The Grateful Dead (album)

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This article is about the band's self-titled debut album. For the eponymous double-live album known informally as "Skull and Roses" or "Skullfuck", see Grateful Dead (album).
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead cover
Studio album by the Grateful Dead
Released March 17, 1967
Recorded January 1967
Genre Garage rock, psychedelic rock, country rock, blues
Length 34:53 (original LP)
79:10 (CD reissue)
Label Warner Bros. Records
Producer David Hassinger
Professional reviews
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 of 1967.

Contents

[edit] 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.

The cryptic lettering at the top of the cover reads "In the land of the dark, the ship of the sun is drawn by the Grateful Dead". This is an excerpt from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.[citation needed]

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Original album

[edit] 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

[edit] Side two

  1. "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" (Dobson, Rose) – 5:08
  2. "New, New Minglewood Blues" (Lewis) – 2:37
  3. "Viola Lee Blues" (Lewis) – 10:13

[edit] 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

[edit] Musical personnel

[edit] Production personnel

[edit] 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

[edit] 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

[edit] Miscellanea

  • The band used the collected pseudonymn McGannahan Skyjellyfetti 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 Sly Pornographer.

[edit] Charts/Certification

Billboard chart

Chart Peak Position
Pop Albums 37

RIAA certification

Certification Date
Gold November 11, 1971

[edit] See also

[edit] 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.