Grateful Dead
1995.xx.xx
The “unfinished Album Studio Sessions”
Download: FLAC/MP3
This is flac encoded & tagged version of shnid: 97111
This is a collection of songs which (if the Deadhead’s Taping Compendium is to be believed) were to have formed
the basis for the first GD studio album of the 1990’s. The material appears to be a mix of live SBD recordings (possibly
with some minor overdubs) and rehearsals; its doubtful if any of this represents actuall studio recordings aimed at an
album release.
This came into circulation in mid-1997: several sources (including the Compendium) indicate that this was intentionally
put together – possibly by John Cutler and Phil Lesh – and seeded to trading circles to counteract several “last GD album”
bootlegs that had been produced in 1995/1996 (all sourced from 1990 thru 1995 SBD or AUD recordings.
The track listing is:
1. Lazy River Road (Garcia/Hunter) 6:01
2. Easy Answers (Hunter.Bralove/Weir/Welnick/Wasserman) 6:23
3. So Many Roads (Garcia/Hunter) 5:19
4. Wave To The Wind (Lesh/Hunter) 7:22
5. Eternity (Weir/Dixon) 7:20
6. The Days Between (Garcia/Hunter) 9:56
7. Way To Go Home (Welnick/Hunter/Bralove) 7:05
8. Corinna (Weir/Hart/Hunter) 9:33
9. Liberty (Garcia/Hunter) 6:00
Total Time 64.58
History and linage: Julian Fowler September 2003
I obtained a cassette copy in the autum of the 1997 from a tree run on the rec.music.gdead newsgroup. In spite of the
numerous efforts to locate anything with a lower number of analog generations, I’ve not been able to discover anything
better than what I have now; nor does this material seem to circulate among DAT users or (until Now) CD traders.
I’ve therefore taken my casette copy and transferred it to the digital domain. The best guess that I have for the annalog
lineage is as follows:
live/rehearsal recordings (DAT and/or ADAT) > ? > cassette > at least one cassette generation > my cassette
I did the transfer using an AIWA AD-F850 tape deck, played directly into the inputs of a Yamaha DS-XG sound card.
I used CoolEdit 2000 v1.1 to do the initial analog > digital sampling, apply mild noise reduction (my source tape is
somewhat hissy, not surprising give the number of analog generations) and reduce the length of some of the
between-song gaps. I used CD Wav v1.73 to define track boundaries and mkwACT v0.97 to prepare a master
SHN disc (track boundaries verified using SHNtool.)
——Julian Fowler September 2003
From Rolling Stone, Apr 20, 1998
Although it’s common knowledge that the Grateful Dead were in the midst of recording when Jerry Garcia died almost three
years ago, former keyboardist Vince Welnick shed more light on the unfinished album in a recent conversation with the Rolling
Stone Network.
According to Welnick, the album was set to include such tour-tested songs as “Liberty,” “So Many Roads,” “Days Between,”
“Samba in the Rain,” “Way To Go,” “Corrina,” and “Easy Answers,” but Garcia passed away before the tracks could be
completed. “We had just about finished the basics when Jerry checked out,” Welnick said. “It’s a shame, because we spent
a lot of time in there.”
Although the studio tapes from the Grateful Dead’s would-be swan song are still around, Welnick doubts that the album can
be salvaged. “There weren’t even working vocals on some of the songs. There was also very little guitar. If they wanted to make
something of it, they’d probably have to splice in something from one of the show tapes.”
Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally denied that anything will ever come of the album.
“Only [Grateful Dead guitarist] Bobby [Weir] ever thought that anything could be done, but it can’t. Jerry didn’t contribute to it.
Everyone else contributed to it, but Jerry just wasn’t with it. There’s not even a title, to my knowledge.”
ISAAC JOSEPHSON
Received this from Mike Maher
