grateful Dead)
04 The Race Is On (Grateful Dead)
05 Nobody's Fault but Mine (Grateful Dead)
06 Peggy-O (Grateful Dead)
07 Working Man Blues [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
08 Thirty Days [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
09 Rip It Up [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
10 Blue Suede Shoes [Edit] (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15409332/TGratefulD_1973_GoldnEraCovrVrsionsVolume_4_atse.zip.html

As with the other covers in this series, the cover uses a concert poster from the relevant year. And, as usual with posters, I had to do some cropping and editing to get the rectangular poster art to fit into a square space.

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 3: 1972

I recently posted the second volume in this series of Grateful Dead cover versions from their 1969 to 1973 golden era. I'd posted that after forgetting for a year plus to follow up posting the first volume. I figure I'd better post the rest of this series before I forget again. There's this volume, for the year 1972, and one more volume coming soon for the year 1973.

There's been such a proliferation of official live albums by the Dead over the decades that most of the songs here sound great since they come from official releases. However, there are two exceptions: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Tomorrow Is Forever."

Also, I didn't include "Morning Dew" and "I Know You Rider." Both of those are covers, but I put version of them on 1972 studio albums I put together.

Many of the songs here were done lots of times by the Dead over the years. But others are extremely rare. For instance, "Are You Lonely for Me" and "How Sweet it Is (To Be Loved by You)" were only played once in concert.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Are You Lonely for Me (Grateful Dead)
02 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Grateful Dead)
03 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)
04 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Grateful Dead)
05 Hey Bo Diddley (Grateful Dead)
06 It Hurts Me Too (Grateful Dead)
07 You Win Again (Grateful Dead)
08 Promised Land (Grateful Dead)
09 Sing Me Back Home (Grateful Dead)
10 Big River (Grateful Dead)
11 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Grateful Dead)
12 Around and Around (Grateful Dead)
13 Don't Ease Me In (Grateful Dead)
14 Tomorrow Is Forever (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15376826/TGratefulD_1972_GoldnEraCovrVrsionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

Like the other volumes in this series, I'm using interesting concert posters as the basis for the cover art. This one is for their 1972 fall tour. As usual, I had to do some cropping to get the rectangular poster art to fit into a square space.

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 2: 1971

I hate it when I start to post a series of albums, but then get distracted and fail to follow through. It's happened again with this series. I posted Volume 1 over a year ago (as I write this in June 2023). But at least I do tend to notice these things eventually and finish them off. In this case, there are four volumes total.

From about 1969 to 1973, the Grateful Dead had a remarkable burst of creativity, what I'm calling their "golden era" for this series. They wrote more original songs than they ever did before or since, with the vast majority of them becoming classics. But they also played many cover songs they'd never done before. For the rest of the 1970s, they would do very, very few new cover songs, but they did lots of covers during those same years, 1969 to 1973. Volume 1 dealt with covers from 1969 to 1970. This one just focuses on covers from the year 1971.

It would have taken forever and a day to listen to all of the different versions of each song here and pick the best versions based on sound quality and performance. So instead, I assumed the performances were all solid, since this was their golden era, and chose the versions mainly based on sound quality. That means the vast majority of these are officially released versions. The only unreleased ones are "Searchin" (performed with the Beach Boys), "Hide Away," "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water," and "The Same Thing." If there are any Deadheads out there with strong opinions on which versions I should have used instead, I'm all ears.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. The songs are ordered chronologically based on the exact performance dates.

01 Dark Hollow (Grateful Dead)
02 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead)
03 Big Railroad Blues (Grateful Dead)
04 Not Fade Away - Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Grateful Dead)
05 I'm a Hog for You (Grateful Dead)
06 Oh Boy (Grateful Dead)
07 I Second That Emotion (Grateful Dead)
08 Big Boss Man (Grateful Dead)
09 I'm a King Bee (Grateful Dead)
10 Mama Tried (Grateful Dead)
11 Searchin' (Grateful Dead with the Beach Boys)
12 Me and Bobby McGee (Grateful Dead)
13 El Paso (Grateful Dead)
14 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub] (Grateful Dead)
15 Hide Away [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
16 Run Rudolph Run (Grateful Dead)
17 I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water (Grateful Dead)
18 The Same Thing (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15366272/TGratefulD_1971_GoldnEraCovrVrsionsVolum2_atse.zip.html

The cover is based on a concert poster for a concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971. I cropped it and vertically squished it some in order to get most of the rectangular poster to fit into a square space. I also replaced the name of the opening act (The New Riders of the Purple Sage) with the album title. I made some other changes in Photoshop to clean and simplify things a bit.

The Grateful Dead - Equinox - Non-Album Tracks (1974-1979)

I'm puzzled why I haven't posted this until now, since it's been in my music collection for ages. But then again, I could say that about a lot of music. There's just too much good stuff out there that need posting here, in my opinion. That's definitely true of the Grateful Dead. I realized I've fallen behind posting albums from them, so I'll try harder to get on that.

Anyway, I already posted a lost album Grateful Dead album of sorts, from 1976. Those songs hang together, more or less, whereas this is more of a stray tracks grab-bag from a much wider time period. Nearly all are rare studio tracks, mostly originals, that fell by the wayside for one reason or another. This doesn't compare with their best stuff, but considering that they put some pretty dodgy songs on their late 1970s albums like "Shakedown Street," it's a shame some of these stayed in the vaults.

Generally speaking, from about 1969 to 1973, the Dead had an explosion of creativity, creating dozens of original songs, and covering dozens more. For the time period here, 1974 to 1979, they went back to more typical level of creativity, probably coming up with an average of about an album of new material, if you add in original songs on Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir solo projects. But the Dead as a whole played surprisingly few new cover songs during this time (although they kept playing lots of covers they knew from before). Just about the only one done in concert that I could find was "Let It Rock," originally by Chuck Berry. "Catfish John" and "K. C. Moan" are also covers, but were never or almost never played live during this time.

"Fire on the Mountain" need a little more explanation. The studio version first appeared on the Dead album "Shakedown Street" in 1978, and it became a classic, frequently played in concert. However, it was actually first written by lyricist Robert Hunter, which was common, and drummer Mickey Hart, which was not at all common for the band. Hunter usually wrote with Jerry Garcia, and this might be the only co-write with Hart. Hart attempted to record a second solo album in 1973 and then again in 1974, after putting out a solo album in 1972. However, that album was never released. Hart isn't much of a singer, so he rapped his way through this still unreleased early version, meant for that second solo album. I actually really like this rap version, done long before rap music was popular, although the usual way the Dead played it is great too. Not all members of the Dead played on this version, but he was joined by others, most importantly Jerry Garcia, so I stretched it a bit to credit it to the Dead.

Most of the other songs are studio outtakes that later appeared as bonus tracks. "K. C. Moan" and "This Time Forever" are from a rare acoustic concert. "Ollin Arageed" was only done when the band played in Egypt in 1978. "Hollywood Cantata" is an early version of "The Music Never Stopped," which came out on the "Blues for Allah" album in 1975, but it's different enough that I consider it a separate song. Garcia put out a solo album in 1974 called "Compliments." But it only had one original song (co-written with Robert Hunter, as usual), "Midnight Town." So I've included that here.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Fire on the Mountain [Rap Version] (Grateful Dead)
02 Let It Rock (Grateful Dead)
03 Midnight Town (Jerry Garcia)
04 Hollywood Cantata [Early Version of The Music Never Stopped] (Grateful Dead)
05 Showboat (Grateful Dead)
06 Catfish John (Grateful Dead)
07 K. C. Moan (Grateful Dead)
08 Equinox (Grateful Dead)
09 The Ascent [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
10 This Time Forever (Grateful Dead)
11 What'll You Raise (Grateful Dead)
12 Ollin Arageed (Grateful Dead with Hamza El Din)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281159/TGratefulD_1974-1979_Equinx_atse.zip.html

Since I decided to name this album after the song "Equinox," I chose to do something different for the album cover. Instead of having a picture of the band members, I Googled the word "Equinox," and found this photo of the Milky Way visible at sunset at a science website. You also can see a shooting star underneath the "G" in "Grateful Dead."

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 1: 1969-1970

It's been too long since I've posted any Grateful Dead albums here. I have lots to post, especially from what I consider to be their "golden era," roughly from 1969 to 1973. I've already posted four albums of mostly original songs from 1970 to 1972 that never got released on studio albums at the time. This series is meant to complement that, gathering cover versions they did during approximately that same time period. These are all full-band versions. There's a whole other large batch of songs done acoustically that I'll do something with at a later date.

The Dead came up with lots of great original songs. But that didn't stop them from covering literally hundreds of additional songs over the years. I haven't included every single cover song they did during these years. 

For one, I skipped songs that they did so often and so well that they're closely identified with the band, such as "I Know You Rider," "Me and My Uncle," "Morning Dew," and a few more. 

Secondly, I already made two albums of cover songs the band did very early in their career (1965 to 1966). So I often avoided songs during this "golden era" that are also on those albums, unless there's something significantly different about them. 

I also avoided songs were there's no excellent recording. But those are surprisingly few. The band got serious about recording their own concerts almost from the very beginning, and there have been bazillions of official live albums by now. However, the occasional song did slip by, such as "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)," where only one poor sounding audience recording exists. A few other songs didn't get recorded at all, such as "Cathy's Clown," "I've Just Seen a Face," and "Games People Play."

Finally, this collection begins in mid-1969, which is when the band really hit their stride, in my opinion. I did consider a few covers from earlier in 1969, but they either weren't that good (such as versions of "Hey Jude") or they're already included on the stray tracks album I made for that time period, called "The Seven."

Okay, that's all about what I did not include. Now let me talk about what I did include. I think many of the songs in this series will be a surprise to you, unless you're a fanatically dedicated Deadhead. Some songs here were played dozens of times, such as "Dancing in the Street" or "Hard to Handle." But others were played only once, such as "Mystery Train" or "My Babe," only were played only a small number of times. 

I strived to make sure there was a balance between songs sung by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. Unfortunately, I could only do so much since I felt obliged to include all the (non-overplayed) cover versions from a certain time period. For this album, there's an unusually large number of songs sung by Pigpen, and only three sung by Garcia. The balance is a lot better on the later volumes in this series.

If you are a serious Deadhead and you see some songs I missed, please let me know. It's particularly tricky for me because I'm only including full-band versions here, as I mentioned above, and there were many songs only done acoustically around this time. Sometimes, a song almost always done acoustically was done with a full electric band, such as the version of "Monkey and the Engineer" here. But I probably missed a couple more like that.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

As an aside, I mentioned above the stray tracks album "The Seven." I moved a couple of songs from there to here, because I thought they fit better. But I also added in a couple new songs there that I'd missed, including one the band only played a single time, in 1968, "Death Letter Blues." So you probably should redownload that album if you have it already.

Oh, one last thing. While making this, I also fixed all the Grateful Dead albums I've posted so far, adjusting the volume balance between songs and updating the mp3 tags to the new system I'm using. So you might want to grab those again too.

01 New Orleans (Grateful Dead)
02 Hi-Heel Sneakers (Grateful Dead)
03 Ole Slew Foot (Grateful Dead)
04 Big Boy Pete (Grateful Dead)
05 Smokestack Lightning (Grateful Dead)
06 Hard to Handle (Grateful Dead)
07 He Was a Friend of Mine (Grateful Dead)
08 Walking the Dog (Grateful Dead)
09 Dancing in the Street (Grateful Dead)
10 It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World (Grateful Dead)
11 Mystery Train - My Babe (Grateful Dead)
12 Monkey and the Engineer (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700756/TGRATFLDED1969-1970_GldnEraCovrVersonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

I love how weird the album cover is. I would never presume to make something that weird myself for an album cover. But for this series, I decided to use versions of concert posters. There are lots of really interesting concert posters for the Dead, whereas photos of the band in concert are far less interesting in comparison. This particular poster is for a concert in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May 1970. 

Since posters are rectangular and album covers are square, I had to cut parts of the top and bottom. I also did some resizing vertically to squish more in. Finally, all the images of this poster that I could find had some damage to them. So I used the best bits from two versions, and then cleaned up some remaining rough parts. If anyone has an idea of what the heck this image is about, please let me know!

The Grateful Dead - The Wheel - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1972)

I've mentioned how I filled the big gap between the Grateful Dead's studio albums in 1970 and 1973 by making no less than four albums out of the original songs in that period. This is the fourth and last of the albums I've made.

The reason they didn't release any studio albums at that time was because the songs appeared on solo albums by Jerry Garcia ("Garcia") and Bob Weir ("Ace"), plus they put lots of new songs on their live albums, especially "Europe '72." Most of the songs here either come from "Europe '72" or associated archival releases from that same European tour. But, as I often do, I removed the crowd noise to make it all sound like a studio album.

There are two cases where I had to resort to the studio tracks from those solo albums I mentioned above. "The Wheel" is a great song, and the Dead played it a lot in concert. But, strangely, they didn't start playing it until about 1976, even though it was released on a 1972 album. I didn't want to stray chronologically from around 1972, so I was forced to use the version from the "Garcia" solo album.

It's a similar case with "Walk in the Sunshine," from "Ace." I believe that song was never played by the Dead at all, the only song from "Ace" they ignored. So I had to use the version from that album.

As for the album as a whole, I was careful to keep the usual mix of songs sung by Garcia, Weir, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. Garcia has the most, and McKernan the least.

Also, as I did for all the four albums i made from this time period, I included one cover song. Each time, I picked a cover that has become so closely identified with the Dead that many assume they wrote it. This time, I went with "I Know You Rider." The Dead played this a billion times in concert, almost always as a medley with "China Cat Sunflower."

The Dead truly were at a peak in the early 1970s, so this is a great album. While putting these four albums together, I came across a lot more cover versions that I didn't have room to include. But I'm planning on organizing that material and posting it here eventually.

01 The Wheel (Jerry Garcia)
02 Brown-Eyed Woman (Grateful Dead)
03 Mexicali Blues (Grateful Dead)
04 Tennessee Jed (Grateful Dead)
05 Chinatown Shuffle (Grateful Dead)
06 Walk in the Sunshine (Bob Weir)
07 Comes a Time (Grateful Dead)
08 Next Time You See Me (Grateful Dead)
09 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
10 One More Saturday Night (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15118829/TGratefulD_1972_ThWheel_atse.zip.html

I'm very pleased at how this album cover came out. When I decided to name the album "The Wheel," I went looking for wheel-related artwork. I found a blue wheel with some red roses on it, which seemed fitting since roses are one of many Dead visual symbols. But just having that seemed too bland, so I went looking for mandala artwork, since that's another circular thing that fits with the Dead ethos. I found a nice one, overlaid the blue wheel on top of it, and the two seemed to fit perfectly. :)

The Grateful Dead - Ramble On Rose - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1972)

As I've mentioned previously, the Grateful Dead wrote a remarkable number of great songs in the early 1970s, and in my opinion that was the peak of their career, but a large number of them weren't released on any studio album at the time. So I've made four albums that cover the gap between the "American Beauty" album in 1970 and "Wake of the Flood" in 1973. This is the third of those four albums.

The other day, the Reconstructor blog (https://the-reconstructor.blogspot.com/) posted a similar album to this one. According to that blog, the Dead were planning on releasing a studio album in 1972 that would have been titled "Rambling Rose." But instead of going to the studio to record their new songs, they decided to release a live album instead, and "Europe '72" was the result. I'm not sure why they wanted to call the album "Rambling Rose" when they had a song with the title "Ramble On Rose," but the again, the song does include the lyric "Did you say your name is Rambling Rose?"

I went with the album title "Ramble On Rose" because I found a really great cover art picture at the "What If" blog (https://whatif-misc.blogspot.com/) a year ago, and I asked back then if I could use it too. So now here we finally are. That locked me in to using "Ramble On Rose" for the album title.

Anyway, regardless of title, this is another great album that should be a must-have for any fan of the band. As I did with the other albums from this era, I was careful to have a mix of songs sung by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, with Garcia's songs dominating. For each album of these four, I'd include all original songs plus one cover. In this case, the cover is "Morning Dew."

Generally speaking, I've tried hard to avoid using the exact same versions of the songs that are on the 1972 solo albums by Garcia and Weir. Both those albums are so good that every Dead fan should own them and treat them just like Dead albums. (Actually, the Weir album, "Ace," is basically a Dead album of Weir songs, since the full band appears on every song.) But I had to make an exception this time for the song "Cassidy." The Dead didn't play the song for the first time until 1974, which is too late to fit into this album's time frame. Plus, the studio version from "Ace" is fantastic.

There are only seven songs here, but they're long, so the album is 48 and a half minutes long. That would have been unusually long for a single album in 1972, but it was doable. ("L.A. Woman" by the Doors from 1971 was a bit longer.)

01 Ramble On Rose (Grateful Dead)
02 Cassidy (Bob Weir)
03 The Stranger [Two Souls in Communion] (Grateful Dead)
04 Black-Throated Wind (Grateful Dead)
05 He's Gone (Grateful Dead)
06 Looks like Rain (Grateful Dead)
07 Morning Dew (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15118833/TGratefulD_1972_RambleOnRse_atse.zip.html

As mentioned above, thanks to the "What If" blog for the excellent cover art. I did change it slightly in that some parts of the text was darker than others, and I made it all equally dark.