Grateful Dead - Days Between (1985) **UPGRADE**

While putting together the Dylan And The Dead post, it reminded me of a previous Grateful Dead album that I'd posted, which was the reconstruction of what would have been their final album in 1985. I used live and rehearsal takes of the songs, but at the time I didn't have the MVSEP programme to remove the crowd noise from the recordings, so I listened to it again to see if there was any noticeable noise that needed removing. As it happens, I must have been lucky with the chosen tracks as I couldn't hear any distractions on the songs, but what I did find was that the album seemed to drag on a bit, and on checking I found that the version that I'd posted was an hour and 11 minutes long. As well as that there were a couple of tracks that didn't seem to be up to the quality of the others, and so I wondered if I could trim a few minutes here and there to make it easier to listen to. I had a look online for suggestions or alternate recordings, and found a review of the proposed songs on the ManRoy Music blog, which chimed very much with what I had just heard. He said of the following songs: 
Easy Answers first appeared on the Rob Wasserman record 'Trios' where it featured Wasserman, Weir and Neil Young. The Dead’s version replaces Neil Young’s distorted guitar with Garcia’s auto-wah sound and Vince Welnick’s synth horns. I would have the Dead version more closely follow the Trio’s version with Garcia dialing up his distorted sound and losing the faux horns (and don’t try overdubbing a real horn section either, didn’t you learn anything from 'Terrapin Station').
Wave To The Wind is another Lesh song that features instrumental sections reminiscent of 'Eyes Of The World' but a vocal melody that just seems to meander. This would definitely fall into the filler category of the album.
Samba In The Rain is one of the two Vince Welnick songs in this collection. How do I put this kindly? It sucks. Enough said. (I never included this track anyway).
If The Shoe Fits is the third Phil Lesh song in the group. Lesh was never the most prolific of song writers so it’s ironic that he had three songs in the final years of the Dead. Sadly, none of these song are comparable to 'Unbroken Chain' or 'Box Of Rain'. At best, their quality level is more akin to something like 'Passenger' from the album 'Terrapin Station'. Not necessarily bad but let’s face it, no serious Deadhead thinks of 'Passenger' when discussing their favourite Lesh tune. 

After reading this critique I realised that he was talking about exactly the tracks that I felt let down the album, and so I decided to remove them completely. 'Childhood's End' seemed to me to be the least worst of Phil Lesh's contributions, although the vocals do still detract from it, so I decided to keep that but to re-jig the running order so that the album no longer ends on that track. As most of the remaining songs are fairly lengthy, including the lovely title track which clocks in at nearly eleven minutes, then we are still left with a perfectly acceptable and concise 54-minute record, so see what you think of this drastic revamp of an earlier post.

Track listing

01 Liberty
02 Corinna
03 Lazy River Road
04 Eternity
05 So Many Roads

06 Childhood's End
07 Days Between
08 Way To Go Home