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    lilgoldie
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    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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  • hbob1995
    Joined:
    Downloads
    The download price is $99.98 for all 111 songs. This is the only way it is being offered.
  • gratefaldean
    Joined:
    Did I mention?
    I got 15% off on this order? Not trying to gloat, just pointing out the upgrade in customer service. My 15% off code dropped into my lap because my DaP 4 shipped a few days too late -- I didn't even know it was late until I got the email with the code. At the time I was both pleased and a little disappointed in my timing -- I'd just purchased the 2013 DaP subscription and would have loved to get the extra off. But I decided to save it for the next big release, and yeehah! It worked! No way that this would have happened during the E72 debacle. Good job, guys!
  • frunobulax
    Joined:
    I agree
    If kickstarter can raise $3 million in a few days to fund a Veronica Mars movie, surely we can find enough deadheads to contribute a few bucks to raise $1 million to buy back the Cornell master.
  • drshakedown
    Joined:
    Missing reels
    I understand Dave not wanting to put up cash out of principal, BUT...............we (fans) would. I also believe Rhino should be ready as well. Its money. If money gets the vault completed for generations to come....I am personally on board. I dont quite frankly care if the holders of these grails are taking a ransom approach, I will negotiate. I have given years and tons of cash to this beautiful world, why would I stop now. Love to all. Bring our reels home boys.
  • claney
    Joined:
    Downloads
    When they say the downloads will only be for the full set, I assume they mean the entire box set. Seems like a bummer really - it would be nice if each individual show were up for a separate download (I'm getting the box set anyway, but it's just the principle, heh). Am I reading that wrong?
  • Little Ben Clock
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    Joined:
    Nice...
    ...not thrilling like Dave's Picks 6, but very nice. There will surely be some beautiful music on here, even if these shows don't represent what most people think of as the best of the tour, except maybe for the 17th. Anyway, if these really are going to be released as FLAC downloads, dead.net really ought to put that up for pre-order as well right now. There's no way the download price can reasonably be the same as the physical set but I suppose dead.net doesn't want to list that yet so as not to encourage people "just" to get the downloads. Regardless, please put up the downloads for pre-order. It's only fair. The reality is, I probably won't buy the physical set and may have lost interest by the time the downloads are available. If they come up soon, though, and for a sensible, I'll happily order. Ditto for Spring '90 actually, the blurb for which was carefully worded so (I assume) to allow for later downloads. I really want to buy this stuff but I'm gradually running out of space. I'm delighted that FLACs will be available. A really positive development. I think it would be fair if they're listed the same time as the physical set though!!! Please??
  • claney
    Joined:
    Missing Reels - Call Seal Team Six!
    @44 Moose: Thanks for the link to the DL interview. I didn't realize that DL and crew apparently have some idea (indirectly) who has the reels "in their closet." Dave.... call Seal Team Six. @Wilfred: I admire your optimism! I agree, there is hope (in fact I firmly believe the early May reels will eventually find their way home - see my Seal Team Six idea above). I was really addressing the people who complain that Cornell isn't being released, as if Dave is just keeping it locked up out of some kind of spite. There was a comment from a guy under the Relix article, the guy says "I don't know why Dave says they don't have May 9 - that Betty Board has been around for years." Maybe I'm just getting crotchety, but dumbassery is wearing me down. @Mustin321: Thanks man, glad you like the stats. When I said I was sad that MAMU only appears once in this box set, I was being very, VERY sarcastic :-)
  • drshakedown
    Joined:
    1st Pt. Dave article in Relix
    Last year the 5/8/77 show was selected for addition to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Shortly after this announcement, we interviewed Dead archivist David Lemeiux. In this portion of the conversation which has yet to appear online, Lemieux confirms that the band has never released 5/8/77 because a master copy does not exist in the Dead archives. He goes on discuss the matter while also affirming the vitality of the group’s May 1977 run as a whole. For more on archival Dead shows over the years, check out our recent relix 40 list. In terms of 5/8/77, do you know where the source tape resides? I do not know specifically but I have heard from many people that they know where it is and they know who has it and that’s fine. We’ve certainly made a note that we’d love to have it back as we would with any master Grateful Dead tape that we don’t have in the vault. But there’s really nothing we can do about it. We’re not going to pay for our own tape. That’s one thing I don’t think we’d ever do is to pay to buy them back and I don’t think they’ve been offered to the band in a long, long time. They know where we are, we’re easy to find and I think it has been made clear that we would love to have them back. Some people would just rather have the tapes in their closet than in the vault, but that’s fine. It is what it is. Again, there’s nothing we can do, we don’t lose sleep over it, but it is as it is. In terms of that collection of tapes, how many are there that the archive does not possess? It’s in the dozens, during the period from 1976-1978. I get a lot of emails from people suggesting shows for release and it kills me because I agree with what these people are suggesting, but we just don’t have the tapes. So for example, a lot of people will ask for the July 1978 Red Rocks shows [7/7 and 7/8] and I agree. I think there are great concerts, great sounding shows, we just don’t have them. We have the August 78 Red Rocks [8/30 and 8/31], but not the July shows. Other examples: April 6th through April 16th a ten day run of about 8 shows in April of 1978, a phenomenal run of shows and we don’t have any of them and they do exist. Those tapes are part of this batch that we’re talking about. Another example would be January of 1978, also we don’t have any of those. We don’t have Eugene. We get asked for the MacArthur Court show, January 22nd in 78 [from Eugene, OR], we don’t have that. We don’t have the Pacific Northwest Tour, the fall of 1977, which is a couple of shows in Portland and a couple of shows in Seattle, very good shows, we don’t have those. We don’t Binghamton November 6th of 1977, great show, phenomenal, again, another one of these shows that we get requested a lot and then of course, May 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of 1977, we don’t have. Great shows that obviously include the May 8th 77 Cornell show. June of 1976 is a terrific tour, we are missing most of it. We’ve got a couple of shows. We just released one from Boston on June 9th of 76, but the Beacon shows, the middle nights in Boston, the second and third shows, we don’t have any of that. There are gaps but you know, such is life. Luckily we do have a lot of stuff, plenty of stuff to work with and the hope is there that some day we will get them back, but if it doesn’t happen that’s okay too.
  • drshakedown
    Joined:
    Giddyup
    Cant wait for May77 box to hit my speakers. On another note, I know nothing about where the master for Cornell 77 is, but if that cat wants a million, I say deadheads and the vault start a Go Fund Me project and raise it. They could easily set it up where you could get the release if you pledged a certain amount, and the vault could start the thing off by dropping in that 100k. I would imagine some wealthy heads and maybe even band members would push this thing up near a nice #. Peace
  • fpdr9817
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    Joined:
    Downloads
    Looks like downloads will be $99.98 http://ultimateclassicrock.com/grateful-dead-may-1977-box-set/
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15 years 3 months

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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I am still enjoying this box. Have gone through the entire run multiple times. After hearing a lot of 77 it's nice to go to the later years...but coming back again for another listen and it's just amazing how you find even more to love within this set. Now if I could only get my hands on spring 90 and Europe 72!
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10 years 5 months
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Holy smokes I'm like a kid on Christmas morning checking the mail everyday after work! Can't wait to jam this.
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16 years 4 months
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I have been cranking this box on my car system while commuting and can't get enough of it. I reminds me of the old days when I wore out that Skull and Roses live lp set with constant listening. There is something about 1977. Also 1969, 1970, 1976, 1972, 1973, 1980, 1990 oh and 1988, 1989-ah well I could go on.
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This is some incredible music. Took a break for a while after first getting it but it is so so good to come back to. St. Paul and Tuscaloosa are my favorite two but there is something wonderful in each show. Best sound quality for sure goes to the 11th. We have had some great releases lately. Am so grateful to have this on my bookshelf. Thanks again and again. To anyone not sure if they want this because there is already a lot of 77 released, just get it. The box is beautiful. Love the fact that I can have this physical media on my shelf. The sound quality is sure worth it. Windows media player decodes HDCD btw...really makes these discs shine.
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15 years 2 months
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This box is something special , I listened to May 11, and it blew me away again. Just great stuff
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11 years
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LIke many others, I have so much '77 stuff I was not excited when this came out. Thanks to a night of heavy drinking, I pulled out the credit card and dove in when judgement was impaired. I am so glad I did, I just keep coming back to this. Maybe it is the beautiful sound, or great performances, I don't know. I love almost all the releases, but this one just seems extra nice.
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15 years 2 months
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I am excited to see that this box set is on the UPS truck waiting to be delivered to my home sometime today! Decided to take the plunge and finally order this set. Looking forward to some heady jams this week.
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16 years 4 months
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looks like the physical set will sell out shortly. I got mine a long time ago and still have it in regular rotation. I'm a little surprised this took so long to sell out given the quality of the performance and beauty of the physical product. What is next on the release agenda?
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15 years 2 months
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Finally got my set yesterday. I listened to the first set of the St. Paul show, and I'm glad I decided to get it. The St. Paul show has such a unique and warm sound to it. I really like the feel. The boys blister through a number of the songs, and they are all really unique. Looking forward to enjoying the second set tonight.
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SO GLAD I purchased this set. It gives me a whole new appreciation and understanding for 1977. As a 20+ year 'Dead Freak' I have never fully understood the power of 1977, until I heard a string of shows consecutively, in their rightful context. We all know 1977 is majestic, but I think I have come to take it for granted. As a tape trader, I would come across a random 1977 here and there...5/8/77, 11/4/77, 6/9/77, 11/6/77/ 2/26/77, 12/29/77, and embrace each and every one with exuberance, but casually move on to another era or decade. Over the past few nights, I have been delving into this box set and have a whole new appreciation for the music of the Grateful Dead. I have listened to the first 3.5 shows in their entirety and am blown away. I cannot wait for Tuscaloosa tomorrow!!! To hear the ebb and flow of each show in its proper context is unspeakable. The transformation of the music from night to night is uncanny. The 2nd night in Chicago is the only 'clunker' of the bunch, but with that being said, there are some serious moments of serendipity and majesty in that show. I cannot wait to piggy back on this box set and listen to the Fox and Lakeland shows and the Sportatorium show, followed by 'To Terrapin' after I have completed the adventure of this box set. On a side note, the 'Terrapin' from the first night in Chicago is one of the most beautiful versions I have ever heard. Bobby hits those notes just like it begins on the album, and he keeps going with the lick. It is rare to hear a version of "Terrapin' were Bobby keeps hitting that lick (put it on, you'll know what I am talking about). It's so bright and beautiful. Thanks Dave!!!
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Oh, and that Dancin' from STL is so groovy. It rivals the legendary one from Dick's Picks 25 and Winterland '78 (From Egypt with Love). My jaw dropped...
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17 years
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Like you kevjones, I'm a sucker for '77 and '78 Dancin' in the Streets. Not sure the one from 10-20 Winterland graced RT 1.4 though. It's just not there. Oh well. Have fun on your May '77 excursion! DP 29 is going to be nice, real nice...
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13 years 8 months
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Believe it or not, I missed this box and just picked it up on Ebay. Wow I'm sure glad I did. I'm still working through St. Louis, looking forward to the Dancing, and the Terrapin mentioned below. The sound is pretty damn good for 1/4 inch, thanks to the amazing Betty! I hope she gets her share of this pie. She deserves it.
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8 years 10 months
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Happy as hell, but wondering is there a CD version of Cornell Barton hall 1977 officially released,just wondering, if is a get able or is it just something best left as the unicorn out on tape ? I still have two tape decks . Thanks anyone
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Chris killer, it's not in the vault therefore not fully released. One song from Cornell is available, Dancin' in the Streets, on the So Many Roads box set. The 5 cd 'So Many Roads' box set is still available for sale on this website last I checked. I hope this helps.
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that single track from Barton Hall is actually on the 12cd set Beyond Description (1973-1989). I believe they have only one set from the show in the vault. Either way the existing copies on the internet are near perfect...at least the one I found. On ebay I saw 2LP set of the show from an Italian record company. Who knows what that sounds like
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Been hoping to buy a digital download for months. Is this option returning soon?
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Is anyone else having issues downloading this from Warner Music? I have tried numerous times after purchasing the FLAC files and each time the download fails. So far the most I have been able to get is all but the last two songs from the first show, plus it takes FOREVER even on a (supposedly) fast cable connection. Can these shows be delivered in separate downloads?
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The comments suggest that I can pre-order it and that it would be available on June 11th. How do I pre-order (or order now that it is June 14th) this boxed set?
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6 years 10 months
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Solid offer for the music community, although it's a bit pricey?! JUST A BIT! Lol, I'm already spending a bunch of money on music promotion services.
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