The Grateful Dead...a group that escaped me !

[SteveO]

Great post Gater !!! thanks for the link!

So as far as listening to a group today that you sort of ignored in the past...it's Grateful Dead like myself ! I always knew about their Live catalogue so now I have days of listening ahead !..lol

I may have experienced The Grateful Dead live for the first time when I has in elementary school, but to be honest SteveO, a voracious appetite for the Dead did not develope in me until fairly late in life. It was when I began to look back into what music came from what other music... various genre and styles, that I began to really pay attention to them. As I did listen, I first noticed Bobby's guitar work, which often makes me wonder just how many ways are there to play a particular chord or progression. And Garcia... well, he's Garcia!

For most of my life I loved it loud, saw shows at CBGB's and other lesser known dives. KK Downing and Glen Tipton... now there was some guitar noise damn it! And I saw Maiden at least ten times... with Di'anno! More with Bruce. That was rockin' baby!

Then I grew up, or at least my musical ear did. The Dead were no longer country sounding. Hell, they were so free when they played live that they were the embodiment of rock and roll! The more I listen to them, the better I like them, and there is a ton to listen to. They were/are truly a people's band.

On Edit: Go to http://www.archive.org/details/GratefulDead where you will find people's recordings of a butt-load of shows. Some of the recordings suck, some do not. Dead stuff is defined by eras, which may or may not overlap. One very simple partition would by by dividing up the years and albums by who was playing keybords, Pigpen, or Keith, or Brent... Anything from 1972's Europe tour was a great period, as was 1977 and "Terrapin Station". Or the late 80's into 90's after Jerry had his illness and relearned guitar. That site I gave the URL to will let you see how their sets progressed over years.