It may have kicked off with a text thread from my friends over my lack of any experience with the Grateful Dead studio albums, but it’s since turned into a full-scale obsession. I have fallen hard for the band in a way I didn’t when I first discovered Live/Dead and the Dick’s Picks series back in my early 30s. We’re talking 11 CDs, 2 biographies, 2 guitar books, a podcast and the Amazon documentary series all devoured or at least obtained in the last few weeks. I know there’s a part of me using this as my way to connect to Ross; I’m constantly telling him how much it sucks he’s no longer here now that I’m obsessed. I do this even though I’m pretty firmly on the side of “dead is dead” and that’s the end. Trying to not over-analyze and just let this love(light) shine for the time being.
- “I Know You Rider” – The Complete Sunshine Daydream Concert (8/29/1972)
- “Morning Dew” – (Cornell 5/8/1977)
Went a few minutes over, but when you’re talking Grateful Dead, that’s probably par for the course. I came to the glory of “Viola Lee Blues” from the deluxe edition of the debut album, but everyone tells me Dick’s Picks Vol. 8 is one of the best in the series, so I took my selection from there. A few other notes: although I only recently fell in love with Blues For Allah as an album, One From the Vault was one of the albums I picked up back in the early 2000s during my first Dead phase.
General consensus from my friends was that I needed to hear the Cornell show from 1977, and yup: they were absolutely right. From there I dug into the online forums and saw a lot of love for the Sunshine Daydream show so grabbed that as well. Finally “Alligator” from the bonus materials of Aoxomoxoa…that was the album that kicked off the discussion. I’m still wresting with some of it (I can’t bring myself to love either mix of “What’s Become Of The Baby’) but the live recordings on the bonus disc are really fun and raw.
Be safe, be good to each other. See you next week.
Consuming the Tangible 