Ship of fools (Grateful Dead (LP 945 - 948)

Grateful Dead  Wake Of The Flood (Vinyl, Grateful Dead Records/ Atlantic, 1973) ***  

Grateful Dead  Grateful Dead From The Mars Hotel (Vinyl, Grateful Dead Records/ Atlantic, 1974) ****  

Grateful Dead  Terrapin Station (Vinyl, Arista, 1977) ****

Grateful Dead  Shakedown Street (Vinyl, Grateful Dead Records/ Atlantic, 1978) ***   

Genre: San Francisco rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records/ Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Terrapin Station

Gear costume: Ship Of Fools (Mars Hotel);

Active compensatory factors: The studio albums in the seventies are under-appreciated I feel, and are ripe for reappraisal and rediscovery. 

While Wake Of The Flood has a brilliant cover, it is a somewhat downbeat, transitional album, with new members, the Godchauxs, now fully replacing Pigpen. Even so it includes the standout Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo.

After that one they revived quickly and put together a good run of radio friendly, fun records from then onwards.

I like both Mars Hotel and Terrapin Station a lot. They are more upbeat, more confident with the new members and while they still seem constrained in the studio they could at least update their sound in that setting.

Side two of Terrapin Station has the title track in eight parts and I adore this brilliant song, principally written by Garcia/Hunter but including compositional contribution from all the band. It is a delight! Everything works spectacularly on this track - the quasi medieval instrumental sections, and the singing by Garcia is superb. Robert Hunter's lyrics are again unique!

I'm also quite partial to their final seventies album - Shakedown Street. Not only featuring a brilliant cover by Gilbert Shelton, but with Lowell George as producer (shortly before he passed away).

He sets up a very cool California soft rock groove for the album.

I bought Terrapin and Shakedown while working at Marbecks in my varsity holidays and they, along with 1980's Go To Heaven, formed a lot of the soundtrack for these years. Special times with special people!

Where do they all belong? For some reason I've never bought Blues For Allah - also from this period. I'll have to rectify that. The eighties and beyond to come.