@Campaigner hit the nail on the head. We could cherry pick anyone else's performances and come up with plenty of stinkers. I have to wonder about the agenda of someone making a compilation of her "screeches." To my knowledge no one is doing the same with Bob's numerous duds (he was way off that Looooooooost Sailor more often than he nailed it, for example...and sometimes it was pretty painful to hear). I get that it's all subjective, but what bugs me is people who judge her based only on her parts in Playin. Go listen to that 5/8/77 Scarlet Fire and tell me she wasn't a good singer or didn't make positive contributions to the music.
Please can we be done with all the judgey cranky vocal clams talk now? I really need the ordinarily powerful good humor and beaming benignity of this thread right now.
Because reality exists. The people who point out the problems are not the problem. But I’m fine being done with it if everyone else is. With To Terrapin (5/28/77) for my TIGDH. Nice little Sugaree of course.
Interesting. This seems to be an outlier opinion on this particular version... but look forward to listening later. If I'm not mistaken, the 2003 is not digitally sourced. But I could be wrong on that. Either way -- I have the Fillmore Box for the full shows when I want to listen to them. But there is something about having historical albums presented as they were first heard. At least for me there is.
People only have complaints with Donna because they are misogynist, and not because of her Full Donna howls on PITB, etc ? Ok. I like Donna as much as the next guy, but can recognize her faults too. It must be exhausting to be this kind of person, isn’t it ?
It is indeed exhausting to study history, but ‘keep your day job’ as they say. I’ll repeat, part of some of the complaints against Donna are based on gender. That is two different qualifiers in one sentence. One easy way to notice this misogyny is in the in unnecessary references to gender and physical appearance that people make when discussing the topic. But again, I am more than willing to drop the conversation.
They all have their good and bad as vocalists. I’m ok with Donna, and even miss her PITB yell 79 onward. The only one I find consistently terrible is Lesh - the Box(Es) of Rain from 73 are awful, never mind his post-95 assumption of lead on a bunch of songs.
It’s funny for a band known for their ability to stretch out songs in a creative improvisation way , we spend so much time discussing their voices. I am obsessed with their ability to harmonize on China/Rider during 72-77 period. Some times I listen to only versions of China/Rider for hours. IMO inspite of their vocal limitations , they can from time to time get everything exactly right.
Finally got around to reading Betty's AMA - some good stuff there. This is probably going to sound naive, and probably a question for the gear / recording thread, but I couldn't quite understand if she blended soundboard (FOH I guess is what that's called? I'm not a live sound engineer) outputs with additional mics of her own. I always assumed that's what she did, but a few comments she made had me thinking she just mic'd things up then recorded her own multiple mic mix, like a super AUD with all access. That can't be right...? Also, she kept referring to Sennheiser as Fennheiser. I thought it was a typo then she did it a few more times. Is that some kind of inside joke?
I'm not a big 76 guy... and I'm an ambivalent Donna guy .... but LLRain from 76 with Donna and Bobby sound really really good.
Agree with your last point. The vocal criticism discussion is really beat up at this point. Every now and then someone mentions Donna and we circle the drain for several pages. So to move OFF that topic to something tangental but definitely not a 'vocal criticism' line of thought: I do find it interesting that so many folks view the band primarily as an improve / jamming unit, when in reality they spent the majority of many of their setlists usually banging out straight forward traditional songs, albeit sometimes with some extended guitar solos. Depends on the era too of course. Sugaree had a couple basic solos at one time, but turned into a showcase in 77 for example. But if I take a quick review of a random show from one of their absolute peaks (Europe 72), 5/11/72 features 21 out of 29 individual songs that are basically straight ahead songs that are very light on creative improvisation. Although the the arrangements are played with all the time of course on the fly - which could be considered creative improv I suppose. The night to night differences are critical to the experience, but I'm not sure if it falls in the realm of improv so much as just nightly variation and evolution in arrangements. Just my opinion. 8 of those remaining tracks include 2 parts of Dark Star and a drum solo. Essentially though the show is mostly traditional verse chorus verse songs with a bridge (and boatloads of classic, essential lyrics and singing that absolutely make the song) and guitar solos in the usual places. The exceptions being PITB, Good Lovin', Dark Star, Drums, Caution, and Truckin'
Perhaps I was a bit tongue in cheek. Strictly speaking for myself, I like almost everything they do......cowboy songs, traditional folk, straight ahead rock , blues and their jamming. IMO they are a reflection of American music. I agree about the song selection , they have first set songs and second set songs where the longer songs occur. Like Bill Graham said, “They are not the best at what they do but they are the only ones that do what they do.”
Was playing: 2/26/72 (disc 2, DiP 28) Dark Star -> Eyes -> Miss 1/2 Step Me And My Uncle GDTRFB->NFA I had this on maybe way too loud the other night on head phones after a day of lots of physical labor in the garden and the wine and music was hitting me hard. I thought you what let's try this the next day on the system speakers less tired at a normal volume because that was just too much awesome. Damn.... still floored me. I think this Dark Star gets overlooked, judging on the audience reactions and including myself this is a mind melting f-fer Phil Zone special of a Dark Star. This show still has a bit of grit in it from 72 and while maybe not as pretty and perfect as Fall 73 it's still got a little sumpin' sumpin'.
I think it is more that there is a feed from every vocal mic or instrument mic, so usually 16 channels say back then, and each of those 16 channel had its own mic splitter that split each feed separately to a) monitor mixer, b) front of house (FOH) mixer and c) recording mixer. Note you could further split that recording feed to say go to multiple recording mixes (Europe ’72 comes to mind, same monitor feed, FOH feed, recording feed further split where one feed goes directly into multitrack recorder (no mixing console) and another feed goes to Betty’s 2-track mixer). They had transformer based mic splitters that would not degrade the signal so splits on splits probably did not concern them at all. So the key is Betty's mix was unrelated to the FOH mix (which is what we get from Healy's soundboards say '79 onwards) since she got a split before that channel ever got to the FOH. E’72 multitrack mix had one audience mic track, so that could be used for the night's 2-track mix. When not multitrack recording I doubt they would want an audience mic for the monitor or FOH feed, but I could see Betty setting up an audience mic and feeding that into her mixer as an available channel; either that or the vocal mics picked up enough audience for her mix. I’m not aware of a Fennheiser joke so that one threw me off as well.
We got nothing but lawyers and philosophers on this thread. PS- And sometimes it's hard to differentiate one crew from the other!
Hi all. I've been away for a few months -- went to Mexico at the end of February, was super busy with work when I got back, and then, uh, various things happened in the world and drastically scaling back my internet time seemed like a useful thing to do. It's helped somewhat. While my May has been fairly light on the Dead, the earlier part of quarantine was most certainly not. With my gym closed, I've taken to walking around the park near my house. I listened to most of the June 76 box there, as well as the new Dave's and, in between, the official releases from July 74 -- 7/19 (Dave's 17) and 7/29 and 31 (Dave's 2) -- which I realized I'd never heard in their entirety. For as much 74 as I've listened to (much of it more than a few times), this realization shocked and embarrassed me, so I'm glad to have mended my ways. I didn't love the June 76 shows, but they all had their moments, and the second sets were generally very engaging. I assume I'll find more to appreciate over time, as that's generally what happens with the big boxes. Dave's 34, though, that's one hell of a show, and one with a pretty unique setlist and arc. I didn't realize how much they'd chopped off the Dark Star Jam on So Many Roads, so it was neat to hear that whole segment. Great bonus disc, too. Anyway, I'm back, I think. Mostly just wanted to pop in and say hi and that I hope everyone's doing well and staying safe and healthy.
Ah okay that makes a lot of sense - thanks! Man that kind of multiple channel direct to 2 track recording is so tricky. Unbelievable that she was just able to ear it up and basically nail it every time. One of the all time greats.
I’d say 60% of the fifty or so Dead shows I saw were during the Donna years. She was beautiful on stage and I don’t recall much at all of the Off key singing you hear from some of these recordings from 72-74 or so. Her voice seemed better placed in the mix when you were there in person.
Finished 9/18/74 last night. I thought the show started unbelievably - Uncle John's Band, Jack Straw, and the uptempo Friend of the Devil. I really like the first set, but after that it was just kind of OK for me. Still good, but nothing that really jumped out at me after that. Loved the UJB and Friend of the Devil, though.
