Grateful Dead - Listen To The River: St. Louis '71 '72 '73 (2021) [Hi-Res]

Steamboats and BBQ, ice cream cones and Mardi Gras - are you ready to laissez les bons temps rouler with the "gateway" to the Grateful Dead? Meet us, won't you, in St. Louis for seven complete and previously unreleased Dead concerts that capture the heart of the band's affinity for the River City.

The 1971 performances came just weeks after keyboardist Keith Godchaux joined the original Grateful Dead lineup of guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, multi-instrumentalist Ron ìPigpenî McKernan and drummer Bill Kreutzmann. Pigpen had played his final show with the band by the time the band returned to St. Louis in 1972 with vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux in tow.

"There are only few truly great eras in the Grateful Dead's performing history that span more than a year and one of the very best is the transitional period that covers December 1971 through Fall of 1973," noted Grateful Dead archivist and producer David Lemieux in a statement as per Rolling Stone. "This was a period during which the Dead solidified their touring format (several distinct, somewhat short, geographically defined tours every year), where every night the Dead would wow their fans with a mix of over six years of music that clearly demonstrated their many transitions and transmutations. The seven shows in this boxed set perfectly summarize 22 months of Grateful Dead music, performances, and growth."

The seven shows in the collection span slightly less than two years, but they represent some of the best shows the Grateful Dead played during some of its peak tours. The music tells the story of a band evolving, changing from one sound to another seamlessly, precipitated ñ in large part ñ by significant personnel changes in the Dead's lineup.

The two 1971 shows feature the original Grateful Dead lineup plus newcomer Keith Godchaux on piano. This version of the band would hold together for the next six months as the Dead embarked upon its Europe í72 tour. By the time the Dead returned to the Fox Theatre less than a year later, they were without Pigpen, whoíd played his final show with the Dead at the Hollywood Bowl on June 17, 1972. A year after the exceptional Fox 1972 shows, the Dead came back to St. Louis, but played the much larger Kiel Auditorium, touring behind the release of WAKE OF THE FLOOD, which came out just two weeks before.

Each show has been restored and speed corrected using Plangent Processes with mastering by Jeffrey Norman. The collection comes in a slipcase with artwork by Liane Plant and features an 84-page hardbound book as well as other Dead surprises. To set the stage for the music, the liner notes provide several essays about the shows, including one by Sam Cutler, the band's tour manager during that era, and another by Grateful Dead scholar Nicholas G. Meriwether, among others.