The Grateful Dead-History of the Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) (1973)

 

Artist: The Grateful Dead

Title: History of the Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice)

Label: Warner Bros. 

Format: LP

Cat #: BS 2721

Year of Release: 1973

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US mid 80's white WB no lines label

Sold Price: $24.99

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 11/20/20

Discogs Last Sold: 10/9/20 NM/VG+ $25.00

Low: $17.00

Median: $20.50

High: $39.99 11/19/19 NM/NM "like new all around"

Current low price: VG+/VG $19.95 cut corner

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 14

Have/Want: 259/64

Where Sold: South Lake Tahoe, CA

Time it took to sell: 3 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester, Strawberries new $5.99 or so mid-line brand new copy mid-80's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go?: No

Yardbirds did this cover "yeah, Smokestack Lightnin'!"  The Dead had something different in mind interpreting Howlin' Wolf in it's 1970 2-night stand.  "Whoah-oooooooooh, Smokestack Lightnin'."  They cracked 15 minutes both nights at the Fillmore East 2/13 & 14 1970, which this album is taken from.  The one that made the album is the longer 18 minute one.

My neighbor John had this on cassette (not 8-track he reminded me), as a dollar flea market find early in the 80's.  It might've been his first Dead album.  I can't remember mine, maybe a $2 copy of Workingman's Dead.   I remember the tape opened with Smokestack, and we thought it was possibly the dullest music ever recorded.  So dull, we LIKED it.  It takes a teenager to find humor in the humorless.  It takes a pompous adult to sniff at it.  

By the time I bought this, I was at the end of Dead completist mode in the mid 80's (pre-coma, post the first time I saw 'em), bought it new, replayed it once and filed it away.  I totally forgot the sides were switched until this week.   Side 2 is better, and I also forgot they covered Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle" long before the Black Crowes made it a hit.

So, yeah, it being Thanksgiving, I would say this is my Thanksgiving, the Alice's Restaurant length song is "Smokestack Lightnin'."  Reel in the dullness, and give in.  It gives a middle finger on some level.  The Dead make some people so angry, I can't help but love them.   Last week we were talking about the switch to their own label the same year this was released with Wake of the Flood.  Odd that Bears Choice was even less commercial than Wake.  Can you say contract fulfillment?  Laid back jams and frat party covers like "Wake Up Little Susie"  and "Good Lovin'."

Ah-ooo, ooh. Ah-ooh, ooh.

Ah-ooh.

All I can do is smile.