The Grateful Dead

iTunes Review

The Grateful Dead achieved such a presence in popular music that it's sometimes hard to believe they ever actually had a first album. Phil Lesh later noted that the only track that resembles what the Dead were doing at the time is “Viola Lee Blues,” an extended jam that translates the band’s trademark rambling groove. While the rest of Grateful Dead might not achieve the musical majesty of their later works, the album still stands as one of the most enjoyable examples of early hippie rock in San Francisco. The band’s love for blues is evidenced on “New, New Minglewood Blues,” “Sitting On Top of the World,” and “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” but it is a cover of “Beat It On Down the Line” (by Bay Area street musician Jesse Fuller) that offers the clearest picture of how folk music morphed into psychedelia in the mid-‘60s. The band’s original songs stand out among the pack, a good sign. Along with anthems by Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane, “Cold Rain and Snow,” and especially the magnificent “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)” are emblematic of San Francisco at the dawn of the Summer of Love.