There is a lot of music out there and some artists have massive catalogs which can paralyze new listeners with overwhelming choices. This Beginners Guide series will attempt to give those new listeners entry points to some of these artists. Today we will look at: The Grateful Dead.
This post became very long so we are breaking it into two parts. This first offering will discuss the five places RtBE feels are the best entry points to the band. The follow up post will dive into the different eras of the Dead and pull out some well known and underappreciated shows for further listening.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic here in NYC the soothing sounds of The Grateful Dead helped ease my mind during a tumultuous sense of loss and uncertainty. Shortly after lock down, a co-worker reached out and mentioned they wanted more information on the band as they were just discovering them.
That request led to this series, so it makes sense that the good ol' Grateful Dead should be the first group we discuss when it comes to Beginners Guides.
RtBE will take an extensive look into their career with a focus on new listeners and will provide links to youtube when possible, but feel free to buy all of the albums from the band themselves. We also wrote about the band in our
Masters series previously ranking our
favorite studio albums, official
live releases and
more.
Also feel free to check out the amazing
Internet Archive with its phenomenal collection of
Grateful Dead shows. Almost everything you could want is on there and usually with multiple recordings from the groups insanely dedicated fan base. The truth is the band could hit amazing highs any night they played and while they have the reputation of drugged out hippies, the quality of their musical output remained incredibly consistent and excellent for the majority of their careers.
We will dissect the bands shifting sound in part two of this post, for now let's start with the basics. Click the read more button:
TL:DR Version:
Start with, in order:
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