Europe '72

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Europe '72
Live album by Grateful Dead
Released	November 5, 1972
Recorded	April – May 1972
Genre	Rock
Length	109:25
Label	Warner Bros.
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Robert Christgau (B+) link Rolling Stone (favorable) link
Grateful Dead chronology
Grateful Dead (1971) Europe '72 (1972) History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear's Choice) (1973)

Europe '72 is a 1972 live triple album of performances by the Grateful Dead, recorded during their tour of Western Europe in early 1972.

[edit] History

This was the third live double or triple album in the Dead's past five releases, revealing how the group's reputation rested on their live performances. Indeed, the liner notes simply stated: "There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert." The album contained considerable new material in addition to versions of tracks found on previous studio albums.

Despite the band being out of the country, Europe '72 showcased the Dead's mixture of American bluegrass, folk, and country influences, and provided the culmination to the band's early 1970s sound. Archetypal American images abounded on "Jack Straw", while "Cumberland Blues" and "Tennessee Jed" were firmly rooted in their regional feeling. "Truckin'", which had recently become the band's first hit song, catalogued its own troubled-but-resilient pathway through American life^{[citation needed]}. The Dead's start-stop-restart segue of "China Cat Sunflower" into "I Know You Rider" also linked their psychedelic past into a more traditional context.^{[citation needed]} Reviews specially praised track "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew", a ten-minute rendition of the melancholy folk standard that features guitar crescendoes from Jerry Garcia^{[citation needed]}.

Europe '72's packaging was designed by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse under their Kelly/Mouse Studios name (they also did other Dead albums) and set against mostly white, empty foldouts. The front cover shows a large Truckin' boot crossing the Atlantic, while the back cover depicts the corresponding Truckin' fool smashing an ice cream cone against his forehead. (Some of the ice cream flying through the air spells out the word "LIVE".) The inside cover credits are in a reserved type font, but do not forget to list "Family", including Mountain Girl. The included color booklet contains photos of European sites and the concerts, a quote from Revelations, and a long account of how the tour split into two factions, the Bozos and the Bolos, with references to St. Dilbert and the Feast of Fools.

The tour represented by this album was Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's last with the Dead before he died in 1973, and the last album he would feature on as an active member. It was the first album to feature Keith Godchaux and his wife Donna Jean Godchaux.

Originally a triple album on vinyl, Europe '72 was later reissued as a two-disc CD in 1995 and again in 2001 with bonus tracks as part of the band's box set, The Golden Road (1965–1973).

Europe '72 has been the Dead's best-selling live album, and one of their best-selling albums overall, achieving double platinum status in the U.S.

Although Europe '72 is billed as a live album, the songs featured on the release were subject to significant overdubs after the fact, specifically with respect to the lush harmony vocals. Unadulterated multitrack recordings of the performances used for the album are no longer available (because they were simply snipped from the multitrack concert tapes whereupon the band overdubbed directly onto them, destroying the originals) but, for example, the available two-track soundboard recording of the May 10, 1972 show indicates the band had not yet figured out the vocal arrangements for "He's Gone" that would later be overdubbed in America.

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Side one

1. "Cumberland Blues" (Garcia, Lesh, Hunter)
2. "He's Gone" (Garcia, Hunter)
3. "One More Saturday Night" (Weir)

[edit] Side two

1. "Jack Straw" (Weir, Hunter)
2. "You Win Again" (Hank Williams)
3. "China Cat Sunflower" (Garcia, Hunter)
4. "I Know You Rider" (trad., arr. The Grateful Dead)

[edit] Side three

1. "Brown-Eyed Woman" (Garcia, Hunter)
2. "Hurts Me Too" (Elmore James)
3. "Ramble On Rose" (Garcia, Hunter)

[edit] Side four

1. "Sugar Magnolia" (Weir, Hunter)
2. "Mr. Charlie" (McKernan, Hunter)
3. "Tennessee Jed" (Garcia, Hunter)

[edit] Side five

1. "Truckin'" (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter)
2. "Epilogue" (The Grateful Dead)

[edit] Side six

1. "Prelude" (The Grateful Dead)
2. "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" (Bonnie Dobson, Tim Rose)

[edit] Bonus tracks, 2001

Further information: The Golden Road Box Set, disc ten and disc eleven

[edit] Recording dates

The actual dates for most of the tracks have been determined as follows: [1]

• "Cumberland Blues" – April 8, 1972
• "Brown-Eyed Woman" – April 14, 1972
• "Jack Straw", "China Cat Sunflower", "I Know You Rider" and "Tennessee Jed" – May 3, 1972
• "Sugar Magnolia" – May 4, 1972
• "He's Gone" – May 10, 1972
• "Mr. Charlie" – May 23, 1972
• "You Win Again" and "It Hurts Me Too" – May 24, 1972
• "Truckin'", "Epilogue", "Prelude", "Morning Dew", "One More Saturday Night", "Ramble on Rose" – May 26, 1972

[edit] Personnel

• Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
• Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals
• Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – organ, harmonica, vocals
• Keith Godchaux – piano
• Donna Godchaux – vocals
• Bill Kreutzmann – drums

[edit] Charts

Album – Billboard

Singles – Billboard