FROM THE MARS HOTEL (50TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION) features remastered audio by GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer David Glasser, with Plangent Processes tape restoration and speed correction. Produced for release by Grateful Dead Legacy Manager and Audio Archivist, David Lemieux, the DELUXE EDITION also includes demos of “China Doll” and “Wave That Flag” – the song that became “U.S. Blues” – as well as a previously unreleased live performance of the Grateful Dead at University of Nevada-Reno on 5/12/1974. As the band filled an outdoor football stadium with epic highs like huge “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider,” Mars Hotel cuts including “U.S. Blues” and classics such as “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Mississippi Half-Step,” “Truckin’,” “Sugar Magnolia,” a massive wind storm was no match for the Wall of Sound. Designed to improve the listening and performance experience at what were becoming larger gigs and longer, more dynamic and varied sets, the Wall of Sound required 21 stage hands, and underlined the resounding effect the Grateful Dead were having on American audiences and culture at the time, even as the entire operation remained homespun and humble.
Recorded in San Francisco’s Coast Recorders studio, FROM THE MARS HOTEL finds Keith Godchaux particularly shining across a variety of keys, from the “China Doll” harpsichord to the pounding piano on Bob Weir’s “Money Money,” to the churchy organ that elevates “Ship Of Fools.” Lyricist Robert Hunter packs “U.S. Blues” with a barrage of imagery, pop-culture references and sardonic asides – as Canadian author Ray Robertson writes in the 50th Anniversary Edition’s liner notes, it “carries an undeniable whiff of late-capitalism ennui…it’s the most fun you’ll ever have dancing to the end of the American Empire.” Jerry Garcia’s jaunty lead guitar drives bouncing melodies across the LP, while guests include Ned Lagin’s unnerving synth effects on “Unbroken Chain,” Clover member John McFee’s country-rock pedal steel on “Pride Of Cucamonga,” and more.
HERE COMES SUNSHINE 1973:
Five complete, previously unreleased performances: Des Moines, IA 5/13/73 Santa Barbara, CA 5/20/73 San Francisco, CA 5/26/73 Washington, D.C. 6/9/73 Washington, D.C. 6/10/73 Recorded by Kidd Candelario, Betty Cantor-Jackson, and Owsley Stanley Newly restored and speed-corrected audio by Plangent Processes Mastered by Jeffrey Norman 8 years in and the Grateful Dead are a little bit of everything to everyone. They are putting up textures and tones of rock, of jazz, of country, with set-morphing vibes and long stretches of improvisations that are completely keyed into the sum of their parts. Keith Godchaux is here with his cascading notes. Donna Jean too. Both finding their footing and keeping things steady in the wake of Pigpen’s unfillable gap. The spring of 1973 feels transformative for the Dead – no more so than the May and early June shows, complementary yet remarkably different, soon-to-be cornerstones of everyone’s tape collections, and now, 50 years later, set to be part of the band’s official canon. HERE COMES SUNSHINE 1973 features five previously unreleased, highly sought-after Dead shows, including: Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, IA (5/13/73), Campus Stadium, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA (5/20/73), Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA (5/26/73), and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, Washington, D.C. (6/9/73) and (6/10/73). During the spring, the band road-tested most of the songs they would record that summer for WAKE OF THE FLOOD – their first studio album in three years – including early live versions of “Mississippi Half-Step Toodeloo,” “Row Jimmy,” “Stella Blue,” “Eyes Of The World,” and, the set’s namesake, “Here Comes Sunshine.” Also tucked into the collection are songs destined for the Dead’s 1974 studio album, FROM THE MARS HOTEL – “China Doll,” “Loose Lucy,” and “Wave That Flag,” a precursor to “U.S. Blues.” The new repertoire slipped neatly into the fluid setlists alongside songs honed on the 1972 European tour (“Jack Straw,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Brown-Eyed Women”), Chuck Berry perennials (“Promised Land,” “Around And Around”), classic country (“Big River,” “The Race Is On”), and incredible jam sequences: “He’s Gone”> “Truckin’”> “The Other One”> “Eyes Of The World.”
DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 45: PARAMOUNT THEATRE, PORTLAND, OR – 10/1/77 & 10/2/77.
We know where you’ve been and we’re taking you back with the twice as nice DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 45: PARAMOUNT THEATRE, PORTLAND, OR – 10/1/77 & 10/2/77. Back-to-back complete previously unreleased shows on 4CDs? You betcha! Why? Because we couldn’t pick one over the other of these two nights that have been described as “fire,” “mind-frying,” and “crispy” (bit of a theme here) too many times to count. Witness it for yourself when you dig into the inventive medleys and pristine sound, not to mention the first “Dupree’s Diamond Blues” since ’69 and the first live “Casey Jones” since ’74.
Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, this release was recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson (with a boost from Bob Menke, more about that in David’s video) and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.