Grateful Dead - Best of the Grateful Dead Live Vol. 1: '69-'77 LP

The band’s refusal to ever play a song the same way twice has endeared generations of fans, many of whom prefer certain live versions of songs over their studio counterparts, and garnered the popular phrase among Dead Heads: “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” The live albums the band released during its 30-year career are the primary source for the collection, including tracks like Bertha from Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses) (1971), Fire On The Mountain from Dead Set (1981), and The Music Never Stopped from One From the Vault (1991). A testament to its ongoing popularity, the revered double-album Europe ’72 (1972), is represented by no less than five tracks, including Sugar Magnolia, Jack Straw and a searing rendition of Morning Dew. Other performances on the set were selected from the growing number of live releases that have emerged since the death of founding member Jerry Garcia in 1995. Some of those recordings include Touch Of Grey from Truckin’ Up To Buffalo (2005), a 1990 version of Eyes Of The World with saxophonist Branford Marsalis featured on Wake Up To Find Out (2014), and Estimated Prophet, which debuted earlier this year as part of Cornell 5/8/77, a recording of the Grateful Dead’s mythic show at Cornell University in 1977, thought by many to be the band’s greatest live performance.