Grateful Dead – History of the Grateful Dead Vol. 1 (Bear’s Choice) [Live] (50th Anniversary Edition) (1973/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – History of the Grateful Dead Vol. 1 (Bear’s Choice) [Live] (50th Anniversary Edition) (1973/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 47:06 minutes | 1,91 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

This 1973 release was the very last collection that the Grateful Dead authorized during their tenure with Warner Bros. in the late ’60s and early ’70s. However, this live disc was a sort of melancholy affair, as it centered on material featuring Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (guitar/vocals/mouth harp), who had left the band due to illness in June of the previous year. History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear’s Choice) is somewhat misleading, as a follow-up never came to pass. Band historians, however, claim that this release was optimistically titled because the label had hoped to issue a series of live recordings (à la Dick’s Picks) containing highlights from a variety of vintage Dead performances. Alas, with the formation of the group’s own label it was not to be. The single disc includes performances from a highly touted series of shows held over two nights (February 13-14, 1970) at the Fillmore East in New York City. While most assuredly not the finest example of the Dead’s formidable acoustic sets, the platter opens with a quartet of cover tunes — many of which had been entries in Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) and McKernan’s folky jug band repertoire prior to ultimately forming the electric, psychedelic Grateful Dead. McKernan’s playful cover of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Katie Mae” is a somewhat lightweight affair. He counterbalances ad-libbed lyrics with his own very sparse solo guitar picking, which is in perfect keeping with the lonesome nature of this blues. Garcia and Bob Weir (guitar/vocals) join in on the remaining “unplugged” tracks. Both the affective and noir “Dark Hollow” and “I’ve Been All Around This World” reveal the command of this highly under-utilized sub-division of the Dead. Clocking in at seven-plus minutes, the album’s sole original composition, “Black Peter,” is masterfully executed. It ultimately bests the original Workingman’s Dead (1969) version in sheer emotive realization. The two electric offerings — a cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightnin'” and Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” — are full-blown rave-ups allowing the entire band to weave their collective R&B-influenced psychedelia, unedited and in real time. Both tracks had become assertive vehicles for McKernan’s no-nonsense R&B sensibilities. In 2001, History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear’s Choice) was included in the 12-disc Golden Road (1965-1973) box set. The remastered edition comes replete with a newly inked 16-page liner notes insert containing an essay from the “Bear” (aka Owsley Stanley) himself. The expanded track list yields four additional performances from the same cache of shows: the McKernan-led “Good Lovin’,” “Big Boss Man,” a second and equally scintillating version of “Smokestack Lightnin’,” as well as an up-tempo “Sitting on Top of the World,” the latter of which keeps the frenetic spirit of the reading from the Dead’s self-titled debut firmly intact. – Lindsay Planer

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Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (1970) [MFSL 2014] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (1970) [MFSL 2014]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 36:01 minutes | Scans included | 1,45 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 670 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # 2137

As the ’60s drew to a close, it was a heavy time for the quickly crumbling hippie movement that had reached its apex just a few years earlier in 1967’s Summer of Love. Death and violence were pervasive in the form of the Manson murders, fatalities at the Altamont concert, and the ongoing loss of young lives in Vietnam despite the best efforts of anti-war activists and peace-seeking protesters. Difficult times were also upon the Grateful Dead, unofficial house band of San Francisco’s Summer of Love festivities and outspoken advocates of psychedelic experimentation both musical and chemical. The excessive studio experimentation that resulted in their trippy but disorienting third album, Aoxomoxoa, had left the band in considerable debt to their record label, and their stress wasn’t helped at all by a drug bust that had members of the band facing jail time. The rough road the Dead were traveling down seemed congruent with the hard changes faced by the youth counterculture that birthed them. Fourth studio album Workingman’s Dead reflects both the looming darkness of its time, and the endless hope and openness to possibility that would become emblematic of the Dead as their legacy grew. For a group already established as exploratory free-form rockers of the highest acclaim, Workingman’s Dead’s eight tunes threw off almost all improvisatory tendencies in favor of spare, thoughtful looks at folk, country, and American roots music with more subdued sounds than the band had managed up until then. The songs also focused more than ever before on singing and vocal harmonies, influenced in no small way by a growing friendship with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The band embraced complex vocal arrangements with campfire-suited folk on “Uncle John’s Band” and the psychedelic cowboy blues of “High Time”.

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Grateful Dead – American Beauty (1970) [MFSL 2014] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Grateful Dead – American Beauty (1970) [MFSL 2014]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:44 minutes | Scans included | 1,72 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 848 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # 2138

With 1970’s Workingman’s Dead, the Grateful Dead went through an overnight metamorphosis, turning abruptly from tripped-out free-form rock toward sublime acoustic folk and Americana. Taking notes on vocal harmonies from friends Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Dead used the softer statements of their fourth studio album as a subtle but moving reflection on the turmoil, heaviness, and hope America’s youth was facing as the idealistic ’60s ended. American Beauty was recorded just a few months after its predecessor, both expanding and improving on the bluegrass, folk, and psychedelic country explorations of Workingman’s Dead with some of the band’s most brilliant compositions. The songs here have a noticeably more relaxed and joyous feel. Having dived headfirst into this new sound with the previous album, the bandmembers found the summit of their collaborative powers here, with lyricist Robert Hunter penning some of his most poetic work, Jerry Garcia focusing more on gliding pedal steel than his regular electric lead guitar work, and standout lead vocal performances coming from Bob Weir (on the anthem to hippie love “Sugar Magnolia”), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (on the husky blues of “Operator”), and Phil Lesh (on the near-perfect opening tune, “Box of Rain”). This album also marked the beginning of what would become a long musical friendship between Garcia and Dave Grisman, whose mandolin playing adds depth and flavor to tracks like the outlaw country-folk of “Friend of the Devil” and the gorgeously devotional “Ripple.” American Beauty eventually spawned the band’s highest charting single — “Truckin’,” the greasy blues-rock tribute to nomadic counterculture — but it also contained some of their most spiritual and open-hearted sentiments ever, their newfound love of intricate vocal arrangements finding pristine expression on the lamenting “Brokedown Palace” and the heavenly nostalgia and gratitude of “Attics of My Life.” While the Dead eventually amassed a following so devoted that following the band from city to city became the center of many people’s lives, the majority of the band’s magic came in the boundless heights it reached in its live sets but rarely managed to capture in the studio setting. American Beauty is a categorical exception to this, offering a look at the Dead transcending even their own exploratory heights and making some of their most powerful music by examining their most gentle and restrained impulses. It’s easily the masterwork of their studio output, and a strong contender for the best music the band ever made, even including the countless hours of live shows captured on tape in the decades that followed.

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Grateful Dead – Complete Studio Albums Collection: 1967-1989 (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – Complete Studio Albums Collection: 1967-1989 (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 08:40:22 minutes | 18,48 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

This new hi-res collection of the Grateful Dead’s studio work has been painstakingly produced from the original master tapes of each album, using their original mixes to produce a work that is truer to the original sound than any previous release. Included in this collection are the band’s 13 studio albums, spanning three decades and containing over 8 hours of music, lovingly rendered in hi-resolution…

The Complete Studio Albums Collection contains all 13 of Grateful Dead’s studio albums. Drawing from the 1960s, the bundle features the group’s gold-certified self-titled debut; Anthem of the Sun, which is the first with drummer Mickey Hart; and Aoxomoxoa, which boasts the live staple “St. Stephen.” Music from the 1970s includes: the back-to-back platinum releases Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty; Wake Of The Flood, the first with keyboardist Keith Godchaux who replaced founding member Ron “Pigpen” McKernan; From the Mars Hotel, which features the debut of “Scarlet Begonias”; Blues For Allah with the standout track “Franklin’s Tower”; and two gold albums in a row, Terrapin Station and Shakedown Street. The 1980s are represented by: Go To Heaven, the first with keyboardist Brent Mydland; the double-platinum In The Dark; and the group’s final studio album, Built To Last, which debuted on Halloween 1989.

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Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (1970/2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (1970/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 03:07:25 minutes | 4,42 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

Due July 10th, Workingman’s Dead: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available as a three-CD set and digital equivalents featuring the original album with newly remastered sound, plus an unreleased complete concert recorded on February 21, 1971 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. The show was mixed from the 16-track analog master tapes by Jeffrey Norman at Bob Weir’s Marin County TRI Studios and mastered by Grammy® Award-winning engineer, David Glasser, along with restoration and speed correction by Plangent Processes. 2/21/71 delivers a plethora of songs from both Workingman’s Dead and the band’s follow-up album, American Beauty. Some highlights include Weir’s moving vocal take on “Me and Bobby McGee,” Pigpen’s whiskey-seasoned growl on “Easy Wind” and a stellar run through “Uncle John’s Band” to close out the show.

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Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share (1970/2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share (1970/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:32:02 minutes | 2,96 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

The Grateful Dead have released Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share, a collection of candid studio outtakes from the recording of their seminal 1970 Americana album.

While the Dead are known for leaving few stones unturned in terms of live audio, studio remastering, and all of the other content that diehard fans obsess over, little has been released in the way of the Dead’s interpersonal communication within the studio. Sure, fans can find live mixes of classic concerts that feature the band members speaking to each other with in-ear monitors. But The Angel’s Share shows the band isolated together, during a time when they were still far greater friends than business partners.

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Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (1970/2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead (1970/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:07 minutes | 817 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

“Workingman’s Dead” is the seminal masterpiece from psychedelic folk-rock band, the Grateful Dead. The group embodied the term jam band and developed one of the most loyal followings in rock history. “Workingman’s Dead” found the group returning to their traditional roots, blending together elements of country, folk, rock and blues. The album includes the band’s first radio hit and one of their definitive classics, “Uncle John’s Band”. “Workingman’s Dead” is included on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and was voted by its readers as one of the best albums of the 1970s.

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Grateful Dead – The Very Best of the Grateful Dead (2003) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – The Very Best of the Grateful Dead (2003)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:32 minutes | 1,62 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

It only seems like there has been an endless stream of Grateful Dead compilations. In reality, there has only been a handful, and the most notable of those were released while the band was still an active recording and touring unit in the ’70s – and before they had belated chart success in the late ’80s, 20 years after their debut album. So, Warner/Rhino’s 2003 collection The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group’s career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista. As always with the Dead, it’s hard to condense the band’s free-ranging, freewheeling output onto one disc, and there are some big songs and concert staples missing here, including the perennial “Dark Star,” “Jack Straw,” “Black Peter,” “Stella Blue,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Playing in the Band,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Terrapin Station.” They are missed, some more than others, but the 17 tracks here do present nearly all sides of the Dead while hitting their biggest songs: “Truckin’,” “Touch of Grey,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Casey Jones,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Box of Rain,” and “Ripple.” As that list proves, this is a set that leans heavily on the twin peaks of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, but there’s a reason why those two are beloved of Deadheads and casual fans alike: the classic songs are there. Also present here are staples like “The Golden Road,” “One More Saturday Night,” “Estimated Prophet,” “Eyes of the World,” and “U.S. Blues,” which may not be as well-known to the general populace but help fill in the picture and provide a good portrait of the band. The collection would have been better if sequenced a little more chronologically, but nevertheless it provides a first-class introduction to a band whose catalog can often seem a little unwieldy.

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Grateful Dead – The Grateful Dead (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (1967/2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – The Grateful Dead (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (1967/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:54:25 minutes | 4,24 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

Has it really already been 50 years since The Grateful Dead released their debut album? My, my, those half-centuries certainly do fly by…

In commemoration of this momentous anniversary, we’re kicking off an equally-momentous, utterly epic album reissue series of the Dead’s back catalog, one which involves two-disc deluxe editions and limited-edition picture disc versions of all the group’s studio and live albums. The original albums will have newly remastered sound, the second disc of each will contain unreleased recordings, and the 12” picture discs will contain that same newly-remastered audio. Mind you, it’ll be a limited-edition situation with the vinyl reissues, so if you don’t rush to get one of the 10,000 copies we’re producing, you’ll be out of luck.

In the case of THE GRATEFUL DEAD: 50th ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION, the bonus disc features the band’s complete unreleased concert from July 29, 1966 and select cuts from July 30, 1966 at the P.N.E. Garden Auditorium in British Columbia. The band’s performances at the Vancouver Trips Festival are among only a handful of recordings that exist from the Dead’s first two years, so just know what a big deal this is.

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Grateful Dead – The Best Of The Grateful Dead (Live) [Remastered] (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – The Best Of The Grateful Dead (Live) [Remastered] (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:33:24 minutes | 5,25 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

The Best of the Grateful Dead Live is a compilation album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains songs that were recorded live in concert and previously released on other Grateful Dead albums. It was released on March 23, 2018.

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Grateful Dead – The Best Of The Grateful Dead (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – The Best Of The Grateful Dead (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:38:45 minutes | 3,31 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

The Best of the Grateful Dead kicks off 2015 and the 50th anniversary of the Dead.This is the first time that there has been a 2 CD best of collection. The existing “The Very Best of the Grateful Dead” is a single disc of tracks selected based on the popularity/sales of the tracks. This new collection has been compiled to highlight classic favorites from a fan point of view.

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Grateful Dead – Sugaree (Live at the Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO 12/10/71) (Single) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – Sugaree (Live at the Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO 12/10/71) (Single) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 08:49 minutes | 298 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

One of the shortest-lived iterations of the Grateful Dead was the band that existed December 1971 through March 1972. Jerry, Bob, Phil, Bill, Pigpen, and Keith formed a formidable version of the Dead that only played a few shows together before Donna Jean joined as vocalist, and before Pigpen would depart the stage for good in June 1972. What this sextet lacked in quantity of shows it made up for with creativeness, power, and inspiration.

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Grateful Dead – Spring 1990: The Other One (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – Spring 1990: The Other One (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 20:22:52 minutes | 25,31 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino Entertainment

A limited edition 23 CD box set release of eight Grateful Dead shows from March and April 1990.

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Grateful Dead – Smiling On A Cloudy Day (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Grateful Dead – Smiling On A Cloudy Day (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:07 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

The summer of 1967 was a cultural milestone, drawing as many as 100,000 young people to the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood of San Francisco. The social phenomena was a convergence of free thinking, hippie fashion, political upheaval, sexual freedom, drug use and creative expression. This movement spread to other cities around the US and around the world. The Grateful Dead were at the cultural epicenter of the scene at Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love. This is a new compilation of core Grateful Dead tracks from this period.

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Grateful Dead – Saint of Circumstance: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ 6/17/91 (Live) (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Grateful Dead – Saint of Circumstance: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ 6/17/91 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:43:13 minutes | 3,42 GB | Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Classic Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

Widely considered one of the most exciting, inspired, and greatest shows of the Dead’s final decade of performing. Featuring beloved classics such as ‘Truckin’ and ‘Uncle John’s Band’ as well as rarities including ‘Saint of Circumstance’ the recurrence of ‘Dark Star’ which was woven in and out of the set list throughout the show.

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