The bounty of vintage Grateful Dead and posthumous Jerry Garcia releases will continue to overflow this fall. In September, Rhino will release a three-disc live Garcia set and follow it in October with a 12-disc box culling the Dead’s post-Warner Bros. studio albums, rarities and live cuts.
Due Sept. 28, “After Midnight” stems from a Garcia performance at Kean College in Union, N.J., captured on 24-track masters. The nearly three-hour show featured 16 songs, including Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist Of Fate” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” and the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
Dead lyricist and frequent Garcia collaborator Robert Hunter was on hand to sing lead vocals on his songs “Tiger Rose” and “Promontory Rider.” Joining Garcia on stage was Ozzie Ahlers (keyboards/vocals), John Kahn (bass) and Johnny De Foncesca (bass).
As previously reported, Jerry Garcia Estate LLC discovered a treasure trove of Garcia tapes when the Dead reorganized its storied tape vault. Two-track concert recordings will emerge via the “Pure Jerry” series, which will be released exclusively online. Further multi-track recordings are expected to emerge via the estate’s relationship with Rhino.
“There’s over 500 live concerts in two-track, and then … several multi-track concerts that haven’t been mined yet,” Christopher Sabec, CEO of the Jerry Garcia Estate LLC recently told Billboard.com. “It’s unbelievably impressive, the number of solo projects that he performed.”
On Oct. 26, Grateful Dead Productions/Rhino will release “Beyond Description (1973-1989),” which will boast remastered and repackaged version of the band’s Arista-era output on its own Grateful Dead Records label. In the vein of the Warner Bros. -era 2001 box “The Golden Road (1965-1973),” this sprawling set captures 161 songs, 65 of them previously unreleased.
The box will boast sonically improved versions of the studio albums “Wake of the Flood” (1973) “The Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel” (1974), “Blues for Allah” (1975), “Terrapin Station” (1977), “Shakedown Street” (1978), “Go to Heaven” (1980), “In the Dark” (1987) and “Built to Last” (1989). Each title has been expanded to include outtakes, live tracks, alternate versions and rehearsal peroformances.
Additionally, the 1981 live albums “Reckoning” and “Dead Set” have been expanded to two-disc sets that include further material from the original concert dates. The first, from San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, adds 16 songs, including “Cassidy,” “Ripple” and “Heaven Help the Fool” from the concert, and a studio rehearsal version of “To Lay Me Down.”
“Dead Set” has been expanded with a nine-track bonus disc featuring previously unreleased versions of such Dead staples as “Sugaree,” “Not Fade Away,” “Jack Straw” and “Shakedown Street.”
“Beyond Description” was co-produced by Dead archivist David Lemieux and Rhino’s James Austin. Joe Gastwirt remastered each disc in the set utilizing HDCD technology; he had previously remastered the titles for their initial CD release.
The set will also include a book with essays by Rolling Stone music critic David Fricke, “Grateful Dead Hour” host David Gans and author Blair Jackson. Lemieux and Dead biographer/spokesperson Dennis McNally (“A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead”) contribute liner notes.
Source billboard.com.
