Down the Road: Grateful Dead’s ‘Skull & Roses’ Album Expanded with Unreleased Show
Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary series keeps on truckin’ with the June 18 reissue of the band’s 1971 eponymous live album also known as their “Skull and Roses” album after the cover artwork by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse. While the Dead was still a young band at that point, Grateful Dead was their second double-LP live album following 1969’s Live/Dead. It also was one of their most successful LPs, peaking at No. 25 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and earning their first Gold sales certification. It remained their best-seller until the 1974 collection Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead surpassed it. Today’s announcement marks 50 years from the date of the first show represented on the release, March 24, 1971, from San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom.
The centerpiece of the reissue is more than hour of previously unreleased music from another famed SF venue, Bill Graham’s Fillmore West, recorded on July 2, 1971 during the Dead’s final show at the Fillmore West. Highlights include “Good Lovin’,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried,” and a closing medley of “Not Fade Away” and “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad.”
Grateful Dead will arrive as a 2-CD set with the additional live tracks and a 2-LP, 180-gram black vinyl edition of the original album only. Dead.net has an black-and-white propeller vinyl variant (limited to 5,000 copies). In any format, Grateful Dead finds Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan in fine form for four sides, or 70+ minutes, of music recorded in March-April 1971 at Winterland as well as New York’s Fillmore East and Hammerstein Ballroom.
The original album released on October 24, 1971 did employ some vocal and instrumental overdubs, however, including from Garcia’s frequent collaborator Merl Saunders whose organ tends to overshadow Pigpen’s. Saunders played on the three new original songs “Bertha,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Playing in the Band.” The latter became one of the Dead’s most-played songs of all time (fourth most-played, to be exact) and was later recorded by the solo Weir on his 1972 album Ace. The third side of Grateful Dead was an all-covers set, with John Phillips’ “Me and My Uncle,” the Luther Dixon/Al Smith-penned Jimmy Reed hit “Big Boss Man,” Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
The album has been remastered from the original stereo master tapes by David Glasser using the Plangent Process, and new liner notes have been written by Gary Lambert. Look for the various editions of the Dead’s “Skull and Roses” classic on June 18 from Rhino. You’ll find pre-order links as well as a discography below!
Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses): 50th Anniversary Edition (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2021)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP Black Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Dead.net (B&W Vinyl)
Disc 1: Original album (released as Warner Bros. 2WS-1935, 1971)
- Bertha
- Mama Tried
- Big Railroad Blues
- Playing in the Band
- The Other One
- Me & My Uncle
- Big Boss Man
- Me & Bobby McGee
- Johnny B. Goode
- Wharf Rat
- Not Fade Away/Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad
Recorded live at The Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, CA – 3/24/1971 (9), The Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY – 4/5 (3 and 11) and 6 (4)/1971 and The Fillmore East, New York, NY – 4/26 (2, 7, 10), 27 (1, 8), 28 (5), 29 (6)/1971
Disc 2: Live at The Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA – 7/2/1971 (previously unreleased)
- Good Lovin’
- Sing Me Back Home
- Mama Tried
- Cryptical Envelopment >
- Drums >
- The Other One
- Big Boss Man
- Not Fade Away >
- Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad
- Not Fade Away
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6 thoughts on “Down the Road: Grateful Dead’s ‘Skull & Roses’ Album Expanded with Unreleased Show”
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why is this getting the 50th treatment but ‘Live/Dead’ didn’t? asking for a non-aficionado friend
Probably because the full Fillmore West ‘69 run was released awhile back?
Still, reissuing the original mix of Live/Dead, — and perhaps a previously unreleased show from ‘69 as a bonus — would’ve been great.
Instead, here we get a woefully partial version of 1971 show (The band’s final Fillmore West show). I’ve read the full show isn’t in the vault, but I’m pretty sure the full show circulated among traders.
It was broadcast on the radio, and I thought tapes existed due to Bill Graham having all the shows during the final week of Fillmore West recorded for a (Columbia?) compilation album.
Anyhow, without the full show it’s a pass for me. My current Rhino version of Skull & Roses sounds great, and I don’t need to buy it again if there isn’t a compelling reason to.
thanks for the rundown. i recently picked up the ’03 Rhino version of this expecting it not to get the 50th treatment.
watched Dave Lemieux’s announcement vid this morning and, aside from the usual “sounds better than ever” stuff, it seems like part of the reason they’re doing this is because of the big gap between studio albums, which the 50th campaign is centered around.
Right. This was the only 1971 release, so there’s your only 2021 anniversary release.
Next year, not sure what they can do. Europe ‘72? They released that entire tour a while back, so what can they possibly do for that?
They could do anniversary editions of “Garcia” and Weir’s “Ace,” but what do you for those? Demos/outtakes, perhaps, but aside from that?
If they don’t have a release next year, next up is Wake of the Flood in 2023. That’s a long gap from 2020, no doubt why Skull & Roses is happening.
But last year’s (WD and AB) got two bonus discs. Why a single bonus disc here is puzzling.
In 2015 i bought Europe ’72 concerts discs. I still haven’t listened all of them. Two months ago i finally got box to them. If i remember correctly total sum of them both was $900!
overdubs on a live show. that shows ya.