The Grateful Dead – THE GRATEFUL DEAD***

The Golden Road(To Unlimited Devotion)/Beat It On Down The Line/Good Mornin’ Little Schoolgirl/Cold Rain & Snow/Sittin’ On Top Of The World/Cream Puff War/Morning Dew/New New Minglewood Blues/Viola Lee Blues

The self titled debut album from the legendary San Franciscan hippy progressive band is untypical of their later output. It features mainly garage and blues songs and largely eschews the rambling free form jamming for which they are best known. (US:73)

"Basically this is The Grateful Dead as garage band. It's actually better than several of the Dead records that followed, mainly because of the energy."

"The Dead were never a studio band, and their first record is even overlooked by the most ardent Deadheads. It’s easy to see why; here they sound more like a garage band: raw, loud, way too fast. The opener, The Golden Road, sets the momentum for a series of short, bluesy, breakneck tempo numbers that don’t slow down until the beginning of side two. The closing prison song cover, Viola Lee Blues, more closely resembles the exploratory and improvisational sound that would soon become their stock in trade, but with just enough sloppiness and dissonance to keep things interesting."

"This album illustrates how the San Francisco sound emerged from folk-rock. Side A is bursting with energy and contains all the elements that would emerge in more mature form on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, mainly a solid reliance on traditional American musical forms, from folk to blues to country. Side B, unfortunately, gets a bit bogged down in some rather pedestrian blues."

"It is the perfect listen for people studying the San Fran - Haight Ashbury scene of the mid-late 60s. Some of the tracks are drawn from their old jug band repertoire, and others are just blues covers. But they do a top job on each cover, and come up with some great early band originals."