Inspirational Verse: 'Think this through with me.' A And the changeable rhythms hold out the promise of Uncle John's Band, who might just save us if we'll only call the tune. The sparse harmonies and hard-won melodies go with lyrics that make all the American connections claimed by San Francisco's counterculture there's a naturally stoned bemusement in their good times, hard times, high times, and lost times that joins the fatalism of the physical frontier with the wonder of the psychedelic one. Of course they don't sing as pretty as CSNY-prettiness would trivialize these songs. Side two of this four-sided set contains the finest rock improvisation ever recorded, and the rest is gently transcendent as usual. AĪn admitted fanatic raves to all the other admitted fanatics. One experimental cut which hasn't made it for me yet, otherwise fantastic. And although Garcia and Bob Weir both take vocal leads, their singing styles are still in Pigpen's white-blues thrall. McKernan's organ is almost as pervasive as Jerry Garcia's guitar. It's also the only studio album that respects and documents the impact of Rod 'Pigpen' McKernan, who died in 1973 of cirrhosis of the liver. Pepper, Forever Changes, Mellow Yellow), the already legendary San Francisco band-collective's debut stood out and stands tall because its boogieing folk-rock epitomizes the San Francisco ballroom ethos/aesthetic-blues-based tunes played by musicians who came to rhythm late, expanded so they were equally suitable for dancing and for tripping out. One of the year's few supposedly psychedelic LPs that wasn't actually a pop LP (cf. What a Long Strange Trip It's Been: The Best of the Grateful Dead B.Bear's Choice: History of the Grateful Dead (Vol.Note that Cold Rain and Snow and New, New Minglewood Blues, though credited as band compositions, are adaptations of existing songs.

The name derives originally from a character in Kenneth Patchen’s “Memoirs Of A Shy Pornographer”, although the name was possibly used by the Dead because one of the band members had a cat of that name. McGannahan Skjellyfetti was a pseudonym used by the Dead for the three group compositions on the album. The result of that has been that all the places we’ve been where people have had the album, we’ve been able to hear their translations.” So we talked to Stanley and said could you do something that almost says something but doesn’t quite. Garcia explained their reasoning in an interview with Ralph Gleason in 1969: “We didn’t like it because we thought it was a tad pretentious.

The original design included lettering that was more easily readable but the band asked for it to be changed. The lettering at the top of this cover reads – “In the land of the dark the ship of the sun is driven by the…”, which is followed by the easily readable – “Grateful Dead” The album was not a commercial success and failed to achieve the Billboard top 100 album chart.Ĭryptic or ambiguous lettering has been a feature of a number of Grateful Dead LP sleeves. So in three nights we played some hyperactive music.” In an interview for Rolling Stone Garcia provided one explanation for the fast tempos of the songs on the album: “… So we went down there and what was it we had, Dexamyl? Some sort of dietwatcher’s speed, and pot and stuff like that.

We made it in a short period, four days, and it’s the material we’ve been doing onstage for quite a long time. It sounds like we felt good when we were making it. But it also has a certain amount of excitement on it. In an early interview Garcia described the album: “I think our album is honest. Golden Road was recorded separately at Coast Recorders in San Francisco. The Dead supposedly selected Dave Hassinger, a Warner Brothers staff producer, because he had worked as engineer on two Rolling Stones records that they liked.

Grateful dead albums