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GRATEFUL DEAD

The Golden Road (1965-1973) (Boxed Set)

$149.98 CD

This is where the long, strange trip began for the Grateful Dead. Between 1965 and 1973, the band evolved from an obscure Bay Area electric blues outfit into the world’s greatest jam band.  

In 1965, a Palo Alto, California cover band called The Warlocks – Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann – became known as the Grateful Dead. They soon situated in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and built a spirited following through a series of free concerts, becoming one of the top draws around town. In 1967 the Dead added a second drummer, Mickey Hart, and began committing their free-form musical vision to tape.   

The Grateful Dead was a studio effort. Anthem Of The Sun took live tracks further via the studio, and Aoxomoxoa reached for the live experience in the studio. The Dead then gave the fans what they wanted in the form of Live/Dead, and subsequently stripped down their approach to focus on tight, melodic songs. What emerged were two of the band’s definitive statements, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. After hitting the road again for the shows that would grace the multi-disc Europe ’72,, the band embarked on a quest to run its own kind of record label – fulfilling its Warner contract with the archival collection known as Bear’s Choice. Though it would continue to wind through many towns and touch many lives, the trip was well underway, the road already paved with gold.  

Rhino’s The Golden Road is the ultimate path through this crucial period in the history of the Grateful Dead. With 12 CDs collecting the band’s entire Warner Brothers output – and then some – this is much more than just a trip. Included are all nine of the Dead’s albums for Warner Brothers – each remastered and expanded with bonus tracks and liner notes – plus a brand new two-disc collection, Birth Of The Dead, featuring unreleased recordings from the band’s pre-Warner days. An 80-page book chronicles the early history of the Grateful Dead and includes rare photos and full-color reproductions of vintage memorabilia. A collaboration between Grateful Dead Productions and Rhino Entertainment, The Golden Road is truly a glorious path for every Dead Head to travel.  

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