Category: Grateful Dead

There are Dead Freaks … and then there are Dead Freaks. If you find yourself in the latter category, point your browser immediately over to the always-excellent Save Your Face blog, where you’ll find a massive collection of rehearsal sessions at Bob Weir’s home studio — Ace’s. It was there that the Grateful Dead holed up in 1975 to dream up their Blues For Allah LP up from scratch. And by massive, we mean it: the tapes total just about 24 hours.

Just about 50 years ago, the Grateful Dead took the stage at the Great American Musical Hall, a newly opened 500-capacity club in downtown San Francisco. The ensuing show, captured on a sparkling 16-track recording, was eventually released in 1991 as One From The Vault. As its title suggests, the double-disc set was the Dead’s first dip back into their live archives, kicking off a cavalcade of concert tapes that continues to this day.

Nineteen-seventy-five is one of the stranger years in the Grateful Dead’s long, strange trip. The band played only three other shows in addition to the GAMH gig, all hometown affairs, all fairly different from one another, all very much worth your time. Now at Aquarium Drunkard, a brief listening guide follows …

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, Volume One was recently reissued as a 4-LP set via Real Gone Music. For vinyl pundits this is notable as it marks the first time the set’s contents have been remastered for the format via the original analog tapes.