Everything Delightful: Rhino Celebrates 60 Years of the Dead with "Gratest Hits"

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Grateful Dead's 60th anniversary keeps on truckin'; we've already filled you in on the mammoth May 30 release Enjoying the Ride, with 450 tracks on 60 CDs, and its slimmed-down 3CD or 6LP highlights volume, The Music Never Stops, which arrives on the same date. Now, Rhino has announced Gratest Hits (spelling intentional), a single-CD or -LP collection due June 13 which brings together many of the core favorites that a casual fan or Deadhead-in-training would expect on such a set in their original studio renditions.

The last attempt at a single-disc best-of for the Dead arrived in 2003 with The Very Best of Grateful Dead, a 17-song, single-CD anthology. Gratest Hits is considerably shorter at just nine songs; eight of those (all except "Scarlet Begonias" as originally heard on From the Mars Hotel) appeared on The Very Best of. Nearly half of Gratest Hits ("Friend of the Devil," "Box of Rain," "Sugar Magnolia," and "Truckin'") has been culled from 1970's seminal American Beauty, one of two landmark LPs in an Americana vein released by the band that year. The other, Workingman's Dead, is represented by "Casey Jones" but, inexplicably, "Uncle John's Band" (the Dead's first chart hit and a classic rock radio staple which appeared on the group's very first compilation, 1974's Skeletons from the Closet) has been left off this set.

Only four tracks from post-1970 are included here: 1974's "Scarlet Begonias," 1978's reggae-flecked "Fire on the Mountain" (often paired as a live jam with "Scarlet Begonias"), 1977's Bob Weir-penned "Estimated Prophet," and, finally, the band's 1987 surprise hit "Touch of Grey," the Dead's one and only top ten Pop hit (and a Mainstream Rock chart-topper).

In February 2024, The Dead became the artist with the most albums to reach the Billboard 200's top 40 (surpassing even Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra); will the rather lean Gratest Hits add to that tally? This celebration of the music of Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and company arrives in stores on June 13. You'll find the track listing and pre-order links for the CD below. (Vinyl links are TBD.) As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Grateful Dead, Gratest Hits (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2025) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Casey Jones
Friend of the Devil
Box of Rain
Sugar Magnolia
Truckin'
Scarlet Begonias
Fire on the Mountain
Estimated Prophet
Touch of Grey

Track 1 From Workingman's Dead, Warner Bros. LP WS 1869, 1970
Tracks 2-5 From American Beauty, Warner Bros. LP WS 1893, 1970
Track 6 From From The Mars Hotel, Grateful Dead LP GD 102, 1974
Track 7 from Shakedown Street, Arista LP AB 4198, 1978
Track 8 from Terrapin Station, Arista LP AL 7001, 1977
Track 9 From In The Dark, Arista LP AL/ARCD 8452, 1987

Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with Real Gone Music, has released newly-curated collections produced by Joe from iconic artists such as Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Chet Atkins, and many others. He has contributed liner notes to reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, B.J. Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, and Andy Williams, and has compiled releases for talents including Robert Goulet and Keith Allison of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray. Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.