Road Trips: Volume 3, Number 2
$19.98
Austin 11/15/71
Road Trips Rides into Texas for Fall ’71 Gems
Years before Willie Nelson called it home, and decades before South By Southwest gave it international hip cache, Austin was Texas’ only hippie-tolerant city. It had bohemian coffee houses and clubs that served up psychedelic bands playing in front of mind-bending light shows. So is it any wonder that Austin was the first city in Texas to really take a shine to the Good Ol’ Grateful Dead?
The band first played the Austin Municipal Auditorium during a swing through Texas in February 1970, surprising (and delighting) a crowd that was no doubt expecting an evening of music from their most recent album, Live Dead, by playing a lot more folk and country-influenced material (including a short acoustic set). By the time the Dead returned to Municipal Auditorium on November 15, 1971, they had resoundingly affirmed their interest in Americana by putting out the twin masterpieces Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty (as well as the live “Skull & Roses”), but the band still had a few surprises up their sleeves, including a great young piano player, Keith Godchaux, and a cornucopia of fine new songs. The entire fall ’71 tour showed the thrilling impact that Keith’s arrival had on the Dead’s ever-morphing sound – talk about a quick study! – and Austin, just his sixteenth show with the band, is certainly among the strongest of that era, and a worthy choice for the latest installment in our Road Trips series, presented in its entirety. (For those of you keeping score at home, this is Volume 3, No. 2.)
There’s a freshness and spontaneity to the playing in this show that is a wonder to behold. It sounds like the group is exploring new musical worlds together, and indeed that is precisely what was happening: New songs introduced that summer and fall and played that night in Austin include “Jack Straw,” “One More Saturday Night,” “Mexicali Blues,” “Ramble On Rose,” “El Paso” and “You Win Again”; and several more date back just to the beginning of the year – “Bertha,” “Playing in the Band,” “Deal,” “Loser,” “Me and Bobby McGee.” The addition of Keith’s imaginative piano flourishes brought a new spark to all of those songs and in general inspired the rest of the group.
However, the reason this show is so revered among hard core fans is a pair of remarkable stretches of improvisatory genius – one in the first set, another in the second. On Disc One, you’ll find an amazing sequence of tunes that moves from “Dark Star” (a relative rarity in ’71) to “El Paso” (perfect for a Texas audience, of course!), back into more deep space, and finally landing at “Casey Jones.” And at the end of the show, on Disc Two, the Austin crowd is treated to what is, in my humble opinion, one of the best-ever versions of “Not Fade Away” > “Goin’ Down the Road” > “Not Fade Away,” loaded with beautiful and surprising musical turns and propelled by the can-do confidence of a band reveling in its new-found power. It’s prime Dead, for sure.
Sound quality is crisp and clean, and sonic sultan Jeffrey Norman has once again mastered the whole deal to the HDCD spec. Included, as always, is a booklet with a lively historical essay and cool period pics.
– Blair Jackson
Track List
Recorded live at Municipal Auditorium Austin, TX (November 15, 1971)
All selections are previously unissued recordings
DISC 1
1. Truckin’
2. Bertha
3. Playing In The Band
4. Deal
5. Jack Straw
6. Loser
7. Beat It On Down The Line
8. Dark Star>
9. El Paso>
10. Dark Star
11. Casey Jones
12. One More Saturday Night
DISC 2
1. Me And My Uncle
2. Ramble On Rose
3. Mexicali Blues
4. Brokedown Palace
5. Me And Bobby McGee
6. Cumberland Blues
7. Sugar Magnolia
8. You Win Again
9. Not Fade Away>
10. Jam>
11. Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad>
12. Not Fade Away
13. Johnny B. Goode
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Road Trips Volume 3 Number 2
Live album by Grateful Dead
Released February 24, 2010
Recorded November 15, 1971
Genre Rock
Length 151:41
bonus disc: 74:43
Label Grateful Dead
Producer Grateful Dead
Road Trips Volume 3 Number 2 is two-CD live album by the American rock band the Grateful Dead. The tenth in their “Road Trips” series of albums, it was released on February 24, 2010. It contains the complete concert recorded on November 15, 1971, at Austin Memorial Auditorium in Austin, Texas. This concert was the 16th concert after Keith Godchaux joined the Grateful Dead on piano. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan did not perform at this or any of the October and November, 1971 concerts due to poor health.
A third, “bonus” disc was included with early shipments of the album. The bonus disc contains material from the concert held the previous evening, November 14, 1971, at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
Other live Grateful Dead albums recorded during this same concert tour are Dick’s Picks Volume 2 and Grateful Dead Download Series Volume 3.
Track listing
Disc One
First set:
Truckin’ (Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Robert Hunter) – 9:21
Bertha (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:03
Playing in the Band (Weir, Hunter) – 6:34
Deal (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:13
Jack Straw (Weir, Hunter) – 5:32
Loser (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:41
Beat It on Down the Line (Jesse Fuller) – 3:41
Dark Star > (Garcia, Hunter) – 12:49
El Paso (Marty Robbins) – 4:55
Dark Star (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:45
Casey Jones (Hunter, Garcia) – 5:52
One More Saturday Night (Weir) – 5:01
Disc Two
Second set:
Me and My Uncle (John Phillips) – 3:35
Ramble On Rose (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:42
Mexicali Blues (Weir, John Perry Barlow) – 3:42
Brokedown Palace (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:51
Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson, Fred Foster) – 6:27
Cumberland Blues (Garcia, Lesh, Hunter) – 6:35
Sugar Magnolia (Weir, Hunter) – 7:37
You Win Again (Hank Williams) – 2:43
Not Fade Away > (Buddy Holly, Norman Petty) – 5:56
Jam > – 6:34
Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad > (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) – 8:28
Not Fade Away (Holly, Petty) – 3:38
Encore:
Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry) – 4:26
Bonus Disc
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, November 14, 1971:
China Cat Sunflower > (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:07
I Know You Rider (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) – 6:34
Sugaree (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:10
Truckin’ > (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) – 10:35
Drums > (Bill Kreutzmann) – 4:24
The Other One > (Weir, Kreutzmann) – 8:50
Me and My Uncle > (Phillips) – 3:17
The Other One > (Weir, Kreutzmann) – 12:15
Wharf Rat > (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:44
Sugar Magnolia (Weir, Hunter) – 6:47
Personnel
Grateful Dead
Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
Keith Godchaux – piano
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals
Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
Production
Produced by Grateful Dead
Produced for release by David Lemieux & Blair Jackson
Recording by Rex Jackson
CD Mastering by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering, Petaluma, CA
Cover Art by Scott McDougall
Back Cover Photo by Bob Seidemann
Interior Photos by Mary Ann Mayer
Package Design by Steve Vance