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Dave's Picks Complete Set from 2022 Volume 41-44 w/Bonus Disc

#41: You can listen to Grateful Dead records over and over again and never understand the attraction they have for certain people until you attend one of their concerts. Sometime during the Dead's usual five-hour set, it will all click: Jerry Garcia's Indian bead string of notes on the guitar, the ozone ooze of the vocal harmonies, the shifting, shuffling rhythm of bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann, and the distant echo of the oldest of American folk music. - Columbia Flier

"Certain people" will know that we're coming in hot with one that's got all these things and more, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 41: BALTIMORE CIVIC CENTER, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, 5/26/77 . Yes, there's still plenty of spectacular May '77 to go around. Nearly chosen for Dave's Picks Vol. 1, 5/26/77 delivers three-fold. There's one count for the energy - all the precision of the Spring tour conjuring up the raw power of the Fall tour that was to come. There's another for the setlist which featured beloved songs from WORKINGMAN'S DEAD and soon-to-be favorites from the freshly recorded TERRAPIN STATION. And a third for its element of surprise (or shall we say surprises) from an astonishingly peak 15-minute "Sugaree" to new delights ("Sunrise," "Passenger," "Jack-A-Roe") to a rare first-set finale of "Bertha" to the second set's "Terrapin>Estimated>Eyes," traveling leaps and bounds towards the improvisational journey that is a nearly 17-minute "Not Fade Away."

Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 41: BALTIMORE CIVIC CENTER, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, 5/26/77 was recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering.

#42: One more Saturday night at Winterland! Yes, we're back to home base for DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 42, the complete show from Winterland, San Francisco, 2/23/74. The one that featured the earliest amalgamation of what would soon become the Wall of Sound, the one that is so "loud, clear, and defined," it's been ripe for release for quite some time and we're glad it's finally getting its due.

First set or second, there are no wrong answers here. From the unique show opener of Chuck Berry's "Around And Around" and an incredible "Here Comes Sunshine" that would then disappear for 18 years, to a medley of WAKE OF THE FLOOD tracks - "Row Jimmy," "Weather Report Suite," and "Stella Blue" - cementing their status in the canon and an unstoppable hour through the classic 1973-1974 Dead that is “He’s Gone”>“Truckin’”>“Drums”>“The Other One”>“Eyes Of The World,” it's all exceptionally hot.

Also includes the subscribers-only bonus disc from 2/22/74.

Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 42: WINTERLAND, SAN FRANCISCO, 2/23/74 was recorded by Kidd Candelario and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

#43: A sealed, unlabeled box sat undisturbed for decades on a shelf in the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael tape vault on Front Street, its contents an enduring mystery, even to those few with access to the vault. All David Lemieux knew about that box when he became the Dead’s archivist was that it contained tapes belonging to Bear—Owsley Stanley, the Dead’s first soundman and architect of the Wall of Sound. Even in the Dead Heads’ Holy of Holies, the taped-up box was tantalizing. But this was Bear’s personal property, and so he didn’t touch the box out of an abiding respect for the elder luminary of sound. Bear’s archive of Sonic Journal recordings had been kept safe for him for years within the Grateful Dead’s vault—over 1,300 reels of tape stored in heavy-duty cartons like old banana boxes. At any time, David could have popped the tops and explored them to his archivist heart's content. But they were off-limits without the nod from Bear. - Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell, Owsley Stanley Foundation

With a wink and a nod from Bear, we've peeled back those banana boxes to find some of the oldest and rarest of all recordings of the Dead including the double dose of shows that make up DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43. The two virtually complete performances from San Francisco 11/2/69, Live At Family Dog At The Great Highway, and from Dallas 12/26/69, McFarlin Auditorium, are complementary in their clarity and consistency thanks to Bear himself, and in their ability to foreshadow where the Dead were headed in the years to come. If the two killer 20-minute+ "Dark Stars" don't get ya, how about the Pigpen-centric sets featuring "Midnight Hour," "Next Time You See Me," "Big Boss Man," "Good Lovin'," and the once-lost-now-found complete rendition of "Dancing In The Streets," or the first full acoustic set ever performed? And we're certain you'll be fascinated to uncover the "Mystery Of Bear's Banana Boxes" as told by Starfinder Stanely, Hawk, and Pete Bell in the liners.

Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43 was recorded by Owlsey "Bear" Stanley and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

#44: We're easin' on into the last Dave's Picks of the 2022 series with the complete show from AUTZEN STADIUM, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE, OREGON, 6/23/90 and you're going to need your sunglasses because the forecast for this one is bright. Doors were at noon with Little Feat opening (fun fact: Little Feat's Lowell George produced SHAKEDOWN STREET) and the Grateful Dead taking the stage at 2pm to deliver what is surely one of their longest performances and what can most certainly be classified as an upper-echelon late-Brent era show.

It's lazy in the best possible way, with the band taking their time to get each note just right, giving Dead Heads a real chance to soak in the day's incarnations of long-worn favorites like "West L.A. Fadeaway," "Tennessee Jed," "They Love Each Other," and "Cassidy" in the first set, and the occasion to lose themselves in the second set's crescendo of jams capped off with a shimmering "Morning Dew" and of course, a rocking "One More Saturday Night."

Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 44: AUTZEN STADIUM, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE, OREGON 6/23/90 was recorded by (no, not Dave himself, as you will soon learn from the liners) Dan Healy and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

P.S. Remember how we couldn't fit "Cold Rain and Snow" from Dallas 12/26/69 on Dave's Picks 43? You'll have it here now to complete the two shows from Volume 43.

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