Grateful Dead Share News Of Expanded Self-Titled Live Album
Grateful Dead have revealed their self-titled 1971 live album, also known as Skull & Roses to fans is getting a 50th anniversary reissue.
The set will be remastered and available as a 2CD set, with a remastered version of the original’s 11 tracks, which have been remastered from the stereo analog master tapes by Grammy Award winning engineer David Glasser using Plangent Process Speed Correction. The set also includes a bonus disc with 10 previously unreleased live tracks that were recorded on 2 July 1971 at the Fillmore West, which was the band’s final performance at the historic San Francisco venue. The music will also be available in both standard and high-resolution 192/24 audio at digital download and streaming services.
It will also come as a 2LP set on 180g black vinyl, as well as a limited edition 180g black-and-white propeller vinyl available exclusively from the band’s website and in a run of 5,000 copies worldwide.
Grateful Dead earned the band’s first-ever gold record in 1971 with its self-titled live album. Known to many fans as “Skull & Roses” (a reference to the cover art by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse) the original double-LP included songs recorded in March and April 1971 in New York and, the band’s hometown, San Francisco. Grateful Dead celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a newly remastered and expanded version of the original.
After releasing the back-to-back classics Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty in 1970, the Dead were riding a hot streak when the group decided to hit the road in February 1971 to record its first live album since 1969’s Live/Dead. For the shows, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann were armed with a batch of new songs, including Bertha, Playing In The Band, and Wharf Rat, which would all appear on Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses). The original also mixed in classic covers (Not Fade Away and Mama Tried), a traditional (Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad), and an entire LP side dedicated to the epic jam vehicle, The Other One.
The second CD of this new anniversary set contains more than an hour of previously unreleased live recordings taken from the 2 July 1971 performance at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Standouts from new additions include a 17-minute version of Good Lovin’ that captures Pigpen fully in control of the packed Fillmore West audience; and the aching beauty of the band’s version of Merle Haggard’s Sing Me Back Home. The Other One makes another appearance on the bonus disc. Recorded a few months after the one on the original album, this version is every bit its equal.
You can here this new, previously unreleased version of The Other One below.
Grateful Dead is available to pre-order now at Dead.net