The two-year period marking the Grateful Dead Vault’s transition from the band’s hands to Rhino when no archival releases came out seems like a distant memory now as the record company continues to put out new titles at a staggering rate. This week comes word that Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 1 features three discs worth of music from the Primal Dead era, while a two-pack of Garcia Estate approved releases contains the Complete Repertoire of the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band.
Back on May 23 – 25, 1969, the members of the Grateful Dead made their way down to South Floria for the Big Rock Pow Wow festival at the Seminole Indian Reservation in Hollywood. Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 1 contains the Dead’s complete sets at the festie as recorded by legendary sound man Bear. We’re talking the Live Dead sequence (Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Lovelight) in all its glory plus some of the best material from those days including the gorgeous He Was a Friend of Mine, a rippin’ Doin’ That Rag and a Morning Dew for the ages. You can listen to that Morning Dew here and pre-order Road Trips here.
On the Garcia end of things we have two releases that feature the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band – a short-lived ensemble that performed 30 shows from 1987 to 1988 including a run on Broadway opening for the electric JGB. Almost Acoustic was put out in 1988 but has been hard to find in recent years. A new re-issue has been lovingly remastered. As a companion, the long planned but never released Ragged But Right contains the rest of the band’s repertoire that didn’t make it on Almost Acoustic taken from the Broadway run and six-show California tour. Each release is available individually or together as a bundle along with a 3,000 word essay on the JGAB by Steve Silberman. You can check ’em out here.
