It's a rainbow full of sound (The Grateful Dead) #122-123

The Grateful Dead The Music Never Stopped/ Help On The Way (United Artists, K6169, 1975)

The Grateful Dead Johnny B. Goode/ Elvin Bishop Group So Fine (Warner Bros. Records, B 7627, 1972)

The Grateful Dead and singles don't really go together and, lo and behold - here are two of the beasts in my collection.

The strangest one is definitely their version of Johnny B Goode. A more unlikely rock and roll band you'd be hard pressed to find. If I think about great versions of this I can never go past Jimi Hendrix and his incendiary blast on Hendrix In The West. But The Dead? Why O why Garcia?

The Music Never Stopped is different - a brilliant mid period Dead song  from one of my favourite albums. But a single?

Hidden gem: Elvin Bishop doesn't have much in common with the Dead musically so, aside from cynical record company marketing, I have no idea why they'd be paired up on this single. It's an okay song but it's hard to recall it 5 minutes after you've heard it.