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The Grateful Dead story is the most varied and colorful in the history of rock and roll. Yet there is no book, video, photography or icon that captures the distinctive qualities of this band as completely as a concert recording from a crucial juncture in the group’s career. Dave’s Pick’s Volume 4 now stands as essential in documenting Grateful Dead evolution as they emerged from their self-imposed hiatus of 1975.
Rare it is to hear the band’s singing as a key to their overall state of being but on this show from September of 1976 at William & Mary College, the sound of their voices is key indicator of their rested and rejuvenated state of being. When Jerry Garcia chimes in along with Bob Weir on Chuck Berry’s "Promised Land," the ragged charm of the two voices captures the euphoria of the song, foreshadowing the high points to come later in the two and half hour performance. The blend of Weir’s voice with Donna Jean Godchaux’ on "Cassidy" is likewise sweet, as befits the touching topic of the tune.
Having re-joined the band after a four-year absence during the final night of the Winterland run in 1974 (during which time The Grateful Dead Movie was filmed), Mickey Hart remained in tow when the band returned to regular touring and, at this point, his contributions to the group’s sound remained subtle but unmistakable. An alternately jaunty and gentle first set becomes a confident exploration of space lightning-quick in "Playing in the Band," proof of the indiscernible but palpable propulsion Hart adds to the rhythm section as he partners with drummer Bill Kreutzmann and bassist Phil Lesh. Here, in contrast to the disciplined economy the Grateful Dead had taught themselves around the first time they visited the Virginia school in 1973, the music turns sufficiently adventurous (not to mention spacious) in allowing the interpolation of the Weir/John Barlow piece "Supplication," separate from its usual coupling with the co-writers’ "Lazy Lightning".
Notwithstanding the panache he displayed at his initial enlistment in 1971, Keith Godchaux generally acted as the unsung hero of the lineup through his tenure with the Grateful Dead. Here the keyboardist fulfills that role in a similar, but unusually versatile fashion: he often marries the sound of his main instrument, the acoustic piano, with Garcia’s electric guitar, as on a piquant "Looks Like Rain." There remain more than a few of those moments, however, where the rippling clarity of his ivories contrast deliciously with the fluttering notes from the stringed instrument: hear, for instance, "Might As Well," the casually self-referential precursor to the second set’s gargantuan jam of "Help on the Way”/”Slipknot”/”Drums”/"Franklin’s Tower"/”The Music Never Stopped.”
In contrast to the pithy reminiscences Blair Jackson usually writes for Dave’s Picks, official Grateful Dead archivist Nicolas Meriwether’s (over) extended essay goes on a bit too long in its scholarly, detailed explication of the growth of Deadhead culture in microcosm at the Williamsburg community. Still, the academic detail to which he devotes to this mysterious phenomenon makes for enlightening reading both before and after hearing the music from which it arises. Dave’s Pick’s Volume 4 would be an ideal package to present to the unknowing music lover as a means of defining the essence of the Grateful Dead, an experience rooted in their music, but ultimately transcending it.
