Similarly, Jerry used to have nightmares about trying to remember all the lyrics to Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
You should have the following: Old And In The Way, The Pizza Tapes, So What, the Grateful Dawg movie, and other stuff. I'm listening to disc 10 of Fillmore West 1969. Starts with "Alligator," ends with "We Bid You Goodnight."
Dawg 'n Spud stuff is a testament that Lesh's latter day claim that Garcia chose drugs over music was wrong.
IMO, The Pizza Tapes, albeit a good backstory, is where Grisman gets close to scraping the bottom of the barrel or perhaps even pulling the screen out of the pipe and starts smoking resin. I think the release is probably or should be of more interest to Tony Rice conisseuers.
I've always taken that to mean that Jerry could have gotten clean and would perhaps still be regaling us with music. Jerry was a self-described "playing junkie," on a day-to-day basis he always chose music, but in the long arc he chose death drugs.
he chose drugs over the Grateful Dead would be more accurate still not sure I agree but thats at least a little closer to the truth
That sounds more like it to me. The solo stuff im hearing from the era - even back to the late 80s stuff - sounds so VIBRANT in comparison to even the best Dead stuff from the time. Wow.
Vince really drives Days Between. It’s a strong song. Deserves to be covered. Such a beautiful song and more than any makes me wish Jerry was still around making songs to fill the air.
Listened to this today in full. Incredible show. Whole band is just playing full bore. Minglewood Blues, Mississippi Half Step-> El Paso, They Love Each Other, Jack Straw, Jack A Roe from 1st set are just perfect. Garcia's guitar line right after the Rio segment in Half Step is just perfect. Drummers are playing so strong through out too. Top shelf 77 for sure.
I have now heard Two from the Vault (8/24/68) for the first time. Considering I recently made it through two thirds of RT 2.2 (Jan. and Feb. '68) before bailing, I'm surprised and delighted by how much I enjoyed this one. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl was just about the least interesting performance as far as I'm concerned. The difference between this and Lovelight is stark -- the latter is just so much more dynamic, and I've always liked their arrangement. But I really liked everything that followed Schoolgirl, and can honestly say I look forward to getting around to this one again. Augmented it with the bonus live material from the first remastered version of Anthem. Also very enjoyable, although not new to me. Is there some notable difference between Feb. '68 and August '68 that I don't know off the top of my head that would account for my very different and unexpected reaction to this one? Perhaps less monumentally, I have also now heard If the Shoe Fits for the first time. That's not a very good song!
Well, we've almost fully dragged @latheofheaven into the quagmire. He's all about the improvs, so I can relate.
I don’t have an answer for your question but find this a good opportunity to put Dick’s Picks 22 on your radar. Wikipedia: Dick's Picks Volume 22 is a two-CD album by the rock group the Grateful Dead, the 22nd installment of the live archival release series. It documents portions of the concerts on February 23 and 24, 1968, at the Kings Beach Bowl in Kings Beach, California (located on the north shore of Lake Tahoe). It was released in June 2001.[4]
I find Days Between to be a profoundly sad song. It's great, but whenever I hear it I can't help but think about Jerry's death and the darkness that he went through. Really moving stuff, but also beautiful in a really sad way.
Years ago, I helped someone into the fold on a different forum. He had similar tastes: loved the prog/psych improvs, but couldn't stand the country-western and roots-y stuff.
Death Don't Have No Mercy is the one track I listen to when I want to reflect on what Jerry's life was all about, which frankly, isn't all that often. I don't ignore it, but I choose to seek out the positive in this particular situation more often than not. I prefer the version from the 3-CD comp of the '69 Fillmore West box (2/28/69) for this purpose. Then I immediately follow it up with something ebullient such as Going Down the Road out of the Alligator jam from Ladies and Gentlemen...
Six months of practice. Tougher playing, particularly by Phil. The brand-new St. Stephen. Big new jams in Dark Star and, well, in most of the songs actually. (Several tunes are two or three times as long as they were in February.) I think Pigpen played a lot less organ by August '68 too, so that might have affected your reaction.