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Grateful Dead: History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear's Choice)

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Warner Bros. Records
Released: 1973.07.06
Time:
 47:28
Category: Jam, Rock, Folk Rock
Producer(s): Owsley Stanley
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.dead.net
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Katie Mae" (Lightnin' Hopkins) - 4:44
[2] Dark Hollow" (Bill Browning) - 3:52
[3] I've Been All Around This World" (Traditional) - 4:18
[4] Wake Up Little Susie" (Felice and Boudleaux Bryant) - 2:31
[5] Black Peter" (Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter) - 7:27
[6] Smokestack Lightning" (Howlin' Wolf) - 17:59
[7] Hard to Handle" (Al Bell, Allen Jones, and Otis Redding) - 6:15
        Bonus Tracks
[8] Good Lovin'" (Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick) - 8:56
[9] Big Boss Man" (Al Smith, Luther Dixon) - 4:53
[10] Smokestack Lightning" (Howlin' Wolf) - 15:11
[11] Sitting on Top of the World" (Lonnie Chatmon, Walter Vinson) - 3:20

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jerry Garcia - Acoustic, Electric & Lead Guitar, Vocals
Mickey Hart - Drums, Percussion
Bill Kreutzmann - Drums, Percussion
Phil Lesh - Bass Guitar, Vocals
Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan - Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Bob Weir - Acoustic Rhythm & Electric Guitar, Vocals

Owsley Stanley - Producer, Compilation
James Austin - Production
David Lemieux - Production
Kevin Gray - Mastering
Joe Gastwirt - Mastering Consultancy, Pre-Mastering
Dave Collins - Pre-Mastering Assistant
Peter Mcquaid - Executive Production For Grateful Dead Productions

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1973 LP Warner Bros. Records - BS 2721
2001 CD Rhino Records - 8122-74401-2-J

Recorded in February 13–14, 1970.

Tracks 1 to 8 rec. Live Fillmore East, New York, NY 13-14/2/1970.
Tracks 9 to 11 rec. Live Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA 5 & 8/2/1970.
Tracks 1 to 7 first released as Warner Bros. LP BS-2721, 6/7/1973.
Tracks 8 to 11 previously unreleased.



I can't say too much for old Bear's taste, considering the wealth that must exist in the library of Dead concert tapes. But Volume One of The History of the Grateful Dead consists of selections from a pair of late 1970 dates in which the band was still making the transition from acidic filmstrip music to Merle Haggard style countrified truckinisms. Workingman's Dead had just come out and the band's live performances included tunes from every corner of the American pop songbook.

So Pigpen's rasping and thoroughly boozed rendition of the hoary idiot's lament, "Katie Mae," ain't much of a treat and reflects how oiled the cat was most of the time. "Dark Hollow" continues the side's acoustics with Lesh and Garcia on cracked harmonies. Not a whole lot happens. Pig takes the mike again for the agnostically numbing "I've Been Around This World," surpassed in boredom only by the following track, a lame, comically painful version of "Wake Up Little Suzy." I always got a little erotic hit when I thought of the social implications of the Everly Brothers' original, but Bob (Bobby Ace) Weir comes off a li'l smarmy in the Don Everly parts.

Garcia's "Black Peter," a beautiful tune in the best Workingman's spirit, ends the side on a suitably depressing note. If it was meant as a memorial to the Dead's perpetually crapulated organist, harp player and resident shaman, the side doesn't really make it. The Pig was at his height from '66 to '68, and there must be some funky tapes in the can to document it.

Side two is worth the price of the LP if you fancy longer deadly rambles. "Smokestack Lightning" is a 20-minute chugger that starts out real slow, like a locomotive, like the band on hot nights in 1970 when they were dropping in on various college gyms during the post-Kent State student strikes and playing benefits for whatever movements happened to be in the right place at the right time. Pigpen's on harp, Lesh's wolfian howls are cute in their California punyness and Garcia is forever noodling around for new ways out of his guitar vocabulary. The crazy old blues becomes truckin' music in this incarnation, complete with the typical hush-up trick of everyone slowing down and listening to long doodled one-note guitar thoughts, petering out to the eventual soporific standing ovation. At least it's electric.

But "Hard To Handle" is a classic in a terrific deadly way, one of the perfect exasperating hustling shuffles that the band began to excel in after most of the acid wore off. Garcia is at his best, the vocal cooks and the band is tight and quick. Not worth the whole four bills that Bear's Choice lists for, but it's a solid 89¢ worth, at least. Volume Two should be better.

Stephen Davis - September 27, 1973
© 2014 RollingStone.com



This 1973 release was the very last collection that the Grateful Dead authorized during their tenure with Warner Bros. in the late '60s and early '70s. However, this live disc was a sort of melancholy affair, as it centered on material featuring Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (guitar/vocals/mouth harp), who had left the band due to illness in June of the previous year. History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) is somewhat misleading, as a follow-up never came to pass. Band historians, however, claim that this release was optimistically titled because the label had hoped to issue a series of live recordings (à la Dick's Picks) containing highlights from a variety of vintage Dead performances. Alas, with the formation of the group's own label it was not to be. The single disc includes performances from a highly touted series of shows held over two nights (February 13-14, 1970) at the Fillmore East in New York City. While most assuredly not the finest example of the Dead's formidable acoustic sets, the platter opens with a quartet of cover tunes -- many of which had been entries in Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) and McKernan's folky jug band repertoire prior to ultimately forming the electric, psychedelic Grateful Dead. McKernan's playful cover of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Katie Mae" is a somewhat lightweight affair. He counterbalances ad-libbed lyrics with his own very sparse solo guitar picking, which is in perfect keeping with the lonesome nature of this blues. Garcia and Bob Weir (guitar/vocals) join in on the remaining "unplugged" tracks. Both the affective and noir "Dark Hollow" and "I've Been All Around This World" reveal the command of this highly under-utilized sub-division of the Dead. Clocking in at seven-plus minutes, the album's sole original composition, "Black Peter," is masterfully executed. It ultimately bests the original Workingman's Dead (1969) version in sheer emotive realization. The two electric offerings -- a cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'" and Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" -- are full-blown rave-ups allowing the entire band to weave their collective R&B-influenced psychedelia, unedited and in real time. Both tracks had become assertive vehicles for McKernan's no-nonsense R&B sensibilities. In 2001, History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) was included in the 12-disc Golden Road (1965-1973) box set. The remastered edition comes replete with a newly inked 16-page liner notes insert containing an essay from the "Bear" (aka Owsley Stanley) himself. The expanded track list yields four additional performances from the same cache of shows: the McKernan-led "Good Lovin'," "Big Boss Man," a second and equally scintillating version of "Smokestack Lightnin'," as well as an up-tempo "Sitting on Top of the World," the latter of which keeps the frenetic spirit of the reading from the Dead's self-titled debut firmly intact.

Lindsay Planer - All Music Guide



History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear's Choice) is the ninth album and the fourth live album by the Grateful Dead, released in July 1973 on Warner Bros. Records, catalogue BS 2721. It offers concert highlights from the band's performances of February 13 and 14, 1970 at the Fillmore East in New York City, and peaked at #60 on the Billboard 200. The album was compiled as a tribute of sorts to Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, the band's original keyboard player and blues aficionado, who died while it was being prepared. The "Bear" of the title is Owsley Stanley, underground chemist turned Dead sound man. The original album was recorded and produced by Stanley, and fans often simply refer to the album as Bear's Choice. Side one consists of acoustic performances by McKernan, Jerry Garcia, and Bob Weir on country blues material, with one original from Workingman's Dead and a cover of one 1950s rock and roll number by the Everly Brothers. The second side features performances by the entire band backing McKernan on two repertoire items, "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf, and "Hard to Handle" by Otis Redding. The album was originally intended to be a first in a series, but Volume Two never came to be as this was the band's last album on their record contract with Warner Bros. Records. Dick's Picks Volume 4 from the archive release series also chronicles these performances. The album was remastered for compact disc in 2001 as part of The Golden Road (1965-1973) box set, and later released separately in 2003. Four bonus tracks were taken from the same shows, as well as shows from a week earlier at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. In keeping with the tribute nature of the original record, three tracks feature lead vocals by McKernan.

Wikipedia.org



History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear's Choice) consists of selections from two magnificent moments in the band's history, February 13-14, 1970 at the Fillmore East in New York City at a time they were still making the transition from acidic to countrified music and their live performances included tunes from every corner of the American pop songbook. This 1973 release is the ninth album and the fourth live album by Grateful Dead and was compiled as a tribute to Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, the band's original keyboard player and blues aficionado, who died while the album was being prepared. The "Bear" of the title is Owsley Stanley, underground chemist turned Dead sound man. The album was recorded and produced by Stanley, and fans often simply refer to the album as "Bear's Choice". The set consists of seven songs, six of them covers, the first five songs are stripped down acoustic numbers with a nice bluesy feel to them. The album's sole original composition, Jerry Garcia's, "Black Peter," is a masterfully executed beautiful tune that ends Side One. This second half of the record belongs to Pigpen and these last two tracks are stunning electric offerings - a 20-minute, crazy old truckin' blues cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin',"  and Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" is a classic Dead hustling shuffle - Garcia is at his best, the vocal cooks and the band is tight and quick weaving their collective R&B-influenced psychedelia. The record peaked at #60 on the Billboard 200 - it is perhaps the Dead's most rustic album. The band sounds genuinely informal, with impromptu stage chatter adding to the low-key ambiance...just like a bunch of guys hanging out and making great music.

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