Steppin' Out with The Grateful Dead (England '72)

I just listened to disc 4, last night, and I was a bit disappointed with Sugar Magnolia, that Donna didn't get up to sing with Bob on the "Sunshine Daydream" section. I mean that soulful harmony she does was fantastic on "Europe '72" and in The Grateful Dead Movie. Oh well, at least they had a version of "Playing In The Band" with her on it.

But Seriously though, they really didn't use her that much, I mean here are the songs on Steppin' Out that she sings on...

Disc 1:
"The Greatest Story Ever Told"
"Playing In The Band"

Disc 2:
"Going Down The Road, Feelin' Bad"

Nothing On Disc 3 or Disc 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about vastly underused!!!!!!

 

i understand she can sing i just prefer pigpen singin over her


and with the little work she has done , how the heck did she get in the rock in roll hall of fame

 

Cause She was a member, no matter how you spin it... Although she did do a lot more for the band from '73 to '78, but I really don't like the live material after '76, primarily cause the playing and singing was never as good a calibur as the early days. Plus their sound was really losing it's luster from a lot of different things.

I know this really pisses off a lot of Deadheads, but I really can't stand that fat snare drum sound that Hart and Kruetzmann adopted after The Dead got off of their mid-70's "retirement". Although there are a lot of bands that kinda adopted that sound in the late 70's/early 80's, with fat reverberated drums, guitar chorused to the max, the exchange of bass guitars to bass synthesizers, and loads of polyphonic synthesizers taking the place of acoustic and electric piano, organ, and mellotons.

I know the Dead never really completely adopted that sound, they got pretty close, with the drum sounds, and Jerry Garcia requiring more and more technical advances on his custom guitars so he could channel in MIDI FX, and MIDI sounds (who really wants to make their guitar sound like a trumpet, anyway?).

I'm sure a lot of people who are into music from the 60's and 70's agree with me, but I know that there probably a lot of 80's fans too, but nothing against you guys, it's just my musical taste.

 

yea thats a great album, that tour was insane. that two souls in communion always gets me. The pigpen tracks were really great.