Reading all the remembrance posts this weekend from other musicians, I’m really struck by how many people have stories about Bobby just showing up at their shows either to watch or sit in
That was the one that prompted this most of all haha. That’s wild, would not expect him to be on Bobs radar frankly
People don’t crucify me—I listened to American Beauty for the first time ever tonight. I enjoyed it quite a bit, very pleasant overall… and yet I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something crucial. I realize they are known for their jams and being a live band so it could maybe be that I’m introducing myself with a studio album. Can someone please point me in the direction to go next to really “get” this band?
Skull & Roses (self titled live album) or Europe 72 are the best entry points to the live catalog imo
Yes. See the below (I made it). If I was making it again I would probably dedicate much less space to the studio records, at least the ones after the first box. Skull & Roses and E72 definitely are most connected to American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, their pair of folk records from 1970, so I would agree that's the next step. After that, I'd highly recommend giving Live/Dead a try, pretty different and more out there but just as foundational to "getting" "it."
I think the narrative provided in that chart is also important to "getting" "it." You eventually will come to understand the progression from "Primal Dead" (Heavily country and blues influenced psych rock band pushing themselves to the brink with improvisation; defined by the poles of driving maximalism [ex: 11/10/67 Viola Lee Blues] and spacey minimalism [Dark Star off "Live/Dead"]) "Country Dead" (Replacing some, but definitely not all, of both categories above with a focus on songwriting and storytelling [ex: Europe '72 Jack Straw]) "Jazzy Dead" (The band goes from two drummers to one and becomes both extremely tight and extremely exploratory - bringing back a lot of the spacey minimalism [ex: Playin' in the Band from "Pacific Northwest '73-74]; replacing what's left of bluesy maximalism with swinging jazz [ex: 8/6/74 Eyes of the World]; falling away from the storytelling a bit in their newer songs but updating the ones from the previous era perfectly to fit the new sound [ex: 8/6/74 Bertha]) "Peak Dead" (The band comes back from hiatus with 2 drummers again and trades the swing for more of a soaring, epic sound; they are a well oiled machine at this point which means both somewhat less exploration but somewhat more focused jams which are almost exclusively maximalist but decidedly less bluesy; your mind is now being blown because you can't believe it was possible to have that much fun dancing or for Jerry to improvise so many perfect licks, and less because you're not even sure if what just happened was music at all. Ex: Englishtown 77 Music Never Stopped, Hartford '77 Estimated Prophet) Then you get into more niche stuff; the first half of the 80s is made up of recordings with a much less well-liked mix than previously, leading to a somewhat lost era that mostly keeps the musical qualities of the Peak era with some more interesting keyboard sounds that is unfortunately also defined by Jerry's slow descent into unmanageable addiction. This does make for some unique listening, but again, much more niche in terms of listening. When they come back in 87 after Jerry's coma, they maintain the maximalist sound, fitting as they are now playing arenas, but Jerry is noticeably deteriorated and legend says had to be re-taught guitar by Bob Weir and Bob Dylan. Again, this does open up very interesting space for the rest of the band and in a lot of ways they are even more tight than the early 80s, but Jerry is much less prominent. They do go back to exploring some of the minimalist themes from the early days too, they start playing Dark Star again in this era. This is "Bbq Dead" because it's perfect for playing outside as background to a 4th of July party