Grateful Dead - Ladies & Gentlemen: The Grateful Dead
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Free Music Notes for Ladies & Gentlemen: The Grateful Dead
Free Music Review: Ladies and Gentlemen, PIGPEN!!
Hit: 5 Stars
The Dead kick off the holiday season early this year by releasing this 4 disc gem. It serves as a perfect compliment to last year's "So Many Roads". "Ladies and Gentlemen" fills in SMR's biggest weakness, that being too little Pigpen. He is here in force with many killer reditions of his most beloved songs. Everything from Good Lovin, to Ain't It Crazy (aka The Rub), to I'm a King Bee, to the omnipresent Lovelight, Hurts Me too, Hard to Handle, Alligator, and Midnight Hour. He is truely in fine form, as are the rest of his band mates. Another great aspect to these discs are the inclusions of many hard to find and rare songs. (see: Dark Hollow (electric), Second that Emotion, and Ripple (electric, but you can see why the boys scapped the electrified version and returned it to acoustic, but it is still a welcome rarity!), along with some of the before mention Pigpen tunes.
The focus here seems to pack as many songs as they can onto each disc (as opposed to SMR's emphasis on prolific jams). However, each album features at least one nice extended improv. Disc one has Good Lovin, Two has Uncle John Band>Lovelight, Three features Tom Constanten adding keyboards to Dark Star>St Steven>Not Fade Away>Goin DOwn the Road Feeling Bad>NFA. Four includes an astonishing version of Alligator>Drums/Jam>GDTRFB>Cold Rain and Snow. Wow!! Each of these is worth the purchase price alone. There really are no duds here (with the possible exeption of Ripple, but again it is nice to here it in an alternate form!)
I only wish this set included some of the other performances from the stand at the Fillmore. It would have been great to hear Duane Allman and the Beach Boys playing along side with the Dead. (oh well, have to go back to my fuzzy sounding bootlegs for that!)
Free Music Review: What a grate introduction to the band...
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a collection of exceptional songs played by a band that was clearly "on" those five nights at the Fillmore East. I have never heard such energy on the meager amount of concert tapes and live releases in my music collection. LAGTGD is bound to appeal to everyone. First of all, there is the amazing song selections. A few of the "hits" (i.e. "Truckin", "Sugar Magnolia", "Uncle John's Band") have been included, and this would serve as an excellent introduction for the newer listeners. Secondly, there are several songs that have "typically" played in an acoustic format but appear in its electric counterpart (i.e. "Ripple", "Dark Hollow"). Lastly, there are the jams...from Dark Star-->St Stephen-->NFA-->GDTRFB-->NFA to Alligator-->GDTRFB-->Cold Rain and Snow. And to top it all off, there's plenty of the Pig. (I just get a kick from listening to his extended "raps" on "Good Lovin" and "Lovelight"). (And you just can't beat the sound quality that these discs have to offer. I swear, you can even hear the boys breathe!)
Wow, there is just so many goodies on these discs to keep one interested for a lifetime. Yes, I might be a bit biased, as I am a Deadhead, but, trust me (as one who appreciates the musical and spiritual gifts these guys had to offer), this is the ONE that you should purchase (followed by: Live Dead, One from the Vault, and many of the Dick's Picks releases).
Thanks Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Billy, and Pigpen for the music. Thank you DL and the rest of the GDP staff for the spreading this gem to the masses.
Free Music Review: Not a dull moment
Hit: 5 Stars
After listening to this monstrous amount of live Grateful Dead music, I have come to the conclusion that it has no significantly weak moments. All songs on it are worth listening to and work as a whole if you decide to just listen to all four discs all the way through. Or, if you want to just pick and choose songs, each work out of the context of the concert as well. Usually, when I buy a Dick's Picks or other live album of Grateful Dead, I feel that Either I have to listen all the way through to the entire release in one sitting, or I can only pick and choose songs like on Europe '72. This release, however, does not have certain songs that are far better than the rest (although discs three and four are somewhat more energetic and moving), nor does it have any weak points, which allow for maximum listening all the way through. The highlights of disc one are "Bird Song," "Dark Hollow," and "Me and My uncle."The second disc has a great "loser," as well as a near perfect "El Paso," which gets better with every listen.
Disc three is just amazing. Even though these aren't the best versions of Dark Star or St. Stephen, all songs flow very nicely into each other. If disc three wasn't enough, there is a near perfect "Morning Dew"--probably my favorite version--waiting on Disc four. This collection from these five shows in April of '71 is the most expansive collection of live Dead out there. It combines elements of Weir's solo work and Jerry's solo work, some rarities, and some near perfect perfomances of the usual crowd pleasers into something much bigger than their collective pieces. A must have.
Free Music Review: Buy the cd...just do it.
Hit: 5 Stars
Please just do your self a favor and buy this item. Sure all Live Dead stuff is unfathomably amazing and trancending in every way, but this 4 discer is no exception. Of course Pigpen's vocals and keys are featured cause these were his final good days with the band. So a lot of his old shouters are there, mixed with other old favorites, and some solid covers. Disc one is pretty good, but probly my least favorite. Especially because so much of it is just drums and good lovin. It's good, but i rather discuss the three other discs. Wow, sugar magnolia, a classic, followed my loser, aint it crazy, king bee, all great tunes. The highpoint on the disc is some solid vocals on uncle j's band, followed by a long lovelight, where we hear pigpen at his best, and jerry rambles for a while. Disc three is by far my favorite. China cat-->rider seems to be on every live release, but i still love it. Sing me back home is nice. Then comes a solid cover of hard to handle, followed by the always beautiful, dark star. Then as dark star ends, the first few notes of St. Stephen begin. Wow. Then a not fade away sandwich with goin down the road in the middle. Quite a disc i must say. Disc 4 is also great. A great morning dew, then new minglewood. I love wharf rat, which follows, then of course alligator, "talk about a time when we were mutual friends". Some solid pigpen vocals. This through cold rain... is great, then a nice casey jones. Please buy this, do it for your ears who are so good to you. I bid you goodnight.Free Music Review: THE Dead CD to own if you just own one!
Hit: 5 Stars
OK, OK. I'm a fanatic. I have 800 Dead shows on tape, including all five from the Fillmore East run from which these four CDs were culled. I have all 18 Dick's Picks -- well, EVERYTHING. I still bought this CD, despite having it all on tape, because it's nice to have some good stuff to throw in the CD player. I wasn't prepared for the fantastic job of sequencing that was done on this. OK, no Duane Allman or Beach Boys (all of whom made cameos during this run), but what's here is essential Dead. If some starry-eyed newbie asks what the Dead were like, this is a great CD to introduce him or her to the band. Most of the '60s Acid Trip classics are here, Pigpen is caught in truly spectactular form just before he began the decline that led to his death two years later, and spread among everything are the country-folk classics that came from the American Beauty/Workingman's Dead sessions. CD 3, with a Dark Star>St. Stephen>NFA>GDTRFB>NFA is awesome. The whole 4-CD collection is great from beginning to end, and beats the heck out of the much more expensive 5-CD "So Many Roads" box set that came out a year or so ago. This is a must-have for any Deadhead, or anyone who simply appreciates truly awesome music. Buy it, then do yourself a favor and enjoy some newer music and pick up the 6-16-00 Katowice, Poland, live CD by Pearl Jam. Between the 6 CDs, you'll be home-bound with headphones stuck to your ears for several days!