Scarlet Begonias contains my favorite Grateful Dead lyric. Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right. Genius!!!!!!
A couple of comments from a long time Deadhead: 1) you are doing a great job of picking up the subtleties of this genre! David Crosby once compared the Grateful Dead to an electric Dixieland jazz band - they have four lead instruments, and they are each playing a melody line. For that reason, it really helps to train your ears to hear each instrument in this group individually. They are each saying something slightly different, and the magic is in the interaction. 2) The Grateful Dead's version of psychedelic rock is a lot like more like jazz than rock, at least when they are fully on their game. 3) Lastly, it is important to remember the Dead NEVER stopped being psychedelic, and they were always more interested in the musical journey than just rocking out. (and like watching a 3D movie without the special glasses, this music makes a lot more sense and assumes its full dimension on mind altering substances.)The deepest end of the Dead's musical pool is their psychedelic classic "Dark Star". I highly, highly recommend the version from their 1969 live album, Live/Dead - it may be the best thing they ever put on record, and it is the essence of why they matter to so many of us. Dark Star was this band's signature song, and it was played as a never-the same-twice journey, not as a song. If you read this far, I hope the above was helpful. Cheers!
Nice comments! Several of us have suggested the 2-18-71 dark star > wharf rat > dark star. The live dead version is tasty as well. I think he is definitely ready for the star.
do the dead actually have a sig. song? Not sure. Each song represents a side of the Dead to which there were many. Dark Star was a special song but I wouldnt say more than Truckin, Uncle J B, Sugar Magnolia, China Cat etc.
@@rhlang11 I'm not looking for an argument, but I'm far from the only person who feels that yes, Dark Star is the Dead's most important musical piece and a large part of why they "matter" in the larger sense. The Dead played a lot of songs, but Dark Star stand alone: it is not just a song, it is a journey, advancing from the known into the unknown, through the lion's den, across the Fire Swamp, over the rainbow, and then back out again. It took them a while to figure out what they had in that song, but once they did, they understood the assignment: Dark Star was their musical gut-check, their way of showing the world what they were *really* packing. They did not figure this out immediately, and the song didn't do much for the first few years of its existence. The first time the song takes genuine flight is at the Fillmore West on 2/27/69, the version on Live/Dead. There are hints of them figuring it out at their Vallejo gig a week earlier (2/22/69), but they discovered what the song could so on 2/27/69 and fully embraced it. If you want someone else's opinion on this, here are five random, medium-to-long essays discussing the evolution of Dark Star, the subtleties between different versions, and Dark Star's place and importance in the Grateful Dead's musical cosmology: deadessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/dark-star-1968-1989-guest-post.html ; americansongwriter.com/dark-star-by-the-grateful-dead/ ; artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ds.html ; 500songs.com/podcast/episode-165-dark-star-by-the-grateful-dead/ ; jsegel.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/listening-to-the-first-100-dark-stars/ I don't think you will find any similar essays for Uncle John's Band or Sugar Magnolia.
Dude, you talked over the best guitar parts of the song. Give it another listen, especially Garcia in the transition between the two songs. It's amazing!!!!!!
Yeah - I talk when I'm trying to figure something out - this was also recorded last fall, I think, very early in my Dead journey, so I didn't know what I didn't know.
that she lost for years until someone bought an abandoned storage unit in Marin Co one day and released as a box set in 2017, Get Shown The Light. She left the band after her & Brent Mydland broke up, and she figured staying would be weird.
They didnt use setlists. The key for the second song is B mixolydian (B, A, E, major chords, same as E major but with B as tonal center), but with no E chord (so just B and A), which is actually the same as the as the first song, thought they do use the E chord in that one. The pedal in Fire is a Mutron envelope filter, basically an autowah pedal. These two songs were usually played together. This version is one of the best performances they did. This whole show is widely considered one of their best. Not just because the perfomance is awesome, but also because at the time, this recording (a "Betty board", recorded by sound engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson, off of the mixing board) was one of the best quality "bootleg" show recordings available.
The high harmonies during this period, mostly the 1970's, was provided by Ms. Donna Jean Godcheaux, who joined up with her husband Keith, who played Piano and Keyboards during this time. She had previously worked at Muscle Shoals Recording Studios in Alabama, and had also recorded with Elvis Presley, and many others. The Keyboard was the "hot seat" for The Dead, like the Drummer in Spinal Tap. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Tom Constanten, Keith Godcheaux, Brent Mydland, Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby all played live with the boys over their 30 years on stage. The Wall Of Sound PA system only really existed during 1974, it became too costly to transport, but it's impact on the music was undeniable.
Phil Lesh's swooping Bass line is a signature feature of this particular version of "Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain", which is almost unheard from your speakers I have to say. That was both Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia doing crowd control at the beginning. Your system needs MORE BASS please, it is key to the music of the Grateful Dead. I have this show in my car's CD player right now, yes my car STILL has a CD player. Jerry has a VERY distinctive Guitar tone, from his custom guitars, which were made by Luthier Doug Irwin. I believe this is the "Wolf" guitar, but after 1979, I believe, Jerry played my particular favorite the "Tiger" guitar. It was called that due to the cover art of a Tiger on the access cover. Towards the end, the early 90's, he acquired another guitar from Mr. Irwin, dubbed "Rosie", again for the art work. All custom guitars all the time for Mr. Garcia, thank you very much. Check out some video from this period.
I know it as Rosebud. Rosie certainly works. And couldn't agree more with the lack of bass he has going on. Mildly surprised he didn't realize it. Oddly enough, just as I posted this he commented on the bass and that it does come through to him although we may not hear it
Jerry played this show on his Travis Bean guitar, it had an aluminum neck. This one was not a custom guitar made by Irwin (Peanut I think, Eagle, Wolf, Tiger, Rosebud) or Cripe (LIghtning Bolt, Tophat).
(Super) Thanks for taking the time to actually listen to the Dead's music! I said this below, but I wanted to format it better, and I'm wordy enough that I might as well say thanks with a little cash for your time. A few thoughts from a long-time Deadhead to try to speed you along on this quest: 1) you are doing a great job of picking up the subtleties of this genre! David Crosby once compared the Grateful Dead to an electric Dixieland jazz band - they have four lead instruments, and each improvises a separate melody line. For that reason, it really helps to train your ears to hear each instrument in this group individually. They are each saying something different, and the magic is in their interaction. 2) The Grateful Dead's version of psychedelic rock is a lot like more like jazz than rock, at least when they are fully on their game. These guys were musicians, and they had chops. 3) The Grateful Dead NEVER (!) stopped being psychedelic, and they were always more interested in the musical journey than just rocking out. The Grateful Dead's logo is a skull being zapped by a lightening bolt, and that's also their mission statement. Their music is transportive - it takes your mind places, and some of those places are delightfully weird. This music makes a lot more sense and assumes its full dimension when listened to on mind altering substances, especially psychedelics. You don't have to be high to appreciate this music, but many people who appreciate this band's music are especially keen on this aspect of it, as the Dead were the OG masters of taking people on a musical trip. 4) Lastly, the deepest end of the Grateful Dead's musical pool is their heavily improvised psychedelic classic, "Dark Star". I highly, *highly* recommend listening to this song soon, as it is the beating heart of this band's extensive songbook. There are many great versions, each gloriously different, but for a first listen I emphatically recommend listening the version that opens their 1969 live album, Live/Dead - imho it may be the single best thing they ever put on record, and it is the essence of why they matter so much to so many of us. Dark Star was this band's signature song, and it was played as if everyone in the room was going on a musical journey to the unknown together, band and audience alike. The version that appears on Live/Dead is an especially lyrical version that is both very approachable (for this song) and yet will 100% take you to the most distant of galaxies if you let it. This is the touchstone version. Thank you for taking the time to read that, I hope it was helpful. Cheers!!
I wanted to take the time to thank you for listening and for your support of this channel! The money is great, but I’m also grateful for your suggestions and for your willingness to engage with and educate me on something I know very little about.
@mirrormusic99 Hopefully I'm not being too pedantic, but honestly, it's a joy to see someone unfamiliar with the Grateful Dead take the time to close their eyes and listen carefully to this music. Not everyone who listens to this music really hears it. When these guys were on their game, they were improvisational wizards: they didn't just play a bunch of notes, they told complicated musical stories that they were making up in front of us in real time, almost like magic tricks. Some of us think this music has tremendous depth to it - and a good dose of clever, too - but the good stuff does not reveal itself immediately. You do have to teach your brain to hear each instrument individually, and then assemble those multiple melody lines into a coherent form. Then pay attention to that form as it mutates and changes, and see where it takes you. Not everyone wants to put that much effort into listening to music, or ask their music to take them for a walk around the woods, but for those that do, this music can be very transportive. As Micket Hart, one of their drummers put it, "We're not in the music business, we're in the transportation business. We move minds." Cheers!
@@uglitchymcglitchfacevideoc1640 Are you a writer? I ask because what you have written in the comment section is fantastic and will make anyone not that familiar with the Dead want to get familiar with them. Dark Star is being taught right now in music colleges around the world. I was 14 when I first heard it and it was life changing. At my first opportunity I moved to the Bay Area to be near to the scene I so much wanted to be part of. I'm 70 now, saw almost every show on the west coast from 1968 - 1995, got to know the band and crew, especially Mickey who is my neighbor, and I'm still on the bus. I haven't seen any of the post-Dead bands, including Dead & Company, because I get too emotional about Jerry and can't really enjoy it. To me, they're a great cover band. Kind of like taking a shower with your clothes on. BTW, Dark Star was written in Rio Nido, California, about ten minutes from my home. It's been quite the journey from when I was 14. Thanks for your beautiful words.
So many fast guitarists have only that one (fast) speed. One of the things I've noticed that separates Jerry from many of the others is that he has access to lots of different speeds, which tend to unlock multiple dimensions. Do you have any memories of that show? Must have been amazing.
@3:57 They handled setlists rather informally. The one "rule" is that the main songwriters would take turns... Garcia tune / Weir tune / Garcia tune/ etc. Beyond that it was a conversation between musicians as to what got played that night. You have a great ear, so eventually you'll start to hear how one musician will play a couple notes to suggest something, then maybe they are joined by other players, or the bassist decides to veto the whole thing and chaos ensues.
That riff at the end that surprised you was actually the main riff of Scarlet Begonias being reprised. In a sense, FotM was contained _within_ SB! They liked nesting songs as well as chaining them. They had one song, Sugar Magnolia, that they'd often use to start a set, but sometimes wouldn't play the final verse till the end of the set!
The Mu-Tron III Envelope Filter is Jerry Garcia's signature guitar effect - it allowed him to get very sax-like voices from his guitars. From a tone stand-point, Jerry was very much a Fender Twin Reverb guy. His favorite guitar tone was clean-verging-on-shrill, and it allowed him to be heard very clearly in the mix. It's also very exposed, so you can hear everything, good and bad. He was an incredibly expressive player, once you learn how to listen to him.
From the 60s through the early 90s the dead were known to not use setlists before shows. They had an idea what songs would be played, but no distinct direction for an entire performance. When Vince Welnick joined, replacing Brent Mydland on keyboards, Bruce Hornsby joined to give Vince time to be acclimated to the Dead. During that time they did more similar shows to work on Vince's styles. At this time, however, in the 70s, Keith Godchaw held down the keys. His wife, Donna Jean did the vocals with the main singers. When you have a chance, check out songs from the 60s into early 70s when Ron Pigpen McKernan worked the ivories and sang lead for the Dead. As Ron ended Jerry and Bobby became more the lead singers of the group.
Grateful Dead line up in 1977. Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia-Lead Guitar and Vocals, Bob Weir-Rhythm Guitar and Vocals, Keith Godcheaux-Piano and Keyboards, Donna Jean Godcheaux-Vocals, Phil Lesh-Bass and Vocals, Bill Kreutzman-Drums and Mickey Hart-Percussion.
Thanks for covering some live Dead. Maybe try “The Eleven” from their live album Two From the Vault, it’s from 1968 and has a very lively psychedelic drive. Thanks.
One of the best (*subjectively speaking of course*) interludes & interpolations of any dead jam would have to be Dark Star > Wharf Rat > Dark Star - 1971-02-18 with the Beautiful Jam, this is a MUST check out!!! also the very first time they played Whart Rat live!!!
That is Phil droppin Phil bombs from the Phil zone on bass and he is still playin at 83 with Phil and Friends as Bobby Weir is playng with Wolf Brothers at 73
That was Bobby talking in the beginning, and Jerry chimed in when you asked who was speaking. They rarely, like hardly ever, say more than a couple words at any time on stage. They just walk on, plug in, tune up, and rip. Bobby often closes set one with a "we'll be back in just a little bit" or some such and maybe a goodnight at the end... "She wore scarlet begonias, tucked into her curls"...
This Cornell Show was one of the Lost Betty Boards. It was lost in a storage unit in Marin Co for year and years. I was introduced to it as The Concert That Never Happened because of its absence from The Vault.
Jerry played a few custom made guitars. There was a lot of versatility built into them. The Dead were at the forefront of technological innovation in a number of ways, and were always looking to explore new sounds. One example of electronic trickery was that Phil Lesh's bass had the ability to send the inputs from each string to a different bank of amplifiers so that his notes would be jumping out from different parts of the stage. That's why recordings never capture the magic of actually being there. Jerry, BTW, was an acoustic player at heart, so he did a lot of finger picking on the electric, though he could shred if he wanted to. The man was also an accomplished banjo player (see the bluegrass group "Old and in the Way") and he played the pedal steel on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's iconic "Teach Your Children". He had only been playing that instrument for a few weeks when they asked him to contribute to the recording. He said sure, then just killed it. His pedal steel contribution makes the song IMO.
I listen to tons of GD reviews and yours are some of my favorite as you grasp it so well philosophically, emotionally and musically but yet you don’t talk over my head as I’m a layman technically speaking. Thx for the reviews. There’s soooo much more for you to explore. I look forward to more.
The guitar Garcia is playing at this time was a Travis Bean. The Wall of Sound was no more by this time. Garcia sounds like Garcia no matter what guitar he's playing. His tone with the Travis Bean is one of my favorites
hey its me again! love to go back to reactions that i liked. the “wah” sounding pedal is actually an envelope filter, it functions like a wah but the frequency depends on how loud you play the notes! also called an auto-wah since it does the wah for you :)
the signature jerry tone comes from his use of the middle guitar pickup (usually not commonly used). most guitarists use the bridge or neck pickup, but i think the middle pickup gives a very underrated, sweet tone. another aspect of his tone is the use of an on-board guitar fx loop but thats a huge monster to explain😅
They did not use set lists and the singing was shared amongst the band. That was part of what made each event so unique. In the earlier years they did talk more with the audience however as the audiences got larger they didn't talk as much.
Ok, I think you are doing just fine trying to explain the “connection.” Frankly, you nailed it when you mentioned you couldn’t stay still in your seat … There it is … Have fun!! ❤
The tone of the Dead is simply this, the rest of music hit things to make more noise and control the more noise Owlsley took away the noise he left the note He removed the distortion , The band agreed to play on his home made gear , Which became the wall of sound Bear paid for it all
Yeah - there's a remarkable lack of distortion for that many people on stage -- when you compare especially to a band like Zeppelin, which had a lot more distorted sound (comparatively)
Wall of sound stopped being used in 1974. Jerry’s guitar is custom built. He had 2 main custom guitars. I believe he is playing “wolf” here. “Tiger” was used exclusively from 79 on.
There are certainly hundreds, much more likely thousands of concert recordings of the Dead. Early on they allowed serious recorders to plug into their soundboard and great shows are traded like fine wine or jewelry among the Dead Heads (deadicated fans;) Unlike the vast majority of bands of the time they made their living from live shows and only occasionally recorded in studio. Probably the first iteration of the "open source" concept. No hoarding of music for them, the more people listened to their shows the more they wanted to go to one; "There is nothing like a Dead show".
16:19 by the time you recognize they've gone into the next song, they've actually been there since 11:32 Phil Lesh gives it away with a couple of notes. That fast playing is the Fire. Re: preconceptions of the Dead being "slow" this is the highlight of a Show for The Spinners out in the hallways looking like Sufi Masters. New Riders of the Purple Sage might be slower...
classic version for sure. I personally think there are much better Scarlet Begonias but it’s hard for me to declare any better Fire. Anyway they are all different. They change the tempo. The leads (whether bass or guitar or piano) are always unique to the version. The transitions are always completely improvised so always different. And that is the allure.
its not much however it is the very first tip I've ever given a creator (cuz it was fun watching you listen to the music play) Also that Cornell 77 Show was my very first bootleg tape. @@mirrormusic99
Jerry was using a mutron envelope filter and a mutron octave divider. Earlier in playing in the band he used a way pedal. During this show he was using a Travis Bean guitar not custom. Custom guitars he played were Aligator am modded Strat, wolf, tiger, rosebud, lightning bolt or dead bolt. But no matter which he played he just sounded like Jerry.
32:20 ROFL 33:34 this became an issue with seating being in the way, and some venues locking chairs together so they couldn't be folded & set aside 34:17 The Dancing Bear refers to Stanley "Bear" Owsley, the band's chemist & audio engineer. HE built the Wall of Sound. HE made the acid for the Test Parties with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, on a bus named FURTHER. With Cowboy Neil Cassidy (of the Beatniks era) at the wheel going to Never Ever Land
You'll have to react to Billy Strings live last year. just type in meet me at the creek Winston-Salem It's like 38 minutes long Watch the video version He and his band have what the Dead had
These aren't live albums per se. These are actual concert recordings from the soundboard released many years after the actual concert. It's the whole concert and that's why you get talking.
The interpolations, like this one, tended to be in the same Key with the difference being modal. This one being major to mixolydian but all in E so it makes the transitions much easier to blend. Jerry was a huge fan of the mixolydian mode.
Thanks for the music theory behind all this! Was Jerry a musical theorist? Like, would he have said “we’re going major to mixolydian”- or was he just a “play what I feel” dude?
He actually tended to avoid aeolian and preferred mixolydian and dorian as others have mentioned- when he really departs and goes full jazz he'll go to lydian and lydian flat-7 as well
in terms of his tone in addition to the octave divider and mutron the majority of his tone simply came from his amplifier rig, a mcintosh power amp into a 2x12 JBL D120 speaker cabinet. This combo in particular gives the very sparkly high end and overdriven sound when volume is turned up to the edge of breakup, and it is pretty difficult to copy him believably without this setup. The rest is all in the picking technique and volume/tone knob pretty much!
“…So there’s this youtube reactor in a closet, an’ he…” Not a problem! And good comments. BUT instead of providing us the direct music feed, you make us hear lousy speakers played through a cheap mic in the closet! Cone on, fix your audio, it’s not rocket science! Hint! Mix the real music with your open but slightly attenuated mic, and DO NOT listen through speakers: wear closed-back headphones! UNLESS you turn off your mic and pause the music when you talk. Either way, _always_ print the _direct music feed_ to your reaction channels. Sorry for shouting. Take care! 😃
“Is this a dancing song?”
The thing about a Dead show is they’re ALL dancing songs.
Scarlet Begonias contains my favorite Grateful Dead lyric. Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right. Genius!!!!!!
The sky was yellow and the sun was blue.
The standout portion for me is the guitar playing during the transition between the two songs. Garcia is on fire.
A couple of comments from a long time Deadhead: 1) you are doing a great job of picking up the subtleties of this genre! David Crosby once compared the Grateful Dead to an electric Dixieland jazz band - they have four lead instruments, and they are each playing a melody line. For that reason, it really helps to train your ears to hear each instrument in this group individually. They are each saying something slightly different, and the magic is in the interaction. 2) The Grateful Dead's version of psychedelic rock is a lot like more like jazz than rock, at least when they are fully on their game. 3) Lastly, it is important to remember the Dead NEVER stopped being psychedelic, and they were always more interested in the musical journey than just rocking out. (and like watching a 3D movie without the special glasses, this music makes a lot more sense and assumes its full dimension on mind altering substances.)The deepest end of the Dead's musical pool is their psychedelic classic "Dark Star". I highly, highly recommend the version from their 1969 live album, Live/Dead - it may be the best thing they ever put on record, and it is the essence of why they matter to so many of us. Dark Star was this band's signature song, and it was played as a never-the same-twice journey, not as a song. If you read this far, I hope the above was helpful. Cheers!
Nice comments! Several of us have suggested the 2-18-71 dark star > wharf rat > dark star. The live dead version is tasty as well. I think he is definitely ready for the star.
Appreciate it! I thought I replied to this long ago.
Wow, did you write for The Rolling Stone? If not you should have. Very good synopsis of the band. 👍✌️😊
do the dead actually have a sig. song? Not sure. Each song represents a side of the Dead to which there were many. Dark Star was a special song but I wouldnt say more than Truckin, Uncle J B, Sugar Magnolia, China Cat etc.
@@rhlang11 I'm not looking for an argument, but I'm far from the only person who feels that yes, Dark Star is the Dead's most important musical piece and a large part of why they "matter" in the larger sense. The Dead played a lot of songs, but Dark Star stand alone: it is not just a song, it is a journey, advancing from the known into the unknown, through the lion's den, across the Fire Swamp, over the rainbow, and then back out again. It took them a while to figure out what they had in that song, but once they did, they understood the assignment: Dark Star was their musical gut-check, their way of showing the world what they were *really* packing. They did not figure this out immediately, and the song didn't do much for the first few years of its existence. The first time the song takes genuine flight is at the Fillmore West on 2/27/69, the version on Live/Dead. There are hints of them figuring it out at their Vallejo gig a week earlier (2/22/69), but they discovered what the song could so on 2/27/69 and fully embraced it. If you want someone else's opinion on this, here are five random, medium-to-long essays discussing the evolution of Dark Star, the subtleties between different versions, and Dark Star's place and importance in the Grateful Dead's musical cosmology: deadessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/dark-star-1968-1989-guest-post.html ; americansongwriter.com/dark-star-by-the-grateful-dead/ ; artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ds.html ; 500songs.com/podcast/episode-165-dark-star-by-the-grateful-dead/ ; jsegel.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/listening-to-the-first-100-dark-stars/ I don't think you will find any similar essays for Uncle John's Band or Sugar Magnolia.
One of best live shows ever captured on such great quality by any band
Dude, you talked over the best guitar parts of the song. Give it another listen, especially Garcia in the transition between the two songs. It's amazing!!!!!!
Yeah - I talk when I'm trying to figure something out - this was also recorded last fall, I think, very early in my Dead journey, so I didn't know what I didn't know.
Scarlet/Fire is an old favorite of everyone. Great for dancing, release. And the band liked it - they left a lot of great, fun songs along the wayside
It def has a dancing vibe
Do not overlook the sound quality of this live recording by engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson.
that she lost for years until someone bought an abandoned storage unit in Marin Co one day and released as a box set in 2017, Get Shown The Light. She left the band after her & Brent Mydland broke up, and she figured staying would be weird.
One of the unsung heroes of the dead-verse
9:13 HERE. This is what the Grateful Dead do. Take you with them.
If you want to hear a seamless transition check out China Cat Sunflower/ I Know You Rider from the Europe 72. It's an amazing piece of music.
They didnt use setlists. The key for the second song is B mixolydian (B, A, E, major chords, same as E major but with B as tonal center), but with no E chord (so just B and A), which is actually the same as the as the first song, thought they do use the E chord in that one. The pedal in Fire is a Mutron envelope filter, basically an autowah pedal. These two songs were usually played together. This version is one of the best performances they did. This whole show is widely considered one of their best. Not just because the perfomance is awesome, but also because at the time, this recording (a "Betty board", recorded by sound engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson, off of the mixing board) was one of the best quality "bootleg" show recordings available.
Love this. Thank you! I knew it was that kind of chord progression, I just didn’t want to get out the guitar during the video to figure it out!
The high harmonies during this period, mostly the 1970's, was provided by Ms. Donna Jean Godcheaux, who joined up with her husband Keith, who played Piano and Keyboards during this time. She had previously worked at Muscle Shoals Recording Studios in Alabama, and had also recorded with Elvis Presley, and many others. The Keyboard was the "hot seat" for The Dead, like the Drummer in Spinal Tap. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Tom Constanten, Keith Godcheaux, Brent Mydland, Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby all played live with the boys over their 30 years on stage. The Wall Of Sound PA system only really existed during 1974, it became too costly to transport, but it's impact on the music was undeniable.
Phil Lesh's swooping Bass line is a signature feature of this particular version of "Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain", which is almost unheard from your speakers I have to say. That was both Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia doing crowd control at the beginning. Your system needs MORE BASS please, it is key to the music of the Grateful Dead. I have this show in my car's CD player right now, yes my car STILL has a CD player. Jerry has a VERY distinctive Guitar tone, from his custom guitars, which were made by Luthier Doug Irwin. I believe this is the "Wolf" guitar, but after 1979, I believe, Jerry played my particular favorite the "Tiger" guitar. It was called that due to the cover art of a Tiger on the access cover. Towards the end, the early 90's, he acquired another guitar from Mr. Irwin, dubbed "Rosie", again for the art work. All custom guitars all the time for Mr. Garcia, thank you very much. Check out some video from this period.
I know it as Rosebud. Rosie certainly works. And couldn't agree more with the lack of bass he has going on. Mildly surprised he didn't realize it. Oddly enough, just as I posted this he commented on the bass and that it does come through to him although we may not hear it
Jerry played this show on his Travis Bean guitar, it had an aluminum neck. This one was not a custom guitar made by Irwin (Peanut I think, Eagle, Wolf, Tiger, Rosebud) or Cripe (LIghtning Bolt, Tophat).
I never thought there would be such debate about a particular guitar!
(Super) Thanks for taking the time to actually listen to the Dead's music! I said this below, but I wanted to format it better, and I'm wordy enough that I might as well say thanks with a little cash for your time. A few thoughts from a long-time Deadhead to try to speed you along on this quest:
1) you are doing a great job of picking up the subtleties of this genre! David Crosby once compared the Grateful Dead to an electric Dixieland jazz band - they have four lead instruments, and each improvises a separate melody line. For that reason, it really helps to train your ears to hear each instrument in this group individually. They are each saying something different, and the magic is in their interaction.
2) The Grateful Dead's version of psychedelic rock is a lot like more like jazz than rock, at least when they are fully on their game. These guys were musicians, and they had chops.
3) The Grateful Dead NEVER (!) stopped being psychedelic, and they were always more interested in the musical journey than just rocking out. The Grateful Dead's logo is a skull being zapped by a lightening bolt, and that's also their mission statement. Their music is transportive - it takes your mind places, and some of those places are delightfully weird. This music makes a lot more sense and assumes its full dimension when listened to on mind altering substances, especially psychedelics. You don't have to be high to appreciate this music, but many people who appreciate this band's music are especially keen on this aspect of it, as the Dead were the OG masters of taking people on a musical trip.
4) Lastly, the deepest end of the Grateful Dead's musical pool is their heavily improvised psychedelic classic, "Dark Star". I highly, *highly* recommend listening to this song soon, as it is the beating heart of this band's extensive songbook. There are many great versions, each gloriously different, but for a first listen I emphatically recommend listening the version that opens their 1969 live album, Live/Dead - imho it may be the single best thing they ever put on record, and it is the essence of why they matter so much to so many of us. Dark Star was this band's signature song, and it was played as if everyone in the room was going on a musical journey to the unknown together, band and audience alike. The version that appears on Live/Dead is an especially lyrical version that is both very approachable (for this song) and yet will 100% take you to the most distant of galaxies if you let it. This is the touchstone version.
Thank you for taking the time to read that, I hope it was helpful. Cheers!!
I wanted to take the time to thank you for listening and for your support of this channel! The money is great, but I’m also grateful for your suggestions and for your willingness to engage with and educate me on something I know very little about.
You definitely have the ear for this fantastic journey you are on. Absolutely try a dark star (Live Dead or the 2/18/71 with Wharf Rat). Or both lol
@mirrormusic99 Hopefully I'm not being too pedantic, but honestly, it's a joy to see someone unfamiliar with the Grateful Dead take the time to close their eyes and listen carefully to this music. Not everyone who listens to this music really hears it. When these guys were on their game, they were improvisational wizards: they didn't just play a bunch of notes, they told complicated musical stories that they were making up in front of us in real time, almost like magic tricks. Some of us think this music has tremendous depth to it - and a good dose of clever, too - but the good stuff does not reveal itself immediately. You do have to teach your brain to hear each instrument individually, and then assemble those multiple melody lines into a coherent form. Then pay attention to that form as it mutates and changes, and see where it takes you. Not everyone wants to put that much effort into listening to music, or ask their music to take them for a walk around the woods, but for those that do, this music can be very transportive. As Micket Hart, one of their drummers put it, "We're not in the music business, we're in the transportation business. We move minds."
Cheers!
@@mirrormusic99 just make sure you improve the bass on your system before visiting Dark Star.
@@uglitchymcglitchfacevideoc1640 Are you a writer? I ask because what you have written in the comment section is fantastic and will make anyone not that familiar with the Dead want to get familiar with them. Dark Star is being taught right now in music colleges around the world. I was 14 when I first heard it and it was life changing. At my first opportunity I moved to the Bay Area to be near to the scene I so much wanted to be part of. I'm 70 now, saw almost every show on the west coast from 1968 - 1995, got to know the band and crew, especially Mickey who is my neighbor, and I'm still on the bus. I haven't seen any of the post-Dead bands, including Dead & Company, because I get too emotional about Jerry and can't really enjoy it. To me, they're a great cover band. Kind of like taking a shower with your clothes on. BTW, Dark Star was written in Rio Nido, California, about ten minutes from my home. It's been quite the journey from when I was 14. Thanks for your beautiful words.
Jerry is incredibly fast but most people only consider shredders when they consider fast guitarists. Btw I was at this show.
So many fast guitarists have only that one (fast) speed. One of the things I've noticed that separates Jerry from many of the others is that he has access to lots of different speeds, which tend to unlock multiple dimensions.
Do you have any memories of that show? Must have been amazing.
Very astute observations! The more you pay attention, the more you get sucked in...
@3:57 They handled setlists rather informally. The one "rule" is that the main songwriters would take turns... Garcia tune / Weir tune / Garcia tune/ etc. Beyond that it was a conversation between musicians as to what got played that night. You have a great ear, so eventually you'll start to hear how one musician will play a couple notes to suggest something, then maybe they are joined by other players, or the bassist decides to veto the whole thing and chaos ensues.
I’ve heard a few moments of chaos like that, but it’s never for long.
That riff at the end that surprised you was actually the main riff of Scarlet Begonias being reprised. In a sense, FotM was contained _within_ SB! They liked nesting songs as well as chaining them. They had one song, Sugar Magnolia, that they'd often use to start a set, but sometimes wouldn't play the final verse till the end of the set!
The wah sound is from Garcia's envelope filter, the Mutron III. It's his signature sound. Stevie Wonder used the same pedal on Superstition.
@27:36 Jerry is using a Mutron III envelope filter here.
In this show, you will hear it again during the Dancing in the Streets and Estimated Prophet.
The Mu-Tron III Envelope Filter is Jerry Garcia's signature guitar effect - it allowed him to get very sax-like voices from his guitars. From a tone stand-point, Jerry was very much a Fender Twin Reverb guy. His favorite guitar tone was clean-verging-on-shrill, and it allowed him to be heard very clearly in the mix. It's also very exposed, so you can hear everything, good and bad. He was an incredibly expressive player, once you learn how to listen to him.
From the 60s through the early 90s the dead were known to not use setlists before shows. They had an idea what songs would be played, but no distinct direction for an entire performance. When Vince Welnick joined, replacing Brent Mydland on keyboards, Bruce Hornsby joined to give Vince time to be acclimated to the Dead. During that time they did more similar shows to work on Vince's styles. At this time, however, in the 70s, Keith Godchaw held down the keys. His wife, Donna Jean did the vocals with the main singers. When you have a chance, check out songs from the 60s into early 70s when Ron Pigpen McKernan worked the ivories and sang lead for the Dead. As Ron ended Jerry and Bobby became more the lead singers of the group.
Thanks for the history lesson! And thanks for listening!
Garcia usually plays in the Mixolydian and Dorian modes. He is also the king of chromatic notes choices (outside playing).
Grateful Dead line up in 1977. Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia-Lead Guitar and Vocals, Bob Weir-Rhythm Guitar and Vocals, Keith Godcheaux-Piano and Keyboards, Donna Jean Godcheaux-Vocals, Phil Lesh-Bass and Vocals, Bill Kreutzman-Drums and Mickey Hart-Percussion.
23:15 this is why producer Billy Graham said "The Grateful Dead are not the best at what they do, they are the only ones that do what they do"
Is that the Zeppelin producer Bill Graham? Same guy?
Scarlett was never a miss and Fire was fire.
In addition to the Mutron III that Jerry used a ton, he's also using an Octave Divider pedal here
All kinds of funky stuff
Thanks for covering some live Dead. Maybe try “The Eleven” from their live album Two From the Vault, it’s from 1968 and has a very lively psychedelic drive. Thanks.
2/28/69
Sublime covered Scarlet
For real? Link?
Frequency and vibrations are played at a desired megahertz or of the like that lays down a soothing grove. Look that up
groovy
Check out "Help on the Way/Slipknot/Fire on the Mountain" from the live album "Without a Net" from 1990. It is a classic trio.
One of the best (*subjectively speaking of course*) interludes & interpolations of any dead jam would have to be Dark Star > Wharf Rat > Dark Star - 1971-02-18 with the Beautiful Jam, this is a MUST check out!!! also the very first time they played Whart Rat live!!!
Thanks for seconding my suggestion above. It’s really a gorgeous dark star.
ruclips.net/video/QmjQmyd9Oro/видео.htmlsi=r--XzjTx9zyWL2Ue
That is Phil droppin Phil bombs from the Phil zone on bass and he is still playin at 83 with Phil and Friends as Bobby Weir is playng with Wolf Brothers at 73
There’s no way he’s that age now! 😂
That was Bobby talking in the beginning, and Jerry chimed in when you asked who was speaking. They rarely, like hardly ever, say more than a couple words at any time on stage. They just walk on, plug in, tune up, and rip. Bobby often closes set one with a "we'll be back in just a little bit" or some such and maybe a goodnight at the end... "She wore scarlet begonias, tucked into her curls"...
Yeah, I never got the impression they were much for onstage crowd banter.
yes indeed you are going on a ride ......... Phil drives and Jerry steers !!!!!
I’m glad I got locked into those bass lines!
This Cornell Show was one of the Lost Betty Boards. It was lost in a storage unit in Marin Co for year and years. I was introduced to it as The Concert That Never Happened because of its absence from The Vault.
My wife actually lived in Marin Co. before she moved east with me!
Jerry played a few custom made guitars. There was a lot of versatility built into them. The Dead were at the forefront of technological innovation in a number of ways, and were always looking to explore new sounds. One example of electronic trickery was that Phil Lesh's bass had the ability to send the inputs from each string to a different bank of amplifiers so that his notes would be jumping out from different parts of the stage. That's why recordings never capture the magic of actually being there.
Jerry, BTW, was an acoustic player at heart, so he did a lot of finger picking on the electric, though he could shred if he wanted to. The man was also an accomplished banjo player (see the bluegrass group "Old and in the Way") and he played the pedal steel on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's iconic "Teach Your Children". He had only been playing that instrument for a few weeks when they asked him to contribute to the recording. He said sure, then just killed it. His pedal steel contribution makes the song IMO.
So much to learn. Thanks for being a willing teacher!
I am fascinated by the fact about Lesh’s bass. That sounds amazing
I listen to tons of GD reviews and yours are some of my favorite as you grasp it so well philosophically, emotionally and musically but yet you don’t talk over my head as I’m a layman technically speaking. Thx for the reviews. There’s soooo much more for you to explore. I look forward to more.
Wow, thank you!
The guitar Garcia is playing at this time was a Travis Bean. The Wall of Sound was no more by this time. Garcia sounds like Garcia no matter what guitar he's playing. His tone with the Travis Bean is one of my favorites
High harmonies are Donna Jean Godchaux, wife of keyboard player Keith.
hey its me again! love to go back to reactions that i liked. the “wah” sounding pedal is actually an envelope filter, it functions like a wah but the frequency depends on how loud you play the notes! also called an auto-wah since it does the wah for you :)
the signature jerry tone comes from his use of the middle guitar pickup (usually not commonly used). most guitarists use the bridge or neck pickup, but i think the middle pickup gives a very underrated, sweet tone. another aspect of his tone is the use of an on-board guitar fx loop but thats a huge monster to explain😅
Cool, thanks!
Both songs are in the key of E. Fire on the Mountain is basically B mixolydian to A, lydian with a hint of E major.
They did not use set lists and the singing was shared amongst the band. That was part of what made each event so unique. In the earlier years they did talk more with the audience however as the audiences got larger they didn't talk as much.
That would certainly allow for way more variation
Ok, I think you are doing just fine trying to explain the “connection.” Frankly, you nailed it when you mentioned you couldn’t stay still in your seat … There it is … Have fun!! ❤
Thanks! This is a lot of fun.
The tone of the Dead is simply this, the rest of music hit things to make more noise and control the more noise
Owlsley took away the noise he left the note
He removed the distortion ,
The band agreed to play on his home made gear , Which became the wall of sound
Bear paid for it all
Yeah - there's a remarkable lack of distortion for that many people on stage -- when you compare especially to a band like Zeppelin, which had a lot more distorted sound (comparatively)
Wall of sound stopped being used in 1974. Jerry’s guitar is custom built. He had 2 main custom guitars. I believe he is playing “wolf” here. “Tiger” was used exclusively from 79 on.
Tiger was replaced by Rosebud. Along with a number of occasions where he played Wolf from time to time
@@mikelind8607 yes, after 89.
@@mikelind8607 also, I’m amused at the thought of what this conversation sounds like to a non-deadhead.
@@thesecretjewishspacelaser9959 lol 😃
It’s educational!
There are certainly hundreds, much more likely thousands of concert recordings of the Dead. Early on they allowed serious recorders to plug into their soundboard and great shows are traded like fine wine or jewelry among the Dead Heads (deadicated fans;) Unlike the vast majority of bands of the time they made their living from live shows and only occasionally recorded in studio. Probably the first iteration of the "open source" concept. No hoarding of music for them, the more people listened to their shows the more they wanted to go to one; "There is nothing like a Dead show".
Is there a generally accepted place to go to find these?
16:19 by the time you recognize they've gone into the next song, they've actually been there since 11:32 Phil Lesh gives it away with a couple of notes. That fast playing is the Fire. Re: preconceptions of the Dead being "slow" this is the highlight of a Show for The Spinners out in the hallways looking like Sufi Masters. New Riders of the Purple Sage might be slower...
Exactly! It’s so subtle.
They practiced their asses off. Jerry demanded it. @@mirrormusic99
classic version for sure. I personally think there are much better Scarlet Begonias but it’s hard for me to declare any better Fire. Anyway they are all different. They change the tempo. The leads (whether bass or guitar or piano) are always unique to the version. The transitions are always completely improvised so always different. And that is the allure.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the additional education.
Thanks!
Appreciate you!
its not much however it is the very first tip I've ever given a creator (cuz it was fun watching you listen to the music play) Also that Cornell 77 Show was my very first bootleg tape. @@mirrormusic99
I didn’t see this reply! I’m honored, friend. Thank you for your generosity, and hope you keep listening!
Jerry was using a mutron envelope filter and a mutron octave divider. Earlier in playing in the band he used a way pedal. During this show he was using a Travis Bean guitar not custom. Custom guitars he played were Aligator am modded Strat, wolf, tiger, rosebud, lightning bolt or dead bolt. But no matter which he played he just sounded like Jerry.
32:20 ROFL 33:34 this became an issue with seating being in the way, and some venues locking chairs together so they couldn't be folded & set aside 34:17 The Dancing Bear refers to Stanley "Bear" Owsley, the band's chemist & audio engineer. HE built the Wall of Sound. HE made the acid for the Test Parties with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, on a bus named FURTHER. With Cowboy Neil Cassidy (of the Beatniks era) at the wheel going to Never Ever Land
I had forgotten they were in cahoots with Ken Kesey et. al. Thanks for the history lesson!
Shout out to Betty Cantor!
You'll have to react to Billy Strings live last year. just type in meet me at the creek Winston-Salem
It's like 38 minutes long
Watch the video version
He and his band have what the Dead had
Good job keep digging
Doing my best!
22:50 Jerry is doing to "guitar work" while Bob Weir is adding off-beat sparkles
They rarely spoke. Maybe a quick thank you at the end. Not that they never spoke. Just most concerts they didn't.
Yes, set list is made and changed and turned upside burnt retyped
It’s a beautiful thing
These aren't live albums per se. These are actual concert recordings from the soundboard released many years after the actual concert. It's the whole concert and that's why you get talking.
Cool. Thanks!
Jerry using a octivator
The interpolations, like this one, tended to be in the same Key with the difference being modal. This one being major to mixolydian but all in E so it makes the transitions much easier to blend. Jerry was a huge fan of the mixolydian mode.
Thanks for the music theory behind all this! Was Jerry a musical theorist? Like, would he have said “we’re going major to mixolydian”- or was he just a “play what I feel” dude?
Mutron + octave pedal....when you asked if it was wah and if 2 guitars
Crazy skills.
the Grateful Dead had two drummers, that's the difference,
He actually tended to avoid aeolian and preferred mixolydian and dorian as others have mentioned- when he really departs and goes full jazz he'll go to lydian and lydian flat-7 as well
in terms of his tone in addition to the octave divider and mutron the majority of his tone simply came from his amplifier rig, a mcintosh power amp into a 2x12 JBL D120 speaker cabinet. This combo in particular gives the very sparkly high end and overdriven sound when volume is turned up to the edge of breakup, and it is pretty difficult to copy him believably without this setup. The rest is all in the picking technique and volume/tone knob pretty much!
Thank you for this lesson! This is the good stuff!
try Lazy Lightening -> Supplication
I'll add it to the list!
Im curious who you you think is playing today in this sytle or is influenced by them?
The Alabama Shakes are the one that comes immediately to mind -- but there are also tons of indie-style guitar riffs that are noodling around lol
Hi fidelity sound is a must for this band
Yeah, working on upgrading. Slowly.
Correct. No set list.
Her curls
Of course it’s to guitar players all the time with GD
Thanks
The Grateful DeaD werent the best at what they did, they were the only ones who did what they did, the high parts are Donna
Bob weir and Jerry Garcia talking, NO, not a lot of speaking
“…So there’s this youtube reactor in a closet, an’ he…”
Not a problem! And good comments. BUT instead of providing us the direct music feed, you make us hear lousy speakers played through a cheap mic in the closet! Cone on, fix your audio, it’s not rocket science! Hint! Mix the real music with your open but slightly attenuated mic, and DO NOT listen through speakers: wear closed-back headphones! UNLESS you turn off your mic and pause the music when you talk. Either way, _always_ print the _direct music feed_ to your reaction channels. Sorry for shouting. Take care! 😃
We’ve evolved lol: The Grateful Dead - Help/Slip/Frank (Winterland 6/17/75) | First Listen Reaction
ruclips.net/video/klVioW0XvuE/видео.html
@@mirrormusic99 Glad to hear! Best of luck with your channel! 😃