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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)

1. Casey Jones
2. Friend of the Devil
3. Box of Rain
4. Sugar Magnolia
5. Truckin’
6. Scarlet Begonias
7. Fire on the Mountain
8. Estimated Prophet
9. 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​