Grateful Dead Debut Album - Grateful Dead Album Review

This album holds up the test of time. The main thing I would say about it is that it doesn't really have the character of the Grateful Dead we have come to know. Rather it sounds like a typical rock band from this time period.

The album is almost... cute in this regard. If you listen to Sitting on Top of the World with it's funny little punches and immediate fadeout when the guitar solo begins, it sounds like music that would be in the background of an old dated commercial.

In my opinion, the bona fide highlights are:

1. The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion) - a summer of love classic. I've loved this song since the first time I heard it (on the Skeletons from the Closet compilation cassette of course). This song does sound a little "un-Dead like" in it's rushed delivery and cumbersome overdubs but I've always really loved this tune

2. Cold Rain and Snow - on Wikipedia it says this song is a Grateful Dead composition but I've always assumed it was a traditional tune the Dead appropriated. Cold Rain and Snow is a real favorite Dead song for me and I always crank it up and I also enjoy every incarnation of it through the years (getting slower and slower).

3. (Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew - considering the rest of the tracks on this debut LP and how pop/commercial they sounded, this one had the musical swell at the beginning and a decent length guitar solo and therefore sounds like the Grateful Dead were sounding like themselves rather than just making "Top 40" A.M. radio music.

4. Viola Lee Blues - the highlight really of the whole record in my opinion. It has a nice fat jam in the middle, plenty of soloing - now this sounds like early Grateful Dead - the psychedelic acid rock jam band from SF. Viola Lee Blues is a really cool and catchy song and I wish that it would've been played throughout more of the Grateful Dead's career but I know that Phil brought the song back sometime after Jerry's death so that's cool to know.

The rest of the songs are pretty good too. It kind of sounds like Jerry is trying to hard to "sing" and he is over enunciating everything and who knows maybe he wasn't very comfortable being in the studio and singing with headphones on etc. His voice sounds unnatural but still I like this.

One time I think someone told me that Cream Puff War was the only Grateful Dead song that Jerry wrote all music and lyrics by himself. It is a pretty cool song but not a favorite of mine per se. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl also deserves a mention for being such a great Pigpen song.

I don't consider this to be a great Grateful Dead studio album, but then again I've never considered the Grateful Dead to be that great in the studio.

Grateful Dead Debut Album Rating on a Scale of 1-10: 8.8

Disclaimer: This is part of my blog that reviews all things Grateful Dead for fun. Music is a beautiful thing because it is so personal and subjective, so keep in mind that this is one man's opinion (and be sure to read my blog manifesto to understand a little more about where I'm coming from).