The Grateful Dead (album)

For the 1971 live album known informally as "Skull and Roses" or "Skull Fuck", see Grateful Dead (album).
The Grateful Dead
Studio album by the Grateful Dead
Released March 17, 1967
Recorded January 1967
Genre Psychedelic rock
Length 34:53 (original LP)
79:10 (CD reissue)
Label Warner Bros.
Producer David Hassinger
Grateful Dead chronology
The Grateful Dead
(1967)		 Anthem of the Sun
(1968)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

The Grateful Dead is the debut album of the Grateful Dead. It was recorded by Warner Bros. Records, and was released in March 1967. According to bassist Phil Lesh in his autobiography Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead, the album was released as San Francisco's Grateful Dead.

Contents

History

The album was recorded primarily at Studio A in Los Angeles in only four days. The band had wanted to record the album in their hometown of San Francisco, but no good recording studios existed in the area at the time. The group picked David Hassinger to produce because he had worked as an engineer on the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow album (the latter of which Jerry Garcia had guested on as a session musician as well as donated the album title to). Demands by Warner Bros. resulted in four of the tracks, originally longer, being cut short.[2] Phil Lesh comments in his autobiography that "to my ear, the only track that sounds at all like we did at the time is Viola Lee Blues. ... None of us had any experience with performing for recording ... although the whole process felt a bit rushed."[3]

The album was seen as "a big deal in San Francisco."[4] Even though this was true, it did not see much air play on AM radio stations outside San Francisco. It would be a couple of months before free-form FM radio stations began to take shape.[4] Warner Bros. threw the band a release party at the Fugazi Hall in North Beach. Joe Smith is noted for saying he is "proud that Warner Bros. is introducing the Grateful Dead to the world."[2]

A remastered version with the full versions of five album tracks, plus six bonus tracks, was released by Rhino in as part of the box set The Golden Road (1965-1973) in 2001, and as a separate album in 2003.

In the original design for the album cover, the cryptic writing at the top read, "In the land of the dark, the ship of the sun is driven by the Grateful Dead", with the phrase "Grateful Dead" in large letters. At the band's request, the writing, except for "Grateful Dead", was changed by artist Stanley Mouse to be unreadable.[5] According to fan legend, the saying is from Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The band used the collected pseudonym McGannahan Skjellyfetti for their group-written originals and arrangements. The name derived from a corruption of a character name in the Kenneth Patchen work The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer.

The album was reissued for Record Store Day 2011 on 180g vinyl cut from the original analog/mono masters from 1967. This is the first time in 40+ years it has been released in this form.

Track listing

Original album

Side one

  1. "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" (Grateful Dead) – 2:13
  2. "Beat It on Down the Line" (Fuller) – 2:33
  3. "Good Morning Little School Girl" (Williamson) – 5:45
  4. "Cold Rain and Snow" (Obray Ramsey) – 2:31
  5. "Sitting on Top of the World" (Jacobs, Carter) – 2:07
  6. "Cream Puff War" (Garcia) – 2:28

Side two

  1. "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" (Dobson, Rose) – 5:08
  2. "New, New Minglewood Blues" (Lewis) – 2:37
  3. "Viola Lee Blues" (Lewis) – 10:13

2003 reissue

  1. "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" (Grateful Dead) – 2:11
  2. "Beat It on Down the Line" (Fuller) – 2:30
  3. "Good Morning Little School Girl" (Williamson) – 6:35
  4. "Cold Rain and Snow" (Obray Ramsey) – 2:29
  5. "Sitting on Top of the World" (Jacobs, Carter) – 2:46
  6. "Cream Puff War" (Garcia) – 3:20
  7. "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" (Dobson, Rose) – 5:19
  8. "New, New Minglewood Blues" (Lewis) – 2:44
  9. "Viola Lee Blues" (Lewis) – 10:23
  10. "Alice D. Millionaire" (Grateful Dead) – 2:24
    • Inspired by an autumn 1966 newspaper headline ("LSD Millionaire") about the Dead's benefactor and soundman Owsley Stanley.
  11. "Overseas Stomp (The Lindy)" (Jones, Shade) – 2:27
  12. "Tastebud" (McKernan) – 4:21
  13. "Death Don't Have No Mercy" (instrumental version)(Davis) – 5:23
  14. "Viola Lee Blues" (edited version) (Lewis) – 3:05
  15. "Viola Lee Blues"* (live at DANCE HALL - Rio Nido, CA 9/3/67) (Lewis) – 23:13

Musical personnel

Production personnel

Bonus tracks production details

Reissue production credits

Charts/Certification

Billboard chart

Chart Peak Position
Pop Albums 37

RIAA certification

Certification Date
Gold November 15, 1971[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Planer, Lindsay. The Grateful Dead at Allmusic. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  2. ^ a b Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip . Jake Woodward, et al. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2003, pg. 67.
  3. ^ Phil Lesh: Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh, Little, Brown and Company, 2005, pg. 99.
  4. ^ a b Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson, Penguin Books, 1999, pg. 125.
  5. ^ The Grateful Dead on deaddisc.com
  6. ^ "RIAA Gold & Platinum database-The Grateful Dead". http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=1&table=SEARCH_RESULTS&action=&title=grateful%20dead&artist=grateful%20dead&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2009&sort=Artist&perPage=25. Retrieved February 28, 2009.