The Very Best of Grateful Dead
| The Very Best of Grateful Dead | ||||
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| Greatest hits album by Grateful Dead | ||||
| Released | September 16, 2003 | |||
| Recorded | Various | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 77:05 | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label | Rhino Records | |||
| Producer | James Austin David Lemieux |
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| Grateful Dead chronology | ||||
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The Very Best of Grateful Dead is a single-CD compilation album chronicling all the years of the San Francisco psychedelic band the Grateful Dead. It is the first release to document every label the band recorded on: Warner Bros. Records, Grateful Dead Records/United Artists Records and Arista Records. It was released on September 16, 2003.
A songbook under the same name was released alongside this album which provides lyrics and musical tablature.
Critical reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
On Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine said, "The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group's career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista. As always with the Dead, it's hard to condense the band's free-ranging, freewheeling output onto one disc [..] but the 17 tracks here do present nearly all sides of the Dead while hitting their biggest songs. [..] The collection would have been better if sequenced a little more chronologically, but nevertheless it provides a first-class introduction to a band whose catalog can often seem a little unwieldy."[1]
Track listing
- "Truckin'" (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir) – 5:08
- Originally released on the 1970 album American Beauty.
- "Touch of Grey" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:50
- Originally released on the 1987 album In the Dark.
- "Sugar Magnolia" (Hunter, Weir) – 3:19
- Originally released on American Beauty.
- "Casey Jones" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:28
- Originally released on the 1970 album Workingman's Dead.
- "Uncle John's Band" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:46
- Originally released on Workingman's Dead.
- "Friend of the Devil" (Dawson, Garcia, Hunter) – 3:24
- Originally released on American Beauty.
- "Franklin's Tower" (Garcia, Hunter, Bill Kreutzmann) – 4:33
- Originally released on the 1975 album Blues for Allah.
- "Estimated Prophet" (John Perry Barlow, Weir) – 5:38
- Originally released on the 1977 album Terrapin Station.
- "Eyes of the World" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:20
- Originally released on the 1973 album Wake of the Flood.
- "Box of Rain" (Hunter, Lesh) – 5:20
- Originally released on American Beauty.
- "U.S. Blues" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:40
- Originally released on the 1974 album From the Mars Hotel.
- "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" (Garcia) – 2:12
- Originally released on the 1967 album The Grateful Dead.
- "One More Saturday Night" (Weir) – 4:50
- Originally released on the 1972 live album Europe '72.
- "Fire on the Mountain" (Mickey Hart, Hunter) – 3:48
- Originally released on the 1978 album Shakedown Street.
- "The Music Never Stopped" (Barlow, Weir) – 4:35
- Originally released on Blues for Allah.
- "Hell in a Bucket" (Barlow, Weir) – 5:38
- Originally released on In the Dark.
- "Ripple" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:10
- Originally released on American Beauty.
Personnel
- Tom Constanten – keyboards
- Jerry Garcia – guitar, pedal steel, vocals
- Donna Godchaux – vocals
- Keith Godchaux – keyboards
- Mickey Hart – drums
- Bill Kreutzmann – drums and percussion
- Phil Lesh – bass guitar
- Ron McKernan – organs, vocals
- Brent Mydland – keyboards
- Bob Weir – guitar, vocals
- Additional musicians
- Jordan Amarantha – percussion on "Fire on the Mountain"
- The English Choral – on "Estimated Prophet"
- David Grisman – mandolin on "Friend of the Devil" and "Ripple"
- John Kahn – horn arrangements on "Fire on the Mountain"
- Matthew Kelly – harmonica on "Fire on the Mountain"
- David Nelson – electric guitar on "Box of Rain"
- The Martyn Ford Orchestra – on "Estimated Prophet"
- Merl Saunders – organ on "One More Saturday Night" (later studio overdubs)
- Steven Schuster – saxophone on "The Music Never Stopped"
- Tom Scott – lyricon and saxophones on "Estimated Prophet"
- Dave Torbert – bass guitar on "Box of Rain"
- Howard Wales – organ on "Truckin'"
- Technical personnel
- James Austin, David Lemieux – compilation producers
- Cameron Sears – album coordination
- Robin Hurley – associate producer
- Jimmy Edwards – product manager
- Joe Gastwirt – remastering
- Gary Peterson – discographical annotation
- Vanessa Atkins – editorial supervision
- Stanley Mouse – cover art, lettering
- Hugh Brown – art direction
- Linda Cobb – design
- Michael Ochs Archive, Bob Seidemann, Herb Greene, Bruce Polonsky, Fred Ordower – photography
- Hale Milgrim, Kevin Gore, Scott Pascucci, Mark Pinkus, Tim Scanlin, Steven Chean, Dennis McNally, Jeffrey Norman – project assistants
Charts
Album - Billboard
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | The Billboard 200 | 69[2] |
- The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on October 4, 2003. It spent 4 weeks on the chart.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. The Very Best of Grateful Dead at Allmusic. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
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