I remember well when I first started to get into the Grateful
\nDead in 1990. The more I listened to them, the more of their albums
\nI had to own. During one such trip, I decided to lay my hands on
\nsome of the Dead’s earliest works, so I snagged the tapes for the
\nfirst four albums.<\/p>\n
To be honest, my emotions about these albums vary with each
\nlisten. There are times that they can put a smile on my face, and
\nthere are times that they can let me down in a big way. But no
\nmatter what, one undeniable fact about the band’s self-titled debut
\nrelease from 1967 stands out: It highlighted a band that wasn’t
\nquite sure what they were about to embark on, and the tentativeness
\nshows.<\/p>\n
Now that I’m guaranteed flame mail for the better part of the
\nweekend, let me clarify:
\nThe Grateful Dead<\/i> is not a bad album, but it sure is
\ndifferent when compared to works like
\nWake Of The Flood<\/i> (or, for that matter,
\nAoxomoxoa<\/i>). With one exception, Jerry Garcia and crew charge
\nthe blues full-tilt, abandon cast aside like so much laundry.<\/p>\n
Even in 1967, this was a radical concept; the Dead were plowing
\nnew ground while creating their own niche in the world of
\npsychedelia. There’s a reason why tracks like “Beat It On Down The
\nLine” remained popular all throughout their career, and why other
\nmore “traditional” tracks like “Morning Dew” and “Cold Rain And
\nSnow” were fan favorites. (It is interesting to hear the Dead rip
\nthrough “Cold Rain And Snow,” a song I first became acquainted with
\nas a momentum-building song used to start shows… and never played
\nthat fast.)<\/p>\n
But there is something that strikes the listener as being
\ninherently odd while listening to this album – namely, this is not
\nyour typical Dead album. Now, I’m not saying that this is a bad
\nthing; hell, everyone needs something to start off with. But
\nespecially for someone coming into the whole Deadhead scene late in
\nthe game like I did, or even after the band’s breakup, it’s a weird
\ntrip to go from the happily jangling tempos to almost breakneck
\nspeed blues.<\/p>\n
And while I’m busy alienating fans, might as well drive one more
\nnail into my coffin: I have
\nnever<\/i> been a fan of the track “Good Morning Little
\nSchoolgirl”, no matter who the artist was that performed it. So
\neven hearing the original Dead version featuring Ron “Pigpen”
\nMcKernan on vocals doesn’t do anything for me.<\/p>\n
Despite all of this, at least one or two tracks will end up
\ngrowing on you. For me, those tracks are “The Golden Road (To
\nUnlimited Devotion)” and “Sitting On Top Of The World”. And there
\nis one connection to the band the Dead were soon to become on
\nrecord: the ten-minute workout known as “Viola Lee Blues,” a track
\nthat seems to fly by.<\/p>\n
It would be easy for me to sit back and say that
\nThe Grateful Dead<\/i> is a “for the fans” disc, or is one that
\nshould be approached with caution… but I’m not gonna do that this
\ntime. It still is worth checking out, if only for the historical
\ninterest and to hear how it all began in the development of this
\nband. Besides, if people got into the Dead thanks to some of the
\n“best-of” packages, chances are they’re already familiar with a
\nchunk of this album.<\/p>\n
Finally, make sure you don’t get this one confused with the
\nofficially-untitled release from 1971, with the skull and roses on
\nthe cover… we’ll get to that soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5668],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38964","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grateful-dead","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38964"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38964"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}