Scrutinizing the titles within the various Grateful Dead vault series, including Dick\u2019s Picks, Road Trips and Dave\u2019s Picks, the archivists have paid precious little attention to the formative years of the band as it slowly but surely morphed into the psychedelic warriors who ultimately became famous (strictly?) on their own terms.<\/p>\n
In that light, the standalone release of Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA \u2013 July 3, 1966\u00a0 carries more than a little intrinsic value, despite the fact that the show has been issued before: it was part of the massive 80-CD box set of 2015 30 Trips Around The Sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But even if the reappearance of this early live recording of the Grateful Dead is largely a means to tap into the vinyl market\u2013and by extension the demographic that favors that configuration\u2013it\u2019s nevertheless a thought-provoking listen for both the novice and the deeply devoted.<\/p>\n
For instance, it is both eye- and ear-opening to take note of how many selections in this two-set tracklisting became tried-and-true entries in the band\u2019s long-term repertoire. \u201cBig Boss Man,\u201d \u201cI Know You Rider,\u201d \u201cCold Rain And Snow\u201d (at a much peppier pace than later on) and \u201cBeat It Down The Line\u201d (where Bob Weir wails effervescently) are only the most prominent of the durable choices.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Those chestnuts are juxtaposed with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas\u2019 \u201cDancing In The Street,\u201d a cull from the Motown catalog that went in and out of the Dead\u2019s repertoire over decades. Years before Bob Weir took the helm on it, however, co-founding member Ron \u2018Pigpen\u2019 McKernan commandeered the tune, and the vocalist, harpist, and keyboardist is also at the helm of most blues numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The truncated take that opens this roughly ninety-minute set, \u201cNobody\u2019s Fault But Mine,\u201d is one of those, as is his own original \u201cTastebud.\u201d And while Jerry Garcia may be front-and-center singing and soloing during \u201cSitting On Top Of the World,\u201d the sound of the Farfisa organ his hirsute bandmate plays is the dominant instrumental tone there, just as the man\u2019s harmonica is prevalent during the traditional \u201cKeep Rolling By.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
McKernan\u2019s preaching supersedes much improvisation there, reminding how notable it is that extended, purely instrumental interactions are scarce during this San Francisco show. This despite the fact that the Dead were mentored at the time by recordist and sound man (and renowned acid manufacturer) Owsley Stanley; the chronology in author Jesse Jarnow\u2019s liner notes vividly depicts this early quintet lineup\u2019s place in the group\u2019s overall history.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the generally short and to-the-point performances on these two compact discs capture an ensemble that had not yet begun to explore deep space. So, the near-eight minutes of \u201cViola Lee Blues\u201d is the longest cut here except for Wilson Pickett\u2019s \u201cIn The Midnight Hour:\u201d roughly twice the duration of the former, the latter is a crowd-pleasing, set-closing turn for McKernan at center stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia\u2019s solo authorship of \u201cCream Puff War\u201d may explain why this reading turns a little more extemporaneous over its five-plus-minute duration. As such, it also stands as a demonstration of the clarity and relative depth of the audio here: produced by David Lemieux, and restored using Plangent Processes\u2019 speed correction, Jeffrey Norman\u2019s mastering ensures clarity for the snappy drive of Bill Kreutzmann\u2019s drumming as it aligns with the mobile pulse of Phil Lesh\u2019s bass work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latter\u2019s song contribution here, \u201cThe Monster Cardboard Cowboy,\u201d comprises convoluted changes, including vocal tradeoffs, making it one of, if not the most, interesting pieces of material in the nineteen here. And it\u2019s well positioned in the Dead\u2019s second interlude of two that summer pre-holiday night, leaving the dance band portion of the show as the finale that ensues only after the ensemble skips lightly through the group-composed \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have To Ask.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The involved progression in musicianship there mirrors how the red, white and blue artwork of Darryl Norsen for Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA \u2013 July 3, 1966 \u00a0expands upon the simplified color scheme of its previous iteration a decade ago. In the end, this Grateful Dead concert\u2013part of an occasion dubbed\u00a0 \u2018Independence\u00a0 Ball\u2019 by famous venue operator Bill Graham\u2013is deceptively revelatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scrutinizing the titles within the various Grateful Dead vault series, including Dick\u2019s Picks, Road Trips and Dave\u2019s Picks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-413325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}