Dave's Picks Vol. 51: Scranton Catholic Youth Center, Scranton, PA (4/13/71)
Look out Big Boss Man, Pigpen's on the loose! We're shedding our lovelight on the not-to-be-overlooked Spring 1971 tour with DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 51, featuring the complete unreleased show from the SCRANTON CATHOLIC YOUTH CENTER, SCRANTON, PA 4/13/71 AND the 2nd set from the previous night at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, PA on 4/12/71.
These gems find the original Grateful Dead quintet delivering some of their most inspired, energetic, and tightest performances. There's a dab of WORKINGMAN'S DEAD, a splash of AMERICAN BEAUTY, a great foreshadow into what would soon appear on SKULL & ROSES. And you'll need nearly all those fingers (or those toes) because - count 'em - there's eight classic covers ("Mama Tried," "Hard To Handle," and a rare "I Second That Emotion," to name a few) done as only the Dead could do them with Mr. McKernan and his magical harmonica.
Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 51: SCRANTON CATHOLIC YOUTH CENTER, SCRANTON, PA 4/13/71 has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering.
P.S. We had a little extra room on Disc 2, so please enjoy the final five DP48 bonus tracks to complete 10/24/70, St. Louis, MO.
GDTRFGood
A delayed first listen because I was holding off for yesterdays car ride down to Deer Creek for this weekend's Phish shows. With the first set, the drive was straight toward a massive thunderhead that just sat there on the horizon getting bigger and bigger. And when I got into the second set Drums, somewhere near a place called Angola, things started to get really dark..... caught some ripping lightning bolts tear down from the sky. Was an absolute thrilling match to the garage-rock style energy of the show.
Is there a Big Railroad Blues that rocks harder than that? And how about Phil?!? He's absolutely on fire here. Effortlessly playing both the pocket and the leads.
I'll have to go back an listen to the Pittsburgh material as it was sort of a let down following up after Scranton.
The Rainbow shows
1STShow - I went to nearly all the March and October shows at the Rainbow. It was an elaborate old cinema which played host to loads of great bands, including a great run of shows from Dire Straits. I lived in Highbury at the time, just a short walk away. Next time I saw Grateful Dead was in Paris 1990 when a group of people loosely associated with the fanzine Spiral Light hired a coach over. And then the final ever UK shows at Wembley. Fun times.
Liner Notes
Just got to the liner notes. Pretty cool story about the Kiel Opera House show and the recording.
Before Elvis Leaves the Building
Let me say this: The King was a pretty big influence on Weir's vocal style, if ya ask me. Cue up just about any version of Around and Around and you'll see what I mean.
Last five!
McCoy Tyner: Sahara
TTB: Let Me Get By
Dap #51
Lee Morgan: Cornbread
Dylan: 11/19/75 (from the Rolling thunder box)
But I'll Still Sing You Love Songs
One more: think of the way Elvis would sing Looks Like Rain. And then think of how Weir does sing it. And maybe imagine Bobby handing out scarves to women in the front rows.
Too bad Elvis didn't do a Dead tribute album. Maybe if he'd lived longer. He could've crushed Big River, Love Light, Fire on the Mountain. Would've been fun to hear him try The Other One.
Tempted by Squeeze
was a song that I thought Bobby would like to cover.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." - Phil Lesh
The Dead and Elvis
They shared a few covers - Johnny B. Goode, Promised Land and See See Rider come to mind. Also Hey Jude. Hard to decide which of them did the worse version of that one!
A few last wors on Elvis..
Dont forget; Garcia did "Thats all right, mama" and "Mystery train" - with his solo-bands - the "King" and the Dead also shared Madison Square Garden - Elvis did a live album there in 1972 - one of (if not the..) the first full, uncut shows to make it to vinyl - back in the day..
With the scourge of AI upon us
Someone somewhere could do Elvis covering What's Become of the Baby
Many (unnecessary) possibilities
Elvis and Jerry shared...
A drummer! Still blows my mind that Ronnie Tutt was the drummer for 2 guys in the mid-70s, Elvis and Jerry. He was a tasteful, masterful drummer. Jerry treated him pretty shabbily on his firing, not letting him know, which was compounded by Elvis's death months before, but they made pretty awesome music together.
Donna Jean...
sang with Elvis and the Dead. Elvis and the Dead both played at the Cow Palace(probably a lo of other places too).
Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion
Future Dave's Picks...? If they have the reels?
03/17/67- Winterland Arena - San Francisco, CA
03/18/67- Winterland Arena - San Francisco, CA
03/19/67- Fillmore Auditorium - San Francisco, CA
Would make a grooovy cover too!?
Neil Young ‘Takes’
This sampler cd from the Archives Vol III ( and a pin) arrived in the UK less than 8 days from the first mention that it was on the way. Well done Greedy Hands and DHL.
Even more unusually, both the NYA and Rhino sites said that these items would only be sent out in advance to customers in the US, overseas customers would get them with the box. I hope that dead.net continues to use DHL for their deliveries.
Muscle Shoals (2013)
Great documentary with Donna Jean in it.
Great stories.
Muscle Shoals doc
Great show
Watched it back sometime
I remember seeing DJG in it
Worth watching
Pig and Elvis..
Got 51 today - fine slice of the "5-man-bar-room-Dead-band" 1971 - keep 71 comming.. Elvis recorded "Big Boss Man" in September 67, and did it (a lot..) live in 1974 and a little in 75/76/77.. BW from Copenhagen
Still need cover art?
Didn't see any good versions of Steve Vance’s cover art for Dave's 51 online. I was about to scan mine that had just arrived, when Copperdomebodhi came to the rescue. He made three versions: 1) Scranton, PA 4/13/71 (art from the CD cover & booklet); 2) Pittsburg, PA 4/12/71 (set 2); 3) St. Louis, MO 10/24/70 (the 5 final tracks that complete Dave’s 48). Plus I snagged the gif from one of the deadnet newsletters. You'll have to scroll down:
"3 w dot"
dropbox "dot" com/sh/qx5j9ydoc7bzm8z/AAD8yK_vCv_kQ-oLkLJQVCEla?dl=0
Enjoy, pass ‘em around, and let the music play (LOUD!)
9/26/81 for DaP52???
Is this true? I would love more 1981 releases. Great energy.
I just ordered the MSG box. Arriving this week. Looking forward to some good early '80's...
Another Elvis Dead cover
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water. A really good one there.
NOW THE SHORELINES BECKON: HAWAII/ALASKA '70 '80
Who put this out there and even showed a script type picture shot of this being the 2024 Box Set?!? IT was on the picture of the script actually showing it as an store.dead.net blah blah....obviously someone found this behind the IT wall or something???
WHY the f is this not the box set this year??? I mean I get it that those April 1978 shows are popular, even gimmicky(Jerry at Duke), and OF COURSE Betty Boards....but lets be honest: the setlist are VERY repetitive, Jerry sounds out of tune in most of the shows, and a bit...ummm, tired, Keith sounds like he is simply plunking notes on a 1978 Sears electric piano(he sure doesn't sound like late-1971 when he joined, and Donna is simply high-pitched screaming on a lot of tunes.
BOTTOM LINE - How was the above title showing up as a dead.net exclusive on that javascript pic shot, and now it's not the 2024 BOX SET- maybe later this year?!?!?!
Thin
MSG box is way better than most that do not have it realize. Sure the sound is different from a Betty Board as it is on cassette. But, it does have a great stereo image. That image, in my own opinion, does have the line arrays embedded in it. To date, I havent even run the MSG box thru the equalizer, but I am going to. Just thought of that now.
My home town arena is 50% the size of MSG. And I mean 50%, as the local arena was built with MSG's blue prints; only, dimensions are 50% smaller. When listening to great sounding groups, say like Yes, we always sat in the upper deck directly in the middle (straight on shot of the stage.) This allowed us to have great stereo sound out of an old concrete arena.
The playing within the box is superb.
G
Now The Shorelines Beckon
It's easy to make a script, put it up on a monitor and make a screenshot of it. That doesn't make it genuine. Various punters searched for the script but none found it. The conclusion was that it was a fake, but some people obviously believed it.
Conclusion: Never trust a Prankster.
Randoz
Archiving 7 18 89
First set nice
Will do 2nd later
"Ain't noways tired" Jerry ain't tired during US Blues 4 12 78
Jumpin' Jer Flash
I know it's 2024. But hearing 7 18 89 makes me yearn ("I yearn, George") for being AT a GD show. 35 years gone.
Whoever did the shorelines beckon prank needs to be...
Remember, it's shoreLIGHTS, not shorelines. The prankster let loose a tell.
A few hours of work and then back to Alpine
One more: the cover art for the sleeve of the 5/4/77 is totally off the mark for the glorious GD on the disc. I really dislike the tagger image (taggers deserve to have their fingers broken). Opportunity to create my own cover art, I say.
9/26/81
Oh boy, “that would be something”
Fine show from another great under represented year!
Yep, need to hit that MSG box again soon…
Baked Alaska: as much as I’d enjoy that fantasy box, I’d much rather have this April 78. The Alaska shows are good, but I think I recall only one being exceptional? And I’m unfamiliar with the 70 shows, but even IF they were on primo recordings, would that be enough to justify using up a coveted “once a year only” box slot?
But hey, sorry your not happy this go round. Maybe it will be a late addition, perhaps just in time for the holidaze? Remember when they used to market for the holidaze? And maybe sometime you’ll get shown the light and find a new found affinity for April 78? Whatevs…it’s all good!
RIP Dick Latvala....
....play a Dicks tonight.
I picked out #30. Bo Diddly y'all!
my found on road dead
had to be towed to mechanic. (Of course towed is an out dated word)
After car was loaded, the drive said "Thank You Big Boss Man."
Nice.
It is amazing how 99% of the people react when meeting them, you treat them with kindness.
Of course, you have to learn how to watch and scope manipulators.
He was genuinely kind also.
That is all.
Vguy
Did Dick's 30 a couple of weekends back. Just love the Bo Diddly.
Cant remember which song he has a minor discussion about you got to "Eat it, eat all of it." If memory is correct.
Has to be a reference to we ate the acid, especially at that Hell's Angel benefit. Haha benefit, right.
My God, this was a good buy!…
My God, this was a good buy! Just one word...Energy! Thanks Dave!
Agree with HippyGeorge
This is a very good Pick, one of my favorites. Very raw era, with just guitars and drums and vocals. Sometimes the recording goes into the red (surprised it doesn't happen more often, honestly), but a wonderful delight for Phil plans, of which I am a huge one. You get to clearly hear some of his unorthodox choices, Me & Bobby McGee is especially revelatory; with no keys, Phil has to be more of a rhythmic anchor, and he adapts to it well. I get why Doc loves this era so much. Very potent. Not a huge fan of Sugar Magnolia, but was digging the ones on here quite a bit.
Pigpen = Jim Morrison?
I've listened to this release 3 times. Each time when it gets to Big Boss Man I think "Is that Jim Morrison singing?" Anyone else get that sense?
I think the fake out has to do with Pig sounding a little extra soulful / sexy on this tune. Plus the vocals are pushed forward, yet a good warm vocal mix.
All said, really digging this release. good energy, good vibes!
2025 Dave's Sub...
Too early to talk about 53?
2/21, 22/73 Assembly Hall perfect four disc Dave's Pick.
It's never too early to speculate
One of the next 5 releases will be something from the 60s
It's just gotta be
A raise of the glass to Jerry
29 years later I'm still listening