Very Rare Pressing of the Grateful Dead 2 LP set "Live"...Lp Cover shows flaws with spine wear..overall front wear and seam wear VG/Fair..Record is the Rare W7 (Stereo Pressing  WS 1830 which is getting harder to find these days..Record shows some light sleeves but no major marks.Lp is graded a VG+..Also has the Rare Pamphlet( 8.5" X 11" bi-fold art and lyric book included (shown in photo   Buyer to pay $4.00 s/h Thanks for looking Live/Dead
Live/Dead by ReleasedNovember 10, 1969RecordedJanuary 26 – March 2, 1969Length75:07
Bob Matthews
Betty Cantor chronology
(1969)Live/Dead
(1969)
(1970)Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRating  A+

Live/Dead is the first official  released by the -based band . It was recorded over a series of live concerts in early 1969 and released later in the year on November 10. At the time of its release,  wrote that side two of the double album "contains the finest rock improvisation ever recorded." A landmark live album that captured the Grateful Dead's improvisations at their best— would write that "Few recordings have ever represented the essence of an artist in performance as faithfully as Live/Dead".

It was the final album with keyboardist .

The album was remastered and released with hidden bonus tracks as part of the 2001 box set , and subsequently as a stand-alone album in 2003.

"Dark Star", "St. Stephen", "Death Don't Have No Mercy", "Feedback" and "We Bid You Goodnight" were later released (with their entire concerts) on the respective February 27, 1969 and March 2, 1969 discs on the  box set (the first 1:34 of "Dark Star" can be found on the previous track, "Mountains of the Moon"). "Feedback" and "We Bid You Goodnight" were also released on the triple disc, highlights release .

In 2003, the album was ranked number 244 on  magazine's list of .

History

The songs were recorded with a mobile 16-track studio. also asked Ron Wickersham to invent a mic splitter that fed both into the PA and the record inputs with no loss in quality."" and "St. Stephen" pairing was taken from the February 27, 1969 show at the ; "The Eleven" and "Turn On Your Love Light" were from the January 26, 1969 show at the ; "Death Don't Have No Mercy," "Feedback," and "And We Bid You Goodnight" were from the March 2, 1969 show at the .

Unlike in later years, in early 1969 the contents of the Dead's  varied little. They improvised the medley of "Dark Star"/"St. Stephen"/"The Eleven" several times a week, which enabled them to explore widely within the songs' simple frameworks. The album was a financial success for the band in the eyes of their label, Warner Bros. Constanten had commented that "Warner Bros. had pointed out that they had sunk $100,000-plus into Aoxomoxoa ... so someone had the idea that if we sent them a double live album, three discs for the price of one wouldn't be such a bad deal."

A six-and-a-half-minute edit of "Turn On Your Lovelight" was issued first on the album The Big Ball in 1970, and later on . A two-and-a-half minute edit of "Dark Star" was released on the soundtrack album for , an  film for which Garcia created additional music. The album's version of St. Stephen appears on the 1977 Grateful Dead compilation , but fades out during the final verse.

Artwork[]

The cover art for Live/Dead is by Robert Donovan (Bob) Thomas. The word "Live" is seen on the front cover, and the word "Dead" fills the back cover. The top part of the word "Dead" on the back cover spells "acid", a slang term for .

The original Warner Bros. LP [#2WS 1830] included an 8.5" X 11" bi-fold art and lyric book containing the lyrics to "Saint Stephen", "The Eleven", and "Dark Star".************

Track listing Side oneNo.TitleLength1."" (, , , , , , and )23:18Side twoNo.TitleLength2."" (Garcia, Hunter, and Lesh)6:313."" (Hunter and Lesh)9:18Side threeNo.TitleLength4."" ( and Joseph Scott)15:05Side fourNo.TitleLength5."Death Don't Have No Mercy" ()10:286."Feedback" (, Garcia, Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, and Weir)7:497."And We Bid You Goodnight" (Traditional, arr. by Grateful Dead)