The Classic 1973 Album and Debut From Grateful Dead Records, Newly Remastered & Expanded With Previously Unreleased Material
In 1973, following the recent passing of founding member Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and the temporary exit of drummer Mickey Hart, Grateful Dead released WAKE OF THE FLOOD. As the debut album from their own record label, Grateful Dead Records, the studio LP marked a period of transition, growth, endurance and optimism for the band, introducing a fresh lineup that included new members Keith and Donna Godchaux on keys and vocals. While songs like “Eyes Of The World,” “Stella Blue,” and “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” were largely road-tested for more than half a year beforehand, and have remained staples of live sets by any number of Dead-related bands ever since, the album and record label delivered both a profound artistic statement and proof of concept for the community, ideals and future the band were building.
WAKE OF THE FLOOD (50TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION) features the album’s seven original songs and previously unreleased demo recordings of “Eyes Of The World” and “Here Comes Sunshine.” Recorded in early 1973, just before the Grateful Dead performed on February 9th, the demos feature Jerry Garcia singing and playing a pair of new songs he and Robert Hunter had been creating.
WAKE OF THE FLOOD (50TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION) also includes a bonus disc of live material from the final night of a brief tour that immediately followed WAKE OF THE FLOOD’s release. Captured at Northwestern University’s McGaw Memorial Hall on November 1st, 1973, the set is bookended with “Weather Report Suite” and “Mississippi Half-Step,” and features one of the most creative and inspired jams of the entire run: “Morning Dew”>”Playing In The Band”>”Uncle John's Band”>”Playing In The Band.”
One Last Addition
I left out #4 - The Europe 1980 tour....given those bad SBD mixes, I quickly reconsidered.
But in the end, we all want 2/9/73, a favorite BITD for many of us. It seems so obvious, yet after over 25 years of releases I feel it isn't even on the radar due to its popularity perhaps. At least we got Louisville 74, that other classic show. So, I can't really complain either way...but I can enthusiastically suggest.
On the way
Bezos’s minions sent mine yesterday and claimed delivery today. Unfortunately, they used Royal Mail as the carrier so maybe tomorrow or maybe not. Watch this space.
Elbow 49 I have not yet but…
Elbow 49 I have not yet but I must proclaim that the FLAC file download WORKED! On Release Day of all days! BRAVO Warner. Now would love to get my hands on the rest of the vinyl cd lithograph I bought let me know anytime now. Thx
OROBOROUS
Hi Oroborous,
you're right. Didn't buy from deadnet.
Ordered it here in Germany from a popular music store about two month ago.
Maybe it's the time difference between the US and Europe?!
Sep. 29 (official release date) hits us 9 hours earlier.
Anyway, great music. Morning Dew ist playing now.....great!!!!
Wish you all a good time. Enjoy listening!
Cheers
G.
Again, great sound!
Where to buy FOTF..
Since this is not a "Dead.Net only" release, I think I will get it from one of (the few remaining) recordstores in Copenhagen..
Sounds good…
Then it Sounds good to me!
Thanks Gerd!
Forgot I could have gone Uncle Jethro, Ooopps.
Oh, well, all good things in all good time
Cue the ketchup commercial: “antici pay aa tion, it’s making me wait” 🎶
Fall/winter 73 is da shite mate!
Looking forward to this one....
Greetings Earthlings, a half-dozen of the 1973 shows and the shenanigans that went along with them got me hooked on the GD. While American Beauty and then E72 spun on the old basement turntable got me interested in fall '72, it was the summer/fall shows of '73 I attended as a young lad that made me dyed in the wool. And now that the summer 50 years later have passed (Watkins Glen, 50 years ago??), I'm ready to revisit WotF and the latest box of '73 goodies.
Just dropping by to say "hello" to all. And we have one more DaP to round out the year? How about all those '68 tapes I keep reading about???
Cheers, HF
As long as I'm talkin' to myself....
I might add that the 11-1-73 live disc here would seem to indicate that Watkins Glen, its soundcheck, and just possibly 7-31-73 and 8-1-73 may remain under consideration for release. When BB King was asked when that might be, he said:
"Someday, baby...."
Wake of the Flood
HF- I don't think anyone knows you're here! The album obviously doesn't attract much attention on here. I wondered how it was received at the time. Having seen them that summer, did it meet up with your expectations?
I started buying Dead albums in 1976, when I was 19. I liked them all, but WOTF seemed a bit of an odd one. It doesn't have the psych feel of the 60's albums, or the roots feel of Working Man's Dead and American Beauty. A bit subdued. I liked it, but it hardly reflected my lifestyle at the time. I haven't played it for a long time - unlike the earlier albums, I don't remember any of the tracks on it being anywhere near as good as the live versions played that year. As opposed to some songs from American Beauty, for example. The studio versions of "Box of Rain", "Ripple" or "Attics"remain for me the definitive ones - never bettered live.
Pssshhhaaww
I respectfully disagree. Yes WOtF sounds a bit funky perhaps, but the versions played in the studio I think are some of the best “studio” cuts they ever captured on tape! Now, I’m not saying that the songs weren’t better or became better live, just that as far as studio Dead albums I think this one is way underrated.
The versions are well played and energetic, it just has horns and sounds different.
Speaking of horns, how come nobody ever complains about the perhaps sometimes excessive ones on Bobs solo album? It just drives me nuts wondering why this superb album gets so little love?
Yes Its quite different than any other album, but you could say that about ANY GD album!
But that’s because it’s jazz man. I’ve never understood why this album isn’t loved more since many heads are also jazz nuts? Sure one could argue it’s not pure jazz, but a cool hybrid that wasn’t fusion, which made it stand out at the time since much of jazz was going that way, or Soul Jazz.
Oh well, chever way yer pleasure tends…
Always thought this one is best at this time of year too…
HENDRIXFREAK: good to see ya back. We were getting worried about ya ; )
Wake of the Flood
Hendrixfreak and Daverock ......... After graduating from Penn State in June 1973 and seeing the Dead in RFK, Watkins Glen, Jersey City and then up and down the East coast ending in Tampa in December I remember liking WOTF very much. I drove my parents crazy just graduating and doing basically nothing but following the Dead all over the place. I also remember being one of the early people to join the Grateful Dead Mailing list (Live Dead) from the Album address .......I received a letter from the Dead asking me to go to all the local Record Stores and check to see if the Numbers on the Spine were White or Orange...Because many Bootlegs were showing up since it was the Deads new record label. Eyes of the World became my Favorite Live song...And I have always loved the Album
Finally got a good listen to disc 1...
...and I love it!! It can be YEARS in between times that I listen to studio albums, so just as in this case, it sounded so FRESH to me. When this happened the last time, I played Terrapin Station (edit-I claim temporary insanity!!), for the first time in FOREVER, and it sounded fantastic!! I realized that even though there are dozens of GREAT versions of Estimated Prophet, I like the studio version better!! Row Jimmy, WRS, Mississippi Half-Step, even Here Comes Sunshine sounds absolutely shimmering!! The keys, drums, Jerry (of course!!) and the horns are brilliant!!
Now the demos?? Great googly-moogly, I love them. The keyboards on Eyes Of The World (there's 2 different ones) sound like Keith accompanied by Schroeder from Peanuts!! And I love that they both SOUND like demos, but so much the better for it!! Here Comes Sunshine definitely shows the way toward the 11-13 minute versions that came in '73/'74. Just ear pleasingly superb. And lest I forget (and I did), Let It Grow ends JUST when it's getting HOT!! The studio version should have gone 20 minutes or more.
I need more listens!!
P.S. Welcome back HF!!!!!!
Chuck
Interesting. Unlike you, I listened to the 70's Dead albums completely out of context. I read whatever books or articles I could find on them, but they still seemed very distant in a way. In 1976, I bought many of their albums, so I got WOTF at the around the same time I got Anthem and American Beauty, without having seen them live.
I didn't like jazz at all in the 70's. The musical climate in England in 76 couldn't have been more different from the Dead's. This, and 1977, were the years punk arrived, and I saw many of the main players during those years. Although I thought Working Mans and American Beauty were great, WOTF sounded very laid back in the company of The Sex Pistols! I did like it - but not as much as the earlier studio albums.
Maybe I should also say that I would far rather listen to WOTF now than any punk album that came out in 76-77.
Nice work Chuck
Putting that college degree to work seeing 73 Dead.
Yeah, good job Chuck!
Kinda like we used to joke back in our aimless twenties that we were enjoying our retirement now while we can lol.
Of course prolly be stuck working to death now to make up for it 🤔
Skipped my first day of college to see 9/2/80! I’d say I made the correct choice ; )
DR: lol, “WOTF sounded very laid back compared to the Sex Pistols” LOL no argument there lol
Big sonic difference between AB and WotF
To all, Daverock first: I did love WotF from the get-go. I was high on the live sound that summer and the LP came out in October, right after my last show of the year, Oct. 7 or 8. The more concise studio versions were welcome. I mean, I spent quite a bit of the preceding year chasing the GD and tripping my ass off, turning 16 in August. (Rock 'n roll!) So if you were a band member, fresh from a catered meal, a blast of tootskie, and a groupie waiting for you, playing Eyes for a half hour was NOTHING compared to being a psychedelic kid in the masses before the stage, blasted by an enormous sound system and jostled by thousands. I've said it before: at that stage and that age, by the time they were deep into the second set, we'd already spent the day getting there, dealing with crowds, and given the typical delays and the set break, we were 4-5 hours into the "show" and there were times I was ready for it to end. (Imagine!) That was the reality on the ground at that time -- 73 sets are infamously "generous" on length. Of course, we have to chuckle now, because ... because.
So hanging at home and putting a record on the turntable was so much more civilized than wading into the psychedelic maelstrom typical of early 70s shows....
Now to the sonics... WotF, like AB, mixed acoustic and electric instruments, but they sounded completely different. One is tempted to say a bit "sterile," not warm. That remains my impression. Somewhat like my long-held impression that Exile on Main Street sounds a bit muddy. So I look forward to a fresh listen to WotF, which has safely arrived here, to see what it sounds like at volume. (When I got it originally, I was a freshly minted 16 year-old who couldn't really blast the thing at home.) Sure I've played the reissues over the years, but these 50th's offer an opportunity for a focused (well, fairly well "focused") fresh listen.
Greetings to Oro and all my compatriots here. Truth is, I have discovered a special woman and am in hot pursuit. She is my muse now and I'm writing up a storm. Thus, some delays in HF transmissions may be expected.......
"And with that, I must be on my w-w-w-w-way..................." "What?!" igglefootzbotpfssssssssssst..........
Wake of the Flood
Thank you boys... CD sounds Awesome very happy that I got it
Live 1973
HF - it does look a bit of a big ask for a 16 year old - a 3 set Dead show being played somewhere in the distance. When I think of the live shows I went to that year - they were all very dramatic - fast, loud music, which fit the way I saw the world as a teenager. The Dead in 73 seemed more adult in way. I would be happy to lend-well, I have done - friends of my age now a Dead cd to see what they made of it. I wouldn't lend them anything by Hawkwind, for example, though. Not because I don't still like them, but because I'm not sure there's anything there that could appeal to anyone from my generation who hadn't liked them in the 70's. The Dead have broader appeal than that. In theory, anyway.
Most of WOTF worked really well live - all of it did apart from Keith's song. Maybe more songs from this album entered their live repertoire, and stayed there, than from any other Dead album.
Wooowhoo
It’s in da house! Finally
After zipping right to D town in just a day it fell pray to the Dejoy fuckery yet again.
USPS’ new mo is to not scan upon receipt from UPS so 1) you can’t track it so if they lose it they can claim they never got it, and 2) so they can let it sit around for a week before they decide to…here’s the kicker…until they decide to DO their fuggin job and deliver the mail! What a concept. This all just started with the last couple Dave’s. Last one took 2 stressful weeks from handoff, used to be like four days! Yeah good job completely ruining the postal service ya evil bastard!
My bad for not getting from uncle Jethro via full UPS….
Oh well, at least it made it , so woohoo, time to fire up the sonic blasters!
To clarify....
Daverock, my early GD shows could at times be "somewhere in the distance" (see, 19 Sept 72, I had turned 15 one month prior), but we got quite close to the stage on several occasions. We went down front for 9 June 73 at RFK (memorable China-Rider) and we were in prime position right in front of Jerry for Watkins Glen (still shy of my 16th b-day) soundcheck and show. Ditto 31 July 73, 1 August 73 (still only 15, two weeks shy of 16). In fact, I think it was the distance and disorientation of 19 Sept 72 that gave me (us) the impetus to drive in close for the action -- which to me always meant close enough to see the nonverbal cues being exchanged by the players. We had pole position much later in the game at Red Rocks, 8 July 78, when the band was jamming and, in those days, they let the crowd dance in front of the stage, so my buddy nudges me and points to the front row (we're maybe 20 rows back) and it's EMPTY. So we scurry down in time for The Other One. All that said, however, we learned the hard way about the intense but inaudible buzzing (no other word) of the highly lysergic'd audience members in the very front -- sometimes just too much for the soul to endure, especially right in front of Phil's amps, which tended to pulse purple inside your chest. So we learned the virtues of hanging back a bit. But no "Jerry as ant person" for us.
On the new WotF live disc, I've only sampled "Morning Dew" and it is majestic and jammy, more sophisticated, if you will, than the elemental early '69 version on Live/Dead. IMHO! Taking a copy of the live disc on the road right now for a one-day paddle on the mighty Green River in Utah -- the last hurrah for summer, though still one backpacking trip to go.
Get happy with '73 folks and we can look forward to one more DaP this year.
Woo-hoo, HF
Half way from the front and back
HF - with all gigs I liked to be fairly near the front, in the middle, so I could get a good balance of sound. I always thought the sound was better there than right at the front of the stage. Too near the front you also run the risk of being jostled. I don't like being jostled.
Having just listened to Dicks 19 - Oklahoma 10/19/73, what isn't in doubt is that 73 must have been an incredible year to see them - in an arena, in a stadium, in a field or on the moon.
"Jostled" hits it on the head...
Not to be an old-timer whiner, but jostling kills it for me. Add incessant talking, phone use, and selfish use of space (people bring clip-on chairs to Red Rocks that are wider than the space allotted for each ticket).
So, to sum up, I've been an avid concert goer for more than 50 years and I think these factors play a role in my semi-retirement from "big shows":
-- very few bands I really want to see or endure the bs for
-- high ticket prices (although not by "my" bands)
-- insanely greedy "fees"
-- crowds, while the same size, now kinda bother me
-- aforementioned talking, phoning, etc.
-- jostling
-- the whole enchilada
That said, I make sure to get to several "big" shows each year. 2024 will mark 50 years at Red Rocks for me. So the Tedeschi Trucks Band next summer is a lock. And I enjoy roadhouse bands that my friends play in, though the fall covid wave I can do without.
That leaves recorded music in pole position -- all fun, easy access to fridge, bathroom, do-able beer prices, etc.
Carry on! Oh, anyone speculating on the next DaP?
Yeah, it’s great
But what a tease. Ya just start to really dig in and it just stops…
On the up side, it is nice to have some good single disc stuff for when you don’t have the time but need a quick fix, but it would have been nice to get at least the whole set…
Finally! WOTF
My copy of Wake sat unlistened in my home while I have been away for 2.5 months. Finally I listened to it ... and then listened to it again, I liked it so much. I love the lush harmony vocals, and Jerry's pedal steel on Stella. Such a great album!
Kinda slow here
Kinda slow here in Wake of the Flood land. IJWTS I'm really enjoying the Good Old Grateful Podcast coverage of all the songs on WOTF. The deep dive into Eyes of the World was especially insightful. Almost done with Eyes, and its on to Prelude and Weather Report Suite. Highly recommended. Please don't Hey Now.
Wake bonus disc
Well this forum is pretty dead. I guess I'm a little late to the party. IJWTS that bonus disc is awesome!
Not sure if this is okay...
Hey- I'm not sure if this is okay or not, but I have one of the limited Wake of the Flood prints that was sold in a edition limited to 200. I'd like to sell it. I'm into it for $65 for shipping and handling. I'm asking $70 with shipping. It is still in the original mailing tube. It was opened just to look at.
I hope that pimping something to sell isn't a breach of protocol....which leads me to also having a Garcia print from Bottleneck gallery that I'm also hoping to get $70 for.
PM me if you're interested in one or both.
Thank you.
THIS WEEK'S TAPERS SECTION...
...for those of us who haven't heard it yet or purchased the 50th anniversary release of WAKE OF THE FLOOD studio album, here's a tease to hook you BIG TIME, the meat, potato, and gravy of the AWESOME NOV 1 1973