Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses) [50th Anniversary Expanded Edition] (Live) (2021) [Hi-Res]

The Grateful Dead's self-titled 1971 live album is getting a remastered expanded edition for its 50th anniversary. Known by fans as Skull & Roses due to its iconic cover art (and as Skull Fuck, the band's proposed title, which was promptly rejected by the record company), the eponymous live album contains material recorded in New York and the band's native San Francisco during March and April 1971.

The expanded set includes remastered versions of its 11 original tracks and 10 previously unreleased bonus tracks that were recorded during the band's final show at the Fillmore West on July 2, 1971.

The album has been remastered from the original analog tapes by David Glasser using the Plangent Process.

For the Grateful Dead’s second live album, released two years after its predecessor LIVE/DEAD, the band delivered an equally magnificent, but entirely different, Grateful Dead sound. Whereas LIVE/DEAD was a perfect sonic encapsulation of the band at the peak of their Primal Dead era, SKULL & ROSES captures the quintessential quintet, the original five-piece band, playing some of their hardest hitting rock ‘n’ roll (‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘Not Fade Away’), showing off their authentic Bakersfield bona fides (‘Me & My Uncle,’ ‘Mama Tried,’ ‘Me & Bobby McGee’), and some originals that would be important parts of the Dead’s live repertoire for the next 24 years (‘Bertha,’ ‘Playing In The Band,’ ‘Wharf Rat’). Of course, the Dead were never defined by one specific ‘sound’ and amongst the aforementioned genres and styles the band brought to this album, they also delved deeply into their psychedelic, primal playbook with an entire side dedicated to their 1968 masterpiece ‘The Other One.’ This is one of the most deeply rich and satisfying tracks preserved on an official Grateful Dead album, up there with LIVE/DEAD’s ‘Dark Star’ and EUROPE ’72’s ‘Morning Dew.’ SKULL & ROSES sounds as fresh today as the first time I heard it in 1985, and as fresh as it was upon its spectacularly well-received release in 1971. (David Lemieux)