The Grateful Dead

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
Professional reviews
Allmusic link
Grateful Dead chronology
The Grateful Dead (1967) Anthem of the Sun (1968)

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.

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.^[1] 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."^[2]

The album was seen as "a big deal in San Francisco."^[3] 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 became to take shape.^[3] 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."^[1]

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.

The disc was made of a thick vinyl similar to old 78 rpm records, which was uncommon at the time.

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.^[4] According to fan legend, the saying is from Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The band used the collected pseudonymn 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.

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" (Grateful Dead) – 2:31
5. "Sitting on Top of the World" (Jacobs, Carter) – 2:07
6. "Cream Puff War" (Garcia) – 2:28

Side two

7. "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" (Dobson, Rose) – 5:08
8. "New, New Minglewood Blues" (Lewis) – 2:37
9. "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" (Grateful Dead) – 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

• Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
• Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
• Ron "Pigpen" McKernan - keyboards, harmonica, vocals
• Phil Lesh - bass, vocals
• Bill Kreutzmann - drums

Production personnel

• David Hassinger - producer
• Grateful Dead - arrangers
• Dick Bogert - engineer
• Bob Cassidy - engineer
• Betty Cantor-Jackson - engineer

Bonus tracks production details

• Tracks 10-13 recorded at RCA Victor Studio A, Hollywood, CA on February 2, 1967
• Track 14 is an edited version of track 9.
• Track 15 recorded live at Dance Hall, Rio Nido, CA on September 3, 1967

Reissue production credits

• James Austin and David Lemieux - reissue producers
• Peter McQuaid - executive producer, Grateful Dead Productions
• Michael Wesley Johnson - associate producer, research coordination
• Eileen Law - archival research, Grateful Dead Archives
• Cassidy Law - project coordination, Grateful Dead Archives
• Jeffrey Norman - additional mixing on bonus tracks
• Joe Gastwirt - mastering, production consultant

Charts/Certification

Billboard chart

RIAA certification

See also

• Grateful Dead
• Grateful Dead discography

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip . Jake Woodward, et al. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2003, pg. 67.
2. ^ Phil Lesh: Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh, Little, Brown and Company, 2005, pg. 99.
3. ^ ^{a b} Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson, Penguin Books, 1999, pg. 125.
4. ^ The Grateful Dead on deaddisc.com
5. ^ "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.