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    lilgoldie
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    Joined:

    What's Inside:
    • Five Complete Shows
    • 5/11/77 St. Paul Civic Center Arena, St. Paul, MN
    • 5/12/77 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL
    • 5/13/77 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL
    • 5/15/77 St. Louis Arena, St. Louis MO
    • 5/17/77 University Of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
    •14 Discs, 111 tracks
    •Mastered in HDCD by Jeffrey Norman, Plangent Processes playback system for maximum sonic accuracy
    •Artwork by Grammy Award-winning graphic artist Masaki Koike
    •Period Photos by James R Anderson
    •Historical Essay by Steve Silberman
    •Individual show liner notes

    MAGICAL, MYTHICAL MAY 1977!

    If you're a Dead Head, chances are you've spent many an hour expounding upon the distinction of May 8, 1977, Cornell University, Barton Hall. Well, at the risk of preaching to the choir, we'd like to reintroduce you to a series of shows that matches said greatness from that same gloriously fertile season. While Barton Hall is well known, the astounding tour that surrounded it has occasionally flown under the radar due to the uneven quality of tapes in circulation. May 1977 is set to change all of that with a boxed set that zeroes in on this high-water mark in the Grateful Dead's long strange trip.

    For a band resurrecting itself after a 20-month hiatus, there was a great frenzy of expectancy that surrounded the Spring of 1977. We anticipate a grand reoccurrence of this fervor with the release of May 1977, a 14-disc boxed set featuring five complete shows from consecutive stops on that magical tour. Mastered in HDCD by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering, the "psychoacoustic phenomena" as Jerry once put it, of St. Paul Civic Center Arena, St. Paul, MN (5/11) Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL (5/12, 5/13), St. Louis Arena, St. Louis MO (5/15) and Coliseum at the University Of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (5/17) can now finally be appreciated. Each of these shows finds the Dead delivering punchier, more focused sets, tightening up the framework; each night turning out first-ever renditions ("Passenger,""Iko Iko,""Jack-A-Roe"), unloading potent new pairings ("Scarlet Begonias">"Fire On The Mountain", "Estimated Prophet">"Eyes Of The World"), classic covers ("Dancing In The Street") and soon-to-be staples ("Estimated Prophet," "Samson and Delilah"), and ultimately rising up to paradise.

    And now for the nitty-gritty...

    Due June 11, May 1977 is limited to 15,000 individually numbered copies. Presented in a psychedelic box that boasts an intricate die-cut design created by Grammy®-winning graphic artist Masaki Koike, the set also includes a book filled with stories about each show, as well as an in-depth essay by Dead historian Steve Silberman, who delves deep into the history behind the tour and the band’s return from its extended hiatus.

    Once these 15,000 boxes are gone, May 1977 and its shows will never be available again on CD. However, the 111 tracks will be made available on release date as FLAC and Apple lossless full-set-only downloads for $99.98.

    Like its predecessors Europe '72: The Complete Recordings and Spring 1990, we expect May 1977 to sell out. Your best bet is to pre-order it now, then sit back, relax, and enjoy all the exclusive content we'll be rolling out over the next few weeks right here and on Facebook.com/GratefulDead and Youtube.com/gratefuldead.

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  • #281
    PalmerEldritch
    Joined:
    Weir
    This Weir love-fest is startng to make me a little queasy. I thought I was one of the few who truly appreciated Weir. It was like being in on a secret. Now everyone here is on the bandwagon. Even his Wikipedia page is pretty right on. Kinda takes some of the fun out of it ;) But, more key than Jerry or Phil? Let's take a step back, take a few deep breaths. The greatest "rhythm guitarist" ever? Certainly. But lets not go overboard.
  • #282
    deadegad
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Bob's rhythm
    Bob's rhythm is not a conventional one and is what makes the Gd so unique. You have a powerhouse bass and lead both complementing each other and,yet, like a tug of war, pulling in different directions at other times. How does a rhythm compete with this? Bob is kind of weaving his rhythm around Jerry and Phil, much more so Jerry. rather like a ball bouncing off of different, opposing walls. Perhaps like a Remora fish trailing in the slip stream. If that's not grand sounding enough. . .. and at the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me. . .. Bob's rhythm is kind of like 'light refraction,' a bending rhythm around Jerry's improvisational lead, yet still the same 'beam.' Bob may be the hidden key to the GD's uniqueness more so than Jerry or Phil. OK, OK, let's not put to fine a point on it.
  • #283
    bolo24
    Joined:
    Sugaree
    All this discussion about Sugaree has prompted me to post my license plate as my avatar.Guess you can figure out where I stand!
  • #284
    PalmerEldritch
    Joined:
    song skips/MIDI
    I loved the MIDI! Every time I hear Jerry go full MIDI I feel a great wash of relief- the freedom of no possible comparisons to pre-hiatus Dead. It's easier for me to accept late-era Dead on its own terms when MIDI was used. Otherwise, comparisons to the golden era keep creeping up. Of course, Jerry never abandoned acoustic music, and was playing some of the best in his life at the same time (with Grisman). As for song skips, for me this depends a lot on the era. I love all of 68-74; nothing is skip-worthy. Even my least favorite songs (e.g. Looks Like Rain) were magic during Europe 72. After that I am more picky. And some songs really require a certain mood from the listener. "Stella Blue" might be my favorite song of all, but I seldom listen to it and usually skip over it. I mean, you have to be in the right mood for it and give it full attention. It doesn't work as background music. p.s. thanks syracuse78, I'll take that Road Trips suggestion
  • #285
    wadeocu
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Chris Grand:
    Man that must be tough: loving Scarlet but not Fire!! Kind of like your right brain being at odds with your left. No criticism here, to each their own, just offering my condolences!
  • #286
    Nottwo
    Joined:
    28/5/77 Hartford "Sugaree"
    The above version of said song brought me one of my most profound Dead listening experiences; Jerry is, in my view, of course, just soaring higher and higher with each lead break; by the end the bottom of my jaw had just about separated from my head and there may even have been drool involved.Just my Two Cents. :)
  • #287
    One Man
    Joined:
    Confessions
    What an amazing salvo of confessions! I love us. Finally, some real-life sentiments. I would also say that I will hear any version of any song once, even LLR. Then I get more picky and that one always gets skipped, except sometimes the E72 pedal steel versions. But Stella Blue? Never. As for synths, I risked life and limb setting up an antenna on top of my 10-story dorm so I could record that 3/1/80 Jerry show off the airwaves, so I was kind of obligated to love it. Then it ended up on Garcia Live Vol. 1, and every note (of the first show) was long ago burned into my memory banks. So I still feel kind of obliged to like it, even with those ridiculous synth keys. I got used to them somehow. The GD MIDI stuff, not so much. I appreciate their willingness to continue the long experiment, but that little detour was a dead end, and good riddance to it except for some prime Space moments.
  • #288
    davidg22
    Joined:
    Childe ballad?
    On page 30 of the notes, Blair Jackson refers to something he calls a "Childe ballad". I know "childe" sounds appropriately Old (or Olde) English, but he means "Child ballad". In five volumes published between 1882-1898 Francis James Child compiled texts to 305 traditional English and Scottish ballads, that have ever since been known as the Child ballads. But I do think Blair's notes are great.
  • #289
    Chris Grand
    Joined:
    coming clean...
    i usually skip "fire on the mountain"...it ruins the the best song the dead ever wrote (scarlet) there, i feel better now that said i am loving the 5/77 box particularly bob's guitar and keith's keys up high in the mix, and even donna is right on the money other skippers are row jimmy & sugaree, but only after the first pass thru. i dont really own any 80's stuff, but it goes without saying that the abominable "cc rider/walkin blues/red rooster" quickly causes the XM channel to change, plus any brent song LLR appears to be a popular skipper, but for me, the post 74 versions with donna harmonizing are some of the best vocal performances the band ever did
  • #290
    simonrob
    Joined:
    Audience participation
    As Allman said, audience participation "never translates very well to recorded music". Well, almost never. Quicksilver's "Happy trails" is a notable exception to this. The band and audience were really working together that night. At the other end of the scale, we have all surely cringed when the singers shouts "Sing this with me!", points the mic at the audience and is greeted with an embarrasing silence. This translates particularly badly to recorded music as the audience, if recorded at all, are at such a low level compared to the band that they might as well not be there. It is also possible that the band were playing to an empty hall!
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Submitted by lilgoldie on
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Dead Store Products

What's Inside:
• Five Complete Shows
• 5/11/77 St. Paul Civic Center Arena, St. Paul, MN
• 5/12/77 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL
• 5/13/77 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL
• 5/15/77 St. Louis Arena, St. Louis MO
• 5/17/77 University Of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
•14 Discs, 111 tracks
•Mastered in HDCD by Jeffrey Norman, Plangent Processes playback system for maximum sonic accuracy
•Artwork by Grammy Award-winning graphic artist Masaki Koike
•Period Photos by James R Anderson
•Historical Essay by Steve Silberman
•Individual show liner notes

MAGICAL, MYTHICAL MAY 1977!

If you're a Dead Head, chances are you've spent many an hour expounding upon the distinction of May 8, 1977, Cornell University, Barton Hall. Well, at the risk of preaching to the choir, we'd like to reintroduce you to a series of shows that matches said greatness from that same gloriously fertile season. While Barton Hall is well known, the astounding tour that surrounded it has occasionally flown under the radar due to the uneven quality of tapes in circulation. May 1977 is set to change all of that with a boxed set that zeroes in on this high-water mark in the Grateful Dead's long strange trip.

For a band resurrecting itself after a 20-month hiatus, there was a great frenzy of expectancy that surrounded the Spring of 1977. We anticipate a grand reoccurrence of this fervor with the release of May 1977, a 14-disc boxed set featuring five complete shows from consecutive stops on that magical tour. Mastered in HDCD by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering, the "psychoacoustic phenomena" as Jerry once put it, of St. Paul Civic Center Arena, St. Paul, MN (5/11) Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL (5/12, 5/13), St. Louis Arena, St. Louis MO (5/15) and Coliseum at the University Of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (5/17) can now finally be appreciated. Each of these shows finds the Dead delivering punchier, more focused sets, tightening up the framework; each night turning out first-ever renditions ("Passenger,""Iko Iko,""Jack-A-Roe"), unloading potent new pairings ("Scarlet Begonias">"Fire On The Mountain", "Estimated Prophet">"Eyes Of The World"), classic covers ("Dancing In The Street") and soon-to-be staples ("Estimated Prophet," "Samson and Delilah"), and ultimately rising up to paradise.

And now for the nitty-gritty...

Due June 11, May 1977 is limited to 15,000 individually numbered copies. Presented in a psychedelic box that boasts an intricate die-cut design created by Grammy®-winning graphic artist Masaki Koike, the set also includes a book filled with stories about each show, as well as an in-depth essay by Dead historian Steve Silberman, who delves deep into the history behind the tour and the band’s return from its extended hiatus.

Once these 15,000 boxes are gone, May 1977 and its shows will never be available again on CD. However, the 111 tracks will be made available on release date as FLAC and Apple lossless full-set-only downloads for $99.98.

Like its predecessors Europe '72: The Complete Recordings and Spring 1990, we expect May 1977 to sell out. Your best bet is to pre-order it now, then sit back, relax, and enjoy all the exclusive content we'll be rolling out over the next few weeks right here and on Facebook.com/GratefulDead and Youtube.com/gratefuldead.

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7 years 4 months

Submitted by icenine2 on Wed, 01/31/2018 - 14:07

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When will this be available as downloads again? I own the high-res digital download of Get Shown the Light and it is spectacular.
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7 years 9 months

Submitted by Sawwwn on Thu, 07/12/2018 - 07:03

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Oh man! Still waiting for these (May 77 and July 78) to be available for download! Please open this up or at least stop listing them as available. Killing me.
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7 years 9 months

Submitted by Sawwwn on Thu, 07/12/2018 - 07:04

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Oh man! Still waiting for these (May 77 and July 78) to be available for download! Please open this up or at least stop listing them as available. Killing me.
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6 years 3 months

Submitted by DanielSpace on Mon, 08/13/2018 - 13:02

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I think a fundraiser for the tapes is the dumbest idea Ive ever heard.
product sku
081227965365