Grateful Dead: The Last Unfinished Album 1993-1995

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The Last Album (c.1993-1995)

Easy Answers/Lazy River Road/Wave To The Wind/Samba In The Rain/Corrina/So Many Roads/Whiskey In The Jar/Eternity/If The Shoe Fits/Way To Go Home/Liberty/Childhood's End/Days Between

...But that still isn't quite the end of the story. When Jerry died in August 1995 the Dead had gone six years without an album - only a year shy of the gap between 'Go To Heaven' and 'In The Dark'. The band had weathered several storms, such as the loss of Brent Mydland and after a slightly dark period had settled nicely into a working band again circa 1993 with new keyboard player Vince Welnick finding his feet. Speculation had been rife amongst fans that a new studio album was imminent as long ago as 1992, with an influx of new songs appearing live by not only Garcia and Hunter and Weir and Barlow but old hand Phil Lesh and new boy Vince Welnick too. The band even got so far as booking some studio time in 1993 and working up basic rehearsal takes of many of their new ones (although they didn't get very far, with versions of just four songs taped and none of them finished, the band sensing that Jerry was falling ill again and the time wasn't yet right - sadly it never was). Of course we don't know what might have made it to that album - the Dead were notorious for chopping and changing their ideas, adding cover songs here and resurrecting old outtakes and solo songs there, so we can't tell you for definitive what might have been included. What we can say for certain though is that a total of eleven originals written by various members of the band were debuted somewhere between 1990 and the last days in 1995, along with a third song totally written by Robert Hunter and traditional song 'Whiskey In The Jar' was played during the 1993 rehearsals (enough for a double record given how long many of these songs were when played live). To date sadly very little of this album has been released - hopefully one day Arista will take pity on us fans and put them all together in one handy volume - but the fifth disc in the 'So Many Roads' box set features all the existing studio footage plus live versions of another three songs of the period performed live including the title track, so that's a good place to start. Post-Dead band 'The Other Ones' continued to perform 'Easy Answers' and 'Corrina' in their setlists too, suggesting they were still considered 'current' songs. A handful of other songs exist on archive Dead releases put out between 1992 and 1995. We'll try and point out where all these songs are available officially (and failing that in certain cases the performance dates when they were performed so the more curious amongst you can have a look for them).

So how would this final album have stacked up amongst the greats? Rather well I fancy. Garcia is hitting a hot streak on the ballads with 'Days Between' rightly regarded as his final masterpiece (there was no running order so goodness knows where these tracks go, but it's such an album 'closer' we had no choice but to put it there!) Phil's surprise return would have gone down well with fans too, with two tracks perhaps not quite up to his best but not a million miles away. Vince's 'samba In The Rain' enjoys something of a love-hate relationship amongst fans, but his other song of the era 'Way To Go Home' would have been one of the highlights judging by the live versions available. Only Weir sounds a little under-par, although his attempts to turn back the clock back to when the band were a blues band would have been highly fitting had this been a last LP, one last great tribute to Pigpen. Given that many of these songs are more 'straightforward' (albeit long) than normal this album might well have enjoyed another resurgence of popularity with non-Deadheads put off by the electronic and artificial air of 'Built To Last'. Had the band been sensible and not mucked around with the sessions as per that record (which the surviving session extracts suggest they would) this could easily have been a winning album with Deadheads too, full of subtle nods to the past and some highly moving songs about coming to the end of a great long road and looking back over their shoulder - perfect for the 30th anniversary in fact, one last great stop-off on that long strange trip that tries a few twists on some old familiar friends and which even after so many years has the band still trying something new...

First up on our assembled compilation is the heavy strutting rock of [ ] 'Easy Answers', a collaboration between a whole number of Dead writers: Weir, Welnick, Hunter, Robert Wasserman and John Bralove. A chance for Weir to stretch his rock voice and for Phil to add a funky groove bassline, this is a song that never quite got it together on the versions I've heard but could have done so nicely in the studio with the magic of overdubbing. The song started life as a track on a Wasserman solo LP 'Trios' before becoming embellished by the rest of the band who happened to be hanging around - and on the still sadly unreleased studio take by guest guitarist Neil Young (who was using Wasserman's band as support on a tour). Telling Weir that he sounded 'like a disinterested  New Yorker on a street corner on a street payphone', Neil was a big fan of the song and reportedly spent the night dancing to it in the playback room (and i8n the studio kitchen where it was his turn to wash up!)  The lyrics are a typical Hunter piece about faith and reaching in the darkness for...something and how human error means mistakes are made over and over ('Promises in the dark dissolve by the light of day'). There's a neat return to the psychedelia days in the line 'Shut your eyes and listen to the colour of your mind', as well as an uncomfortable guilty feeling that for every mistake 'someone has to pay'. With a slight vibe of 'Victim Or The Crime' and a singalong howl of  a chorus 'I don't want to know!' 'Easy Answers' would have made for an interesting opening number to the album, Jerry adding some turbulent aggressive guitar and Vince soothing everything with his long stretched-out keyboard chords. Live Performances: 44 Not yet officially released , debuted on a performance at East Rutherford on June 5th 1993 and most commonly available on a televised performance on June 25th 1995 at New York's Knickerbocker Arena.

[ ] 'Lazy River Road' is a Garcia-Hunter sequel of sorts to 'Black Muddy River', again using the metaphor of a muddy black unknowable swamp with death. I actually prefer this song, which isn't quite as OTT on tugging at the heart-strings and is set in a real place (Sycamore Slough, not far from Jerry's Californian home). Hunter might be writing Jerry himself into this song or maybe even Pigpen, a 'white man singing the blues, selling white papier mache with flecks of starlight dew'. Spending the whole night singing a 'love song', the un-named man listens back to the 'moonlight' and listens to the clink of the last train as it rolls to the depot (Casey Jones coming home at last?) Suddenly turning to the first person in the last verse, a trick Hunter used so often, the narrator (presumably the man himself) tells us that it might seem as if he hasn't achieved a lot with his station in life but actually he's proud of what he'd done - he had to choose which of life's 'golden threads' was worth putting through his 'needle' and 'found one that was true' by marrying 'you'. A sweet slow tempo means that Jerry isn't taxed at all on this one and with just a few notes this is one of the better songs for his vocal in later years, with a nice sense of weariness and old age. This one was recorded in the studio and is one of the better recordings made in 1993, with Jerry's slide and Bob's rhythm guitars bouncing off each other nicely while Vince adds a very Tom Constanten, almost harpsichord accompaniment. This could have been a real favourite, perhaps the last destination of a golden road that stretched back to the 'unlimited devotion' of 1965 some thirty years on. Live Performances: 67, including the band's last ever show on July 9th 1995 Find it on: 'So Many Roads' (Box Set 1999)

[  ] 'Wave To The Wind' is a rare Phil Lesh collaboration with Bob Hunter (only the second in the band's history and the first since 'Box Of Rain' in 1970!) A lengthy song based around a cheery catchy riff that features Phil's familiar love of unusual chord progressions (this song is very similar to 'Unbroken Chain' and features the same sudden breakout of atonal chords in the middle), it's oddly simple for a Hunter lyric. Unhappy with the first version of it debuted in 1992 the band actually re-arranged and re-wrote it for performances in 1993, after which the song was never heard of again (many fans seem to dislike it for some reason - I'm quite fond of it as a song, if only Phil could sing in tune!) Like a lot of the album the mood is nostalgic, possibly referring back to the 'Easy Wind' that's been pushing the band on for so long and adding the line 'gonna wave to the memories I carry in my heart and the new ones I'll find in the millennium'. Alas the band were going to fall just five years short of the millennium (what a new year's eve gig their show of 1999-2000 might have been!) and Phil (or at least Hunter) sound as if they've guessed that here. Another last celebration, a nod of the hat to the turbulent era the band started in ('Life my voice like the young man broken in the war who cries out to know the reason why') and with a few band in-jokes along the way ('Gonna ride with the rolling thunder'...'Sailing sheets to the breeze over cloudy oceans to the moon'), this song might not be quite as memorable as some other songs on the album but would still have surely been another much-loved track (the band still might have been able to knock the few rough edges into shape, remember!) Live Performances: 21 Though this song was recorded in the studio, that version has yet to be released. In fact no official versions have ever been released - we'll point you towards a gig at Dean Smith Centre on March 25th 1993 if you want to hear it - that seems to be the most popular bootleg doing the rounds

Talking of rough edges[ ]'Samba In The Rain' is a Vince song that fans seem to love to hate. Though far from the best track on this album, I have to say I rather like this one too - it's a brave attempt at trying something different, opening the Dead up to the samba/bossa nova/world music previously only teased at on Mickey Hart's albums. Vince isn't a natural singer and struggles on every version of this song I've heard, but he does seem to have been a better studio singer so hopes are still high that in the environment of a recording studio things might have been different. To be honest it's not Vince's chugging, motion-sickness melody that's the problem anyway but a rare off-putting set of Hunter lyrics. Earthier than usual (did he think Vince was the re-incarnation of Pigpen?) this song has a chorus of 'let's get down and dirty, let's samba in the rain' that's very different to the band's usual fare. The lyric is really a long list of everything the narrator's loved one can do to prove her love for him, as small or as large as she feels as long as she shows it - dancing in a downpour is actually one of his more sensible suggestions. Some atonal keyboard work stretches this song out into 'Victim Or The Crime' levels, the band all too convincing as they sing 'Don't care if they call a cop and say that we're insane, gonna keep going till we drop!' A nice guitar solo in the ending from Garcia and some chirpy organ chords may yet have been enough to rescue one of the band's more unusual late-period songs. Live Performances: 38 Hear it on: Vince re-recorded the song for the 1998 album by his spin-off group 'Missing Man Formation'. The Dead never did record this song in the studio or release any live versions officially as yet  however several versions appear on bootleg including a last performance on June 15th 1995 at Franklin County Field.

[ ] 'Corrina', is a sort of modern blues song, surely derived from yet another complex time signature that gives this song a sort of loose resemblance to a slower 'The Eleven' or 'The Main Ten'. That's presumably why Mickey Hart gets a rare co-write along with Weir and Hunter (usual writing partner John Barlow doesn't appear on this album much), a song that again never quite took off live but might have been a whole different story in the studio with some potentially lovely harmonies from Jerry, Vince and Phil. Jerry adds a lovely aggressive guitar solo alongside some chirpy ever-moving Vince synth runs and a typically unexpected Phil Lesh bass line makes this one of the more exciting and energetic of the band's final songs. Starting with shades of 'Twist and Shout' ('Corrina, shake it up baby!') this song promises to re-kindle an old relationship somehow ('Though who how and why don't mean much to me!') and would have featured some nice contrasts between Bob's increasingly hysterical, desperate lothario and the icy-cold maiden represented by the others who simply sing a lovely long peal of 'Corrina' over and over. With a funky backbeat and lots of space for improvising, this song could have really become something great, hypnotic in a way that only a Dead song can be. Live Performances: 77 Hear it on: Sadly another song that was never recorded in the studio, although you can hear a live recording officially on' Road Trips Volume Two Number Four' (though it's a version from slightly later, in Richfield on 9th July 1993 that's the best I've heard so far

The nearly ten minute [ ] 'So Many Roads' is another lovely Garcia-Hunter ballad, a sort of re-write of 'The Long and Winding Road' with the same nostalgic and melancholy feel. Popular enough to be the title of a posthumous box set, it's another case of Hunter using the eyes and experience of his old friend to write from his perspective. 'We've come so far' the song seems to say, shaking it's head over all those impossible dreams, many of which came true, the narrator thinking he even hears 'a jugband playin' on the far side of the hill', referencing Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions (which is near enough where we came in...) 'If you don't , who else will?' the 'easy wind' seems to whisper, calling Jerry onwards - but now the roads are 'running out - ain't that a shame?' Jerry calls out that just one last road will do, 'one to lead me home'. Ending 'Howlin' wide or moanin' low, so many roads I know to ease my soul' this song sounds like a eulogy, a last pat on the back from an old friend still in awe at what Jerry achieved in his lifetime. However even though the songs are first-class the music isn't quite as memorable as Jerry's other songs from this period - the backing lazily repeats the 'oohs' from Jerry's beloved 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' for instance and I defy any of you to remember what the melody actually is after the song stops playing. Still, this is clearly a modern-day Dead classic, with every live version going for an extended triumphant end to ring the curtain down. For us, though, we've still got a second side of the album to go yet...Live Performances: 54 Hear it on: The Dead never did record this one in the studio, but a moving live version from their very last show on July 9th 1995 was released on the 'So Many Roads' box set of 1999.

As we've seen countless times in this book, Jerry had a fondness for old traditional songs, often playing them endlessly over a period of a few years before discarding them for another one.[ ] 'Whiskey In The Jar', with its chorus cry of 'whack-foll-the-daddy-o' was his latest discovery during the band's sessions of 1993 and he gets the band to try it out. 'I guess that's Irish?' asks Phil, perhaps remembering Thin Lizzy's famous version of the song, with Jerry replying 'I hope so' - it does indeed seem to come from the county of cork sometime in the 17th century. One last outlaw persona for Jerry to wear, the central character is a highway robber who robs a military policeman named Colonel Pepper (if they recorded this song now he'd be a doctor...) but who gets betrayed by his sweetheart and is taken away to be hanged. As he languishes in his cell he dreams about going drinking with his brother, also stationed in the army, one last time. Considering that Jerry has just that second surprised the band with it the Dead play rather well, embellishing the song's stately folk-rock lick with some subtle percussion and Jerry sounds a lot more interested in this song than his own material to be honest. 'A folk song right?' Phil asks at the end. 'Yes - a cool one though' is Jerry's reply. He's right, again - 'Whiskey In The Jar' is one of his more interesting sounding traditional covers, far more fitting to the Dead's sound than any amount of Jack-A-Roes or Peggy-Os. This song was never performed live Hear it on: a 1993 rehearsal take can be heard on the 'So Many Roads' box set (1999)

Keeping with the traditional theme, we've decided to place Bob's unusual bluesy collaboration with Willie Dixon and Robert Wasserman next. [ ] 'Eternity' is Weir's best song of the period, a song that conjured up the ghost of Pigpen one last time while also sounding very Weir. Willie, the composer of occasional Dead covers 'Spoonful' and 'Little Red Rooster', was still going strong during the 1991 collaboration at the age of 75 although this turned out to be his final work. With it's bluesy chord progressions, slow walking pace shrug and visions of being 'trapped for eternity' it's very much a Dixon song - and yet the lyrics about love being 'the greatest gift to man' that makes it all worthwhile are straight out of the summer of love. The song wanders about between the two halves throughout, bouncing between a low note with squealing feedback from Bob's guitar and a chorus that suddenly rises upwards and reaches for the ceiling 'Here Comes Sunshine' style. Once again the lyrics debate about death and wonder 'when I think about life, has it all been in vain?' before concluding that 'time is the greatest gift to man'. The song opens out into some great jamming too, with Garcia's fingers really flying as he howls out both his grief and delight at his 'sentence' on Earth, the song moving one surprising chord twist at a time (this is easily the most challenging of all the new songs to play). Recalling the title track of 'Blues For Allah' this song is truly under eternity, with the blues. Weir himself recalled being disappointed at the simplicity of Willie's lyric, hastily scribbled to his chord progression, but that the song took on a 'profound' feel when matched with the music; he's not joking - this is another moving song that took on an added poignancy after the bluesman died mere weeks after writing the song; he'd already passed over to 'eternity' some 18 months before Bob introduced the song to the band. Live Performances: 43 Find it on: The 'So Many Roads' box set features a studio rehearsal take from 1993

Lesh's [ ]  'If The Shoe Fits', with lyrics by Andrew Charles (best known for his work with Santana), is another strangely uptempo and cheerful number (had Phil been taking happy pills?) That's odd because the lyrics are actually very depressing: 'Every time you rise you fall, the end's nowhere in sight at all, why should you pick it up and try again?' Telling the audience to 'take your ball and go home' because defeat is inevitable, this song goes on to make a dig at 'helpful hands that drag you down' and 'smaller minds that turn you around'. And yet still the music laughs, jokes and grins throughout the song, the Dead turning from one good-natured chord progression un to the other. A musical equivalent of 'is the glass half empty?' this song seems to hedge its bets by being neither one thing nor the other (is that why it has it's rather odd title, never actually referred to in the lyric?)This song is arguably one of the weaker latter-day Dead tunes, but it could have improved immensely in the studio - Garcia is audibly finding new and interesting things to with his guitar part as the band play the song more and more and the band find a nice groove more often than they don't. Live Performances: 17 No official releases again I'm afraid and the band never did try this one in the studio, a hot version from Las Vegas on June 25th 1994 seems your best bet to find this song

I have a soft spot for Vince's [ ] 'Easy To Go Home', easily his best moment with the Dead. Welnick's chord progression is full of those big chunky chords he plays so well, full of room for Garcia to nibble away at on guitar and with a solid drum pattern that passes from Billy to Mickey like they're in a relay race. Robert Hunter is on great lyrical form too, returning to the album theme of life being a long road made in eternity, this narrator looking back on all the places he's travelled and wondering how he stepped so far off the path he meant to travel. Given Hunter's taste for writing for the person he's collaborating with, these lyrics are fascinating: 'Who do you think you are?' the normally peaceful and shy Vince explodes at the start, before accusing someone of 'walking round in circles, your nose to the ground'. 'Who is it you remind me of?' the second verse adds for good measure, 'when you do your own time', comparing being stuck in a frustrating relationship with 'doing time' in prison. Similar in feel to 'Althea' this accusatory song might be aimed at an in-bad-ways Jerry again (given to another band member to sing to make it's bite less venomous perhaps) or possibly aimed at Vince himself: the band have hinted since that Welnick was difficult to work with, full of mood swings and temper tantrums, although to be fair most of that seems to have occurred after a nasty bout of depression that saw him try to kill himself on the Ratdog tour bus or saved for his up-and-down homelife, never experienced by anyone who knew the band well up to Jerry's death. Hunter is too clever a writer to get fully carried away with the negative by the way: he makes it clear by the song's end that he's really mad because he sees someone he cares for going wrong and it's a road he's been down himself, wanting to spare a friend 'from the mistakes that I have made'.  Vince shouldn't be a natural fit for this song but he performs it really well, really digging into the song's nagging finger without going over the top and handling the abrupt change into the clever middle eight ('You say you've seen enough to last you all your days, like the moon in high heaven you're just going through a phase') nicely. Live Performances: 92 Find it on: a live version from Michigan on July 31st 1994 was included on the 'So Many Roads' box set (1999)

Robert Hunter's solo [ ] 'Liberty' chills things out again, handed over to Garcia to sing, this tracks' walking pace strut the closest he gets to an up-tempo moment on these last recordings. Another song about death, the narrator stumbles across a pigeon dying in the road with a broken wind and has mixed feelings, recalling that famous Neil Young debate about whether it's easier to burn out than to fade away (or easier to die than being forced to walk after flying). It could be that Hunter is debating life post-Dead here, sensing that his friend hasn't got long to go judging by his last batch of lyrics for him, wondering whether he might not be better leaving too. However the song gets happier as it goes along, with all sorts of winning metaphors and couplets from Hunter about the sheer joy of having lived on the fringes of something great for so long, refusing to give in to the banality of life like every other human being has to. 'If I was a bed, I would stay unmade!' he jokes, that is he was 'born an eagle I would dress like a duck' and that he dipped his bucket not in the same creative well as everybody else but in the 'clear blue sky'. A nice last minute burst of misfit character identity, this song even comes with its own absurd waddle, the narrator promising that treading his own sweet road in life has worked out so far and enjoying the fact that he's been allowed to be creatively 'free' for so long. Jerry's mischievous side clearly loves this song which quickly became added to the Dead's setlist (only the third fully Hunter-written song to do so - Hunter never did record his own version suggesting that he considered this a 'Dead' song too (perhaps in both meanings of the word), although  he did include it in his 'Box Of Rain' collection of lyrics along with q quote from Walt Whitman: 'We must all be foolish at times - it's one of the conditions of liberty'. Live Performances: 56 The Dead never did record this song in the studio, but a live version of it from Georgia on March 30th 1994 was released on 'So Many Roads' (1999)

Lesh's unprecedented third potential song sounds more like one of Brent Mydland's ballads, all synth chords and slow tempos. [ ] 'Childhood's End' is the first song ever credited to Lesh alone and features an unusually straightforward melody to go along with the complex words. Many fans assumed this tale of protection and love in the future was inspired by the Arthur C Clarke novel of the same name - actually Lesh says that he's never read it but came up with a similar idea of mankind coming of age. A last fond look back at the hippie dream that started it all, Lesh's under-rated song has him reflecting on a life of extremes, 'caught between the angels and the deep blue sea', with the Dead's inconsistent run a source of pain as well as beauty. He remembers some unknown member of the band or associates (or perhaps everyone lumped together) 'running, laughing, growing up sheltered from the storm' with no world wars and 'dreaming of the day the moon (creativity?) will set you free'. Finding a 'lost chord' in the sky, the band use it as their inspiration, but a 'pale harpoon' arrives alongside it and takes away casualties (Jerry's coma?) There's a nod of the head to a 'river that runs muddy' here for Jerry, a sailor lost under a starry sea for Weir's 'Lost Sailor' and a 'day growing dark and scary' that could have been about Brent and his plea for 'just a little light', sounding like a patchwork of Dead favourites. This short song (by Dead standards) might have been better played faster and with a few extra variations (a middle eight wouldn't have gone amiss) and Phil really struggles with his own vocal line on all the versions I've heard so far. However this is a really sweet little song with a pretty melody and a lot going for it lyric-wise, easily the best Lesh song since 'Passenger' in 1977 with the uncomfortable thought that darkness is on the horizon of the 'river' and everyone might have to 'grow up' and get a 'proper' job soon. Live Performances: 11 There are no official releases for this song yet, which is best heard unofficially in a version heard at the nicely named Palace Of Auburn Hills on August 1st 1994 (Jerry's 51st birthday!)

That just leaves the album's one true carat gold masterpiece and one of the greatest tracks in the whole of this book. Garcia and Hunter's [ ]  'Days Between' is another nostalgic look back, the narrator perhaps leafing through one of the many Dead books out during the 1990s and remembering not only the 'days' that everyone talks about but 'the days between' when nothing important happened but the narrator treasured the company of friends, family and music all the same. While this song could have been a sweet little peaceful ballad, Garcia adds a touch of guilt and doubt in his music, tugging at the heartstrings with some unexpected switches to the minor key and a lovely welcome return to his pedal-steel sound of the early 70s (actually played on his usual guitar but the effect is much the same). Hunter depicts as 'world growing dark and mean' as the hippie dream fades further away into memory, with the 'shimmer of the moon' that once passed into hands of those who spread love falling on 'black infested trees', the 'new' generation growing up affected by the lack of caring in the world. The lyric's most famous line is the 'phantom ships with phantom sails which set to sea on phantom tides' - Hunter recalled later this part giving him more grief than almost anything he'd written because he assumed that using the same word three times wouldn't work. However everything in this is cast perfectly - this is a ghost ship of fools fading away into the distance, becoming more and more irrelevent and turning paler by the minute. Garcia sighs that it doesn't seem a minute ago his generation were 'growing into their shoes' and yet here they are a bygone of a different age whose desire to 'learn and live and grow' isn't shared by the modern world. A sea of noise tears at the heartstrings as Jerry seems to fade ever further into the distance as he sings to us, but Hunter's lyric is tinged with pride too: yes too many days were wasted, but some really mattered and really achieved something, feeling the 'promise of a glow' from a mountain top leading from heaven (is this a sequel to the slow-moving narrator of 'Fire On The Mountain', whose flesh was too worn down to use the gifts passed to him?) and ultimately 'giving the best we had to give (how much we'll never know)'. Garcia's voice then fades away, to be replaced by a howling guitar solo, one last great chance to get all his mkixed emotions about the Dead's long strange trip into one howling sequence of anguished chords. The band's playing, Vince's especially (channelling the ghost of Keith Godchaux perhaps?), spirals further and further round the song's tricky angelic yet taunting riff as the song seems to fly in slow motion, going round and round in circles as the two drummers pass the song's main backbeat back and forth between them. One last great reminder of what the Dead could do that no other band could touch, this would have been a winner on any album from any era, a poignant last goodbye not just to the band but to their whole era and demonstrating that the Dead could still create goose-bumps like no other band. Note too the extremely clever Hunter lyric, whose setting I've only just noticed: four different sonnets of fourteen lines each, all set in different seasons from Autumn through to Summer. The Dead may have had more days between than days really on it in their final days, including a handful that might have been included on this album, but this is one of those days when magic is in the air, phantoms or not. Live Performances: 41 Find it on: a 1993 studio rehearsal take can be heard on 'So Many Roads' (1999)

A Now Complete List Of Dead-Related Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:

'Grateful Dead' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-10-grateful.html

'Anthem Of The Sun' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-23-grateful-dead-anthem-of-sun.html

'Aoxomoxoa' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-20-grateful.html

‘Live/Dead’ (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/grateful-dead-livedead-1969.html

'Workingman's Dead' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/news-views-and-music-issue-138-grateful.html

'American Beauty' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-40-grateful-dead-american-beauty.html

‘Grateful Dead’ (1971) aka ‘Skulls and Roses’ http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/grateful-dead-aka-skulls-and-roses-1971.html

‘Europe ‘72’ (1972) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/grateful-dead-europe-72-album-review.html

'Wake Of The Flood' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-59-grateful-dead-wake-of-flood.html

'From The Mars Hotel' (1974)  http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-99-grateful.html

'Blues For Allah' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/grateful-dead-blues-for-allah-1975.html

'Terrapin Station' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-72-grateful.html

'Shakedown Street' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/grateful-dead-shakedown-street-1978.html

'Go To Heaven' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/grateful-dead-go-to-heaven-1980-album.html

'In The Dark' (1987) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/grateful-dead-in-dark-album-review.html

'Built To Last' (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-7-grateful.html

Surviving TV Clips 1966-1994 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-surviving-tv-clips-1967.html

The Best Unreleased Recordings 1966-1993 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-best-unreleased.html

The Last Unfinished Album 1990-1995 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-last-unfinished-album.html

Live/Solo/Compilations Part One 1966-1976 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official.html

Live/Solo/Compilations Part Two 1978-2011 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official_29.html

A Guide To The CD Bonus Tracks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-guide-to-cd-bonus-tracks.html

Dick's Picks/Dave's Picks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-dicks-picksdaves-picks.html

Road Trips/Download Series/Miscellaneous Archive Releases
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-road-tripsdownload.html

Essay: Why The ‘Dead’ Made Fans Feel So ‘Alive’ https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/grateful-dead-essay-why-dead-makes-fans.html

Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/grateful-dead-five-landmark-concerts.html