Grateful Dead - Earthquake Country (1969)

Following the success of their second album 'Anthem Of The Sun', The Grateful Dead regrouped in 1969 with pianist Tom Constanten and lyricist Robert Hunter as new members, and started work on their next studio album. Recording went well and a number of new songs were laid down, with the 'Earthquake Country' album looking set for imminent release. Just as things seemed to be going so well, Ampex manufactured and released a new 16-track multitrack recording machine, and the Dead were so keen to try it out that they dumped all the songs that they'd already recorded and spent the next eight months experimenting and re-recording all the music again from scratch. Being able to utilize twice as many tracks as they were used to gave the band room to add more and more sounds to their recordings, but this sometimes meant that the music got lost in the dense and cumbersome mix. Luckily the original recordings were not lost completely, and so this is a reconstruction of what the album that eventually became 'Aoxomoxoa' might have sounded like if that Ampex machine had not made an appearance.

Track listing

01 Dark Star
02 Saint Stephen >
03 The Eleven
04 Clementine
05 China Cat Sunflower
06 Mountains Of The Moon
07 The Barbed Wire Whipping Party
08 Doin' That Rag
09 What's Become Of The Baby
10 Cosmic Charlie

Grateful Dead - Solar Anthem (1968)

It was an interesting project putting together the Dead's 'Earthquake Country' album from the 'Aoxomoxoa' out-takes, and so i thought that I'd attempt a similar thing with their previous album 'Anthem of The Sun'. This was one of their most experimental albums, as the recording process involved the band recording all the songs in the studio, and then Garcia and the band mixing it with parts taken from live recordings that the band taped from concerts in late 1967 and early 1968, as well as slotting in weird electronic tape effects from Tom Constanren, a friend of Phil Lesh, who'd been drafted in to provide piano, treated piano, and John Cage-influenced sounds. For this reconstruction I've found some out-takes which have for years been considered to be the original studio recordings, although some people now believe them to be from a live concert in late 1967. I admit that they do sound live, but if they are then someone's done a great job of editing out every piece of crowd noise from the tapes, but either way they sound great, and include some sublime soloing. I've used the studio version of 'Born Cross-Eyed' from the b-side of the 'Dark Star' single, and as a bonus there's a rare studio version of 'Turn On Your Lovelight' and a take of 'Caution' (Do Not Stop On The Tracks)' from 1966. The cover is an alternate one that housed a remixed version of the album in 1972, and I've renamed it 'Solar Anthem'.

Track listing

01 That's It For The Other One
02 New Potato Caboose
03 Born Cross-Eyed
04 Alligator >
05 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)

Bonus

06 Turn On Your Lovelight
07 Caution (Do Not Stop On The Tracks) 

Grateful Dead - Days Between (1995)

Gerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead died on 9th August 1995, and he was still performing with the band right up to his death. Some of these performances were unreleased songs which could well have been recorded in the studio for another Dead album in 1995. However, it was not to be, and so all we are left with are live versions of the songs, and as Deadheads recorded almost everything they ever played then it has been relatively easy to piece together what the album could have sounded like using these live versions, and where possible some rehearsals from the same year, all edited and faded to sound like the final studio album from a much-loved band.

Track listing

01 Liberty
02 Wave To The Wind
03 Corinna
04 Lazy River Road
05 Eternity
06 So Many Roads
07 Way to Go Home
08 Days Between
09 Easy Answers
10 Childhood's End
11 If The Shoe Fits