The Grateful Dead 1967 Album

The Grateful Dead

The granddaddy jam band of them all got off to a rather innocuous start as far as studio records went. They blindly rip through a clutch of blues standards before you can blink, and only the ten-minute track which ends the record, "Viola Lee Blues", approaches the improvisational byzantine grooves which became their calling card. Not sure even blues purists can get into the "Pig Pen" heavy stuff like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" or "New, New Minglewood Blues". What was so new about it, anyway? Remastered versions include a live version of "Viola Lee" at double the run time, so there's that.