This is one of the most personally important Grateful Dead curations I’ve assembled under the Save Your Face moniker. It presents Jerry Garcia knocking 16 of his classic songs out of the park, in a period known for his creakiness and errors.
This is a necessary demonstration, IMHO. It’s terrible that decades after Garcia’s death, no attempt has been made to put a respectful and powerful coda on his career, in the form of a curated, final-years, live Grateful Dead album.
I first encountered many of these performances during Save Your Face’s extensive post-Hornsby-era mixtape project some years ago. Gradually, “amazing versions” and “versions to beat” emerged, as I continued to relisten to those mixes.
To determine IF they could be beaten, I listened to every 1993-1995 soundboard recording of Garcia-sung songs, with a focus on those for which terrific lead vocals are the necessary starting point for a great performance. I confirmed many of my existing picks and found some new-to-me takes that I liked better.
I skipped over jammier songs like “Dark Star” and “Fire,” and avoided covers with the exception of “Morning Dew” and two Garcia-owned traditionals. Ultimately, it's a Hunter/Garcia joint.
Other Hunter/Garcia compositions are missing because no version checked all of my boxes:
- A soundboard mix in which Garcia’s vocals are very present
- Garcia in command of the lyrics
- Garcia singing with passion and nuance
- An exciting and involving collective performance, with memorable details
- Everyone properly represented in the SBD mix
- No intrusive “bad tones”
On the basis of these restrictive filters, I ended up with 16 performances that continue to thrill me after many, many listens.
The ever-generous Mr. Completely (Tyler) supplied me with the best source FLACs for all tracks, so these performances are as high fidelity as possible.
Are there little flaws here and there? Sure. Are these performances practically perfect in every way? Yes.
May you rest easy, Jerry Garcia.
***
Cover art: Al Hirschfeld
2 hours and 17 minutes
- Help on the Way > Slipknot! (edit) (3/22/93 Atlanta > 10/18/94 NYC)
- Jack-A-Roe (3/27/94 Uniondale, NY)
- Bertha (3/21/94 Richfield, OH)
- Black Peter (7/31/94 Auburn Hills, MI)
- Crazy Fingers > Playin’ Jam (3/24/93 Chapel Hill, NC)
- China Doll (6/18/93 Chicago, IL)
- The Wheel > (7/26/94 Maryland Heights, MO)
- Attics of My Life (7/26/94 Maryland Heights, MO)
- Wharf Rat (7/19/94 Noblesville, IN)
- Peggy-O (edit) (6/26/94 Las Vegas, NV)
- Stagger Lee (10/15/94 NYC, NY)
- Stella Blue (3/21/94 Richfield, OH)
- Terrapin Station (10/1/94 Boston, MA)
- Comes a Time (10/9/94 Landover, MD)
- Morning Dew (3/27/94 Uniondale, NY)
- Brokedown Palace (12/19/94 Los Angeles, CA)
Downloads
320kbps MP3s derived from lossless
Editing Notes
There are two edits (but no re-EQ anywhere):
- The “Slipknot” following this great “Help on the Way” didn’t cut it, so I appended a different performance, terminated by its “Franklin’s Tower” coda.
- “Peggy-O”: The band skipped a whole verse (seamlessly), which makes The Captain less of an asshole. This led to verse confusion after the instrumental break. However, the band re-approached and corrected their error. I’ve edited out the 30 seconds of confusion. And yes, a missing verse is a big “vocal error,” but it doesn’t interrupt anything; it just modifies the story.