Today has a stack of Grateful Dead discs (mostly concerts) getting added in to the server. Most of the concert recordings are from the 70s (via Dick’s Picks), a few recordings I downloaded some time ago from archive.org and a few actual album releases. Right now I have ‘History of the Grateful Dead Vol. 1, Bear’s Choice’ on. I don’t many people who would list this among their favorite Dead discs, but I think Bear chose well. The mostly acoustic set reminds me of the early 80s disc ‘Reckoning’, but with even more of a folk feel, but then you also get the bluesy feel of Pigpen singing ‘Hard to Handle’ as well.

Hearing recordings of Pigpen singing is always pretty exciting to me. He passed away before I was born, and a few of his songs were performed by the Dead through the 80s and 90s, but the energy and gravelly sound he gave to the band never really was replaced. Among the live recordings I pulled off tonight there were also a couple of recordings of ‘Turn on Your Love Light’. In the 80s, Bob Weir sings the song and it lasts about 10 minutes and has a good groove, but in the 60s Pigpen sang the song, and tried to find hook-ups for everyone else in the audience. You hear him pointing out people, telling them to check and see if someone else already has someone to go home with that night. He throws some suggestions for what to do in as well. After Pigpen, in spite of the drugs and drunkenness that would be seen at a concert, you rarely had the band telling people to actively start getting it on. For some reason, I think if Pigpen had been with the group into the 80s, I don’t think my parents would have been taking me to Dead shows (though the drugs and drunkenness were not worries for them in the same way???).

I went to LOTS of Dead shows growing up, and now, having the benefit of being able to hear good recordings of shows from before my memory, I can see how much their shows changed after the early 80s. The shows from the 70s really are amazing for the most part. But the shows from the 80s usually have the more expanded ‘Drums and Space’ that I still enjoy quite a bit (and these are also the parts of the show that probably sound the most like my own music at times!). So – I know it all influenced me, and while I can’t see going to concerts now, it sure is fun to listen to old recordings. Thanks to all those people who, for decades, taped and digitized one pretty amazing archive or work!