Around and Around: Grateful Dead’s “Steal Your Face” Turns 50, Gets Remastered
Grateful Dead’s series of 50th anniversary reissues rolls on with today’s announcement of a remastered vinyl edition of the 1976 live album Steal Your Face. Featuring Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Keith Godchaux, and Donna Jean Godchaux, the double album was culled from the same October 1974 Winterland shows which yielded The Grateful Dead Movie – the expanded soundtrack of which was recently reissued on vinyl by Mondo as a 10LP box set. For this vinyl edition, Steal Your Face has been newly remastered by David Glasser and sourced from the master tapes which were restored and speed-corrected using Plangent Processes. Lacquers were cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. It’s due on June 26 – 50 years to the date of its original release. The remaster will also be released in digital formats. No remastered CD has been announced.
Steal Your Face was the Dead’s only album released in 1976. Jerry Garcia was busy editing The Grateful Dead Movie, leaving Phil Lesh and engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley to revisit the 16-track tapes for a live album. They balanced what any fan might expect from such an effort, including concert favorites (“Casey Jones,” “U.S. Blues”), cuts from the bandmates’ solo albums (Weir’s “Black-Throated Wind,” Garcia’s “Sugaree”), and intriguing covers (Marty Robbins’ “El Paso,” Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” and “Around and Around,” Jesse Fuller’s “Beat It on Down the Line”). The album hit stores in June just as the band returned to the road following their 20-month sabbatical from touring. As well as chronicling the final shows featuring the band’s Wall of Sound system, Steal Your Face proved to be the final release on the original Grateful Dead Records. The band signed with Clive Davis’ Arista label shortly thereafter.
The remastered 2LP set features the Dead’s official Pantone colors, “Grateful Red” and “Stealie Blue.” An exclusive Dead.net variant adds black splatter to both discs. The center labels include the “Steal Your Face” logo’s facial features gradually fading away across the four sides of vinyl. An 11 x 11” sticker sheet is also included.
Rhino is previewing the remastered album with Weir and John Barlow’s “Black-Throated Wind,” streaming now. Archivist David Lemieux notes in the press release, “A staple of the live repertoire 1972-1974, thankfully returning in 1990, ‘Black-Throated Wind’ is widely considered one of Bob Weir’s finest compositions. Never recorded on a Grateful Dead studio album (it appeared on Bobby’s Ace album in 1972), this is the definitive Grateful Dead recording of this gem.”
You’ll find the track listing and pre-order links below. Look for Steal Your Face from Rhino/Grateful Dead on June 26. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)
Grateful Dead, Steal Your Face (Grateful Dead GD-LA620-J2, 1976 – reissued Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2026) (Dead.net / Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD)
Side One
- “Promised Land”
- “Cold Rain And Snow”
- “Around And Around”
- “Stella Blue”
Side Two
- “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”
- “Ship Of Fools”
- “Beat It On Down The Line”
Side Three
- “Big River”
- “Black-Throated Wind”
- “U.S. Blues”
- “El Paso”
Side Four
- “Sugaree”
- “It Must Have Been The Roses”
- “Casey Jones”
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21 thoughts on “Around and Around: Grateful Dead’s “Steal Your Face” Turns 50, Gets Remastered”
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No CD edition with bonus tracks this time? Disappointing.
I really hope a CD gets issued. This is the only “original” Dead album that I don’t have in my collection.
Buy vinyl.. it’s real music
I buy some but between the ridiculous amount of care that goes into maintaining a vinyl collection, the insane cost of new vinyl, having to change/flip vinyl over (Especially a consideration for live GD shows), pops, skips, etc., and you can’t play vinyl in the car and isn’t as easily portable.
Some of us are just fine with, and very much prefer CDs. It’s no less “real music” than vinyl. My ears aren’t able to discern that much difference. Hooray for you if you can.
About the worst record they ever released
Yep. As Phil Lesh called it – Steal Your Money. What a pointless reissue.
Culled from great shows, but they picked some of the less interesting tunes for the most part, taken out of full context of the shows, and it just comes off as a dull hodge-podge of songs. The GD Movie soundtrack is far superior, but even then I wish they’d just do a CD box set of that entire October ‘74 run.
Strange they’re going. 50th anniversary vinyl but no expanded CD. Then again, it’s just a weird reissue period as it’s generally considered a terrible live album.
Oddest of all, there was no 50th – on CD or vinyl – for a truly epic live album: Live/Dead. Generally considered of the great live albums of all, an expanded 50th would’ve been cool.
Dude, don’t bitch. You got your screen name from Nickelodeon.
Are you always this much a creep? Also, it’s Sesame Street, genius. Maybe you needed to pay better attention to it when you were younger. As if “John Harrison” is your name.
Anyhow, unless you have something constructive to share go back and crawl under whatever you you slithered from. I can b*tch about what I want. It’s a terrible album. Phil Lesh sure thought so. Perhaps other band members did too.
Dude, sorry I was an asshole last time. Just lost my grandson and took it out on everyone. I sincerely apologize.
And my name IS John Harrison.
As mentioned – SYF is not a great album. They also did not include it in the Beyond Description Box set.
GD did a similar vinyl only for Bear’s Choice 50th (that at least was part of the The Golden Road box with bonus material. I was more annoyed with the 50th treatment of Bear’s Choice vs SYF.
As Far as an expanded Steal Your Face, one can not beat the 5 Disc ‘The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack’, which is where the SYF tracks are from if I recall correctly.
Re The Live/Dead – there is ‘Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings’ which is definitive for the Live/Dead.
As a completist re the Boys, it appears I did unload my SYF CD, sometime after I flac’d the collection, so no love lost on it.
Yep, the Fillmore ‘69 set. Essential.
I was just thinking a Live/Dead 50th could’ve included another ‘69 show. Perhaps an ideal spot to collect some shows where only partial reels exist. They also could’ve reissued the original mix. Rhino reissued the CD with a remix and the original (Preferred by many) is no longer available. Anyhow, just random thoughts
More randomness, the GD Movie Soundtrack is great but also very incomplete. Not to mention a few songs were (badly) edited into shorter versions What Deadhead wants *shorter* songs? Dave L. needs to put out a complete Winterland ‘74 box that gives us that full run.
I started going to the Fillmore East when it opened; been to just about all Dead shows. Listening to CDS is like going to a Dead show straight..
Must be past your bedtime, Grampy. Did you forget your medication?
All of us who were there in the beginning are old,( math too hard for you), and “yes” I was a” grampa”.
Shame you never saw the original Grateful Dead.
Enjoy your CDS.
Oh yeah, I never forget my medication,Sonny.
Buy vinyl.. it’s real music
Sorry, I’m in a bitchy mood because I’m pissed at my daughter.
Have a good trip.
Yeah… Calling out others for “bitching”? Look in the mirror, Sparky. Your daughter probably has good reason to piss you off. I feel sorry for her.
I just lost my grandson,Zippy.
Watch your mouth.
As I said before, I started going to the Fillmore East when it first opened and I’ve gone to, just about every late show the Dead played.
Last time I saw them was Long Beach Convention Center in the late 80s.
I’m going to stop using this site.
I don’t want to argue with kids who never saw a Dead show for less than 10 bucks, though I did pay 2hits of blotter to get in at Watkins Glen.
Happy Trails to the Jug band.