Their early stuff is just delicious. I can't get enough of 'Birth of the Dead' and everything else they did in that specific style. Don't get me wrong I love and appreciate most of their music, but that raw energetic keyboard-driven psychedelic blues genre they embodied in the mid sixties to me outdid all their later shit.
this makes you a Pig-head. My sweetie is a Brent-head. I'm fond of the Keith years, but I can't say that the keys ever drove it for me.
yeah im thinking to be more specific you liked them better when they had pigpen...check out their stuff they put out under "The Warlocks" before they changed their name to "The Grateful Dead"
If the Warlocks have an album I can purchase that is at the top of my list for music I must have. Thanks! It really is the keyboard, and the way the other musicians and Jerry's vocals compliment it so well.
good on ya....i am a keith years man...not specifically because of the keys....but just because everybody was at the top of there game...i am a little put off by the pig-pen years because the mix is so dominated by the organ and it just puts me off. they seemed to have a more gelled sound by 72....
Yeah I get you, it's all about personal preference. I love a good organ, especially in psychedelic music, more especially when the blues is involved, and MOST especially when Jerry Garcia is involved. Yay blues! Yay Jerry! It just seemed to me that after say 72 they drifted further and further away from their blues roots until they were basically irrelevant, like most groups of the time (that had their roots in the blues) did. Oh well, life goes on, and they still made great music all throughout the years even if it wasn't hardcore San Francisco blues, haha. I consider 'Ripple' a lyrical masterpiece.
I just discovered the dead last year. So far I love everything i've heard from em. Listen to their greatest hits album I have about 3-4 times a week. My favourite song would have to be St. Stephen.
you might also like one of the bonus tracks on Shakedown Street its Goodlovin' featuring Lowell George of Little Feat
yep it is lol. I listened to a few more Dead songs a few days back like Slipknot and Big River. Damn I'm lovin this band more an' more man.
I also discovered the dead recently. My fave song so far is Fire On The Mountain, and I also really like Touch of Gray.
go to archive.org and download/stream some of their shows from 66... phuckin phenomenal the 'rare cuts and oddities' album is awesome too
I love this shit as well. Pigs vocals are amazing in king-bee. I also like early morning rain a lot. But I definitely more of a "brent-head", love anything that brent plays in or sings on.
lol the more you guys keep on listening the more you'll like 'em then one day you will be obsessed with them and know how it feels to be a dead head