Welcome to Classic Cadillac Records!  My goal is to provide each and every customer with the best possible buying experience, no matter the size of the order.  Unlike most sellers, I advertise all my items clearly and in as much detail as possible, without shouting at you in all caps.  I take multiple high quality pictures and never use stock photos, so you know exactly what you’re buying.  I take great pride in my work and go the extra mile, which can clearly be seen in my listings compared to other sellers that put minimal effort into theirs.  I visually grade all my records as accurately as possible and will never grade anything above Near Mint unless it’s still sealed.  Please note that a visual grade can differ from a play grade, and am happy to spot check a record upon request.   All orders are shipped within 1 business day (usually sooner) and packed with extra care to ensure fast, safe arrival.  I combine shipping on multiple orders to save you money and gladly ship worldwide.  Please look closely at all pictures, read all relevant details and ask any questions you may have before buying.  I offer a full 30-day return policy on everything I sell, so buy with confidence!  And most importantly, thanks for looking!

American Beauty by ReleasedNovember 1, 1970RecordedAugust–September 1970Studio,  Length42:21 Grateful Dead  chronology
(1970)American Beauty
(1970)
(1971) from American Beauty ""/""
Released: January 1971 Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingA−

American Beauty is the fifth  by rock band the . Released November 1, 1970, by , the album continued the  and  style of their previous album , issued earlier in the year. Though the  approach is still evident in the songwriting, comparatively the sound focused more on folk harmonies and major-key melodies, showing influence from  and .

Upon release, American Beauty entered the  chart, ultimately peaking at number 30 during a nineteen-week stay in January 1971. On July 11, 1974, the album was certified  by the , and it later reached Platinum and Double Platinum certification in 1986 and 2001, respectively. In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on  magazine's list of .

Recording

American Beauty was the result of a prolific period of the songwriting partnership of  and  – one that yielded two studio albums in one year for the Grateful Dead. This was the only time the band would return to the studio so quickly. However, unlike the previous effort, where almost all the songs were written solely by the pair, the album saw more input from the rest of the band. Included are  "" and  "", both written with Hunter, and "Operator",  only singing-songwriting effort on a Grateful Dead studio album.

The album was produced after the discovery that the band's manager, Lenny Hart (father of drummer ), had renewed their contract with Warner Brothers Records without their knowledge, and then skipped town with a sizable chunk of the band's wealth. In between near-constant touring and gigging, recording began only a few months after the release of Workingman's Dead – without their regular sound crew, who were out on the road as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour (which the Dead were originally scheduled to join). Instead, studio staff engineer  replaced Bob Matthews as producer – "a move that irks Matthews to this day". Barncard also mused "I had heard bad stories about engineers' interactions with the Dead but what I found were a bunch of hardworking guys".

Both Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were innovative at the time for their fusion of , , , and, especially,  music. Lyricist Hunter commented "We went back into American folk tradition but, being experimenters, nothing would do but that we try to reinvent that." Compared to Workingman's Dead, American Beauty had even less lead guitar work from , who increasingly filled the void with . It was also during the recording of this album that Garcia first collaborated with  . "I just bumped into Jerry at a baseball game in Fairfax, and he said, 'Hey, you wanna play on this record we're doing?'" commented Grisman, whose playing is heard on "" and especially "". , another musician from outside of the band, added keyboards to three songs. Drummer  commented, "Wales came to us through Jerry, who played with him in side projects. [He] had done session work with  and  before we brought him in for American Beauty."  student , a jazz pianist who had corresponded with the band after attending their 1969 New Year's Eve concert at the Boston Tea Party, also contributed piano to "Candyman". Lagin subsequently  with the band on occasion from 1970 to 1975.

Phil Lesh, in his autobiography Searching for the Sound, commented "the magnetism of the scene at 's recording studio made it a lot easier for me to deal with [the loss of my father] and my new responsibilities. Some of the best musicians around were hanging there during that period; with  and  from , the Dead, , , , and  working there, the studio became  heaven. Thank the Lord for music; it's a healing force beyond words to describe."

"It was a surprise to us – as it was to everybody else: this machine-eating, monster-psychedelic band is suddenly putting out sweet, listenable material"

—Robert Hunter

Though both albums focused on , Workingman's Dead mixed the grittier  with the band's psychedelic roots, whereas the mostly-acoustic American Beauty focused more on major-key melodies and folk harmonies, evincing the influence of  and studio neighbors/friends . Kreutzmann later explained, "The singers in our band really learned a lot about harmonizing [from] Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who had just released their seminal album . Jerry played pedal steel... on that record.  lived at Mickey's ranch... and  enjoyed partying as much as we did. So our circles overlapped."

Crosby has demurred on this point: "Sometimes they have given us credit for teaching them how to sing and that's not true. They knew how to sing; they had their own style and they had the most important quality of it down already, which is tale-telling". However he has also stated "The idea is – when you hang out with other musicians – to sort of cross-pollinate your idea streams, and that naturally happened between us on a level that was very rare. We would listen to what they were doing with time signatures and with breaking the rules, and it appealed to us a lot."

Release

American Beauty was released just over four months after Workingman's Dead. The title of the album has a double meaning, referring both to the musical focus on Americana and to the , depicted on the front cover. Around the rose, the album title is scripted as a text  that can also be read "American Reality". The back cover is a George Conger photograph of a diorama containing ferns, roses, a bust, shadowboxes and other curios. To each side of the photo are illustrated panels with a vaguely-shaped guitar, whose strings are also rose stems. The cover artwork was produced by – Studios.

"," a blues/boogie-based rock tune with a shuffle rhythm, was also released as a single ( "Ripple"), and the songs "", "", and "" also received radio airplay. The single version of "Truckin'" is a completely different mix, with extra lead guitar fills throughout,  on Weir's vocals, fewer verses, and without Wales's organ part. The autobiographical song became the one most associated with the band, and their track most commonly played on FM radio . In his book on Garcia, Blair Jackson noted that "if you liked rock'n'roll in 1970 but didn't like the Dead, you were out of luck, because they were inescapable that summer and fall".

American Beauty peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, while the single, "Truckin'", peaked at No. 64 on the Pop Singles chart. It was the final album with Mickey Hart until his return to the band four years later, in 1975. Eight of the album's ten songs would remain in live setlists throughout the band's history.

The album was remixed for  in 2001 by Mickey Hart. This version is heavy in reverb and bass drum, and received mixed reviews. It was  and expanded with eight bonus tracks, as part of the box set  in 2001. This version was released separately in 2003.

Reception

Andy Zwerling of  felt that the album was a continuation of , though there was more care and contentment in the singing, as well as the instrument playing being rich.  also compared the album favorably to Workingman's Dead, feeling it was "sweeter vocally and more direct instrumentally".  writer Tom Zito felt that the album showed "wisdom of age" when compared to their earlier works, while maintaining an "exuberance of youth." Jason Ankeny at  feels that the album is the Dead's "studio masterpiece", and in comparing it to Workingman's Dead, it is "more representative of the group as a collective unit".

In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on  magazine's list of . The American  placed the album at number 20 in its 2007 list of "definitive 200 albums". The album is included in the book  and in 1991 Rolling Stone ranked American Beauty's  as the 57th best of all time.

Track listing

Songs written by  and  except where otherwise noted. All lead vocals by Garcia except where noted.

Side one "" (, ) – 5:18 (lead singer: Phil Lesh) "" (Garcia, , Hunter) – 3:24 "" (, Hunter) – 3:19 (lead singer: Bob Weir) "Operator" () – 2:25 (lead singer: Ron "Pigpen" McKernan) "Candyman" – 6:14 Side two "" – 4:09 "Brokedown Palace" – 4:09 "Till the Morning Comes" – 3:08 (lead singers: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh) "Attics of My Life" – 5:12 (lead singers: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh) "" – (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) – 5:03 (lead singers: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir)