Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died earlier this month. And since I'm far behind on my posting, I'll just this entry to cover bassist and founding member Phil Lesh, who died just over a year ago, and vocalist and former member Donna Jean Godchaux, who died just a few months ago. I liked them well enough, even though I was never the biggest Grateful Dead fan, but many of my friends were, and given the time and place of my birth, they were an ever present force in my cultural peer group. I have three personal stories involving the Grateful Dead.
The first was in High School (maybe early college? looking at this list, it could be any of the 1986--1989 shows) and involved standing in line at a music store to get wrist bands for the opportunity to stand in line to buy tickets for a Grateful Dead tickets. Or maybe even a spinoff band, like the Jerry Garcia Band, or a Grateful Dead pseudonym, like The Warlocks. The whole experience was arranged by someone more in the know than me (Robert Dempster?), but Muriel and I went along with Terry, Drew, and others and got the first stage wristbands. They were designed so that you could not take them off, but we got them off anyway and were able to sell them for $20 or so. Again, not for a ticket, but for a wrist band that would allow you the chance to buy a ticket. Not a bad haul for an evening's work in the mid- or late-80s.
The second story involves my inability to sync with Drew to see the Grateful Dead for one of their two 1992 shows in Hampton. I was graduated and working at NASA at the time, and Drew, still at UVA, had picked up an extra ticket and called me to say he was coming down and if I was interested in seeing the show. I was absolutely was, and we made plans by phone several days before the show to meet by the fountain in the Hampton Coliseum parking lot. We both knew the place and this would be an easy rendezvous point. Unfortunately, because it was the Grateful Dead, they had "grately" expanded the perimeter with fencing, and the fountain was far inside the and given the crush of people, not in line of sight view. I arrived at the appointed time, but with no means of communicating with Drew (no cell phones in 1992!), I just walked around the perimeter and then went home -- there really was nothing else that could be done. I often tell this story to "younger" people who don't remember a time before cell phones -- synchronizing with your friends used to be difficult. Jerry Garcia died in 1995, and I never had a chance to see the Grateful Dead again.
The third and final story explains why I chose this LP to mark Bob Weir's passing. I was at Terry's place at JMU, either late 1991 or early 1992, and we came back after partying all night (it may have been the same evening as the described in the "Cactusland" post). He put on a tape of "Reckoning" as we drifted to sleep, and it was the perfect late evening listening, and I was touched by the beauty of the songs, especially "It Must Have Been The Roses". Right before I passed out, I told Terry "I'm going to steal this tape." And the next morning, I did just that. I eventually bought the CD and returned the tape a couple of years later (he had completely forgotten the event), but this LP was my go to sleep music nearly every night that I lived in Seaford.
Released in 1981, "Reckoning" was the acoustic live LP, with "Dead Set" as the electric companion released in the same year. Judging the quality of Grateful Dead shows and ranking the versions of individual songs is far beyond my Dead expertise, but I've gathered that the 1980 shows that these tracks are selected from are considered exemplars of that era. The CD version that I own has "Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie" omitted, which is unfortunate because it's one of the better songs.
Of course, hardcore fans listen to soundboard recordings of individual shows, not live LPs. But this is a "grate" starting point for casual fans, and it's perfect for late night listening.
Standout songs: I have a special affinity for the first five (CD) or six (tape) songs, after which I was generally asleep: "Dire Wolf", "The Race Is On", "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie", "It Must Have Been the Roses", "Dark Hollow", "China Doll"
Skip 'em songs: "Monkey and the Engineer" (for me, this song breaks up the flow of CD/tape)
Final score: 9/10. You can make this a 10/10 by deleting a couple of songs and adding back "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie"
Bonus links:
Merging my professional and personal interests, the Internet Archive hosts the definitive Grateful Dead archive. Via the Internet Archive, here are some of the shows that were used to make "Reckoning":
- 1980-09-26 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-09-30 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-07 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-07 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-11 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-13 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-14 Warfield Theatre
- 1980-10-25 Radio City Music Hall
- 1980-10-26 Radio City Music Hall
- 1980-10-27 Radio City Music Hall
- 1980-10-30 Radio City Music Hall
The I would have made if cell phones existed in 1992: Grateful Dead at the Hampton Coliseum: 1992-03-05 (IA), 1992-03-06 (IA)
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