American Beauty 50, Episode 1: Box of Rain

Summary

GOOD OL’ GRATEFUL DEADCAST

American Beauty 50, Episode 1: Box of Rain

Release Date: October 1, 2020

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Episode Overview

This debut episode of Season 2 launches a deep dive into the Grateful Dead’s landmark 1970 album American Beauty, starting with its iconic opener, “Box of Rain.” Hosts Rich Mahan and Jesse Jarnow guide listeners through the song’s origins, musical construction, recording process, and indelible legacy within and beyond Grateful Dead culture. Through interviews with band insiders, recording engineers, Deadheads, and even a television show creator, this episode explores the song’s emotional roots, studio magic, and the many ways it continues to resonate.

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Thematic Summary

• Exploring “Box of Rain” as both an artistic achievement and a vessel for personal and communal grief, hope, and transformation.
• The heavy context surrounding American Beauty: band members coping with family losses and internal tension, yet creating an album marked by warmth, beauty, and enduring appeal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Context: American Beauty and the Creative Burst

(04:21 – 08:27)

• The album was created during a time of immense personal loss for several band members (notably Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia), as well as financial and managerial upheaval.
  • Jerry Garcia (1975): “There was this rash of parent deaths... It was really incredible... It was just like tragedy city.”
  • Host/Narrator: “Out came an album filled with sadness, joy, and wisdom” (04:38).
• Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty are often seen as “one continuous album” representing a singular creative peak.
  • Jerry Garcia (1988): “Workingman’s Dead, American [Beauty], kind of one record, really.”
  • Robert Hunter (1978): “We were living in the same house... we were just right there all the time.”

2. The Recording of American Beauty

(11:03 – 18:29)

• Recorded at Wally Heider’s Studio in San Francisco, engineered by Stephen Barncard.
  • Barncard describes himself as a “jazz guy,” not initially a Deadhead:
    • “I make records... I used to have a pet lizard and she’s gone just the other day...” (10:44)
  • The project emerged after the band backed out of Tom Donahue’s Medicine Ball Caravan—a “Woodstock on wheels” tour—freeing their schedule and leading them to Barncard.
    • Sam Cutler (Tour Manager): “Garcia and I thought it [the Caravan] was a shit idea. Well, it was a shit idea...” (16:43)
• Barncard and the Dead developed a unique, telepathic studio chemistry, despite equipment limitations.
  • “Phil was over there, right next to me the whole time... we had like mental communication... it was pretty magical.” (27:51 – 28:47)
• The “Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra” (PERRO):
  • American Beauty was recorded amidst a swirl of Bay Area musicians collaborating across projects, fostering a family-like creative energy.

3. Anatomy of “Box of Rain”

Writing & Meaning

(29:23 – 34:20)

• Phil Lesh wrote the chord sequence and melody, then handed it to lyricist Robert Hunter as Lesh’s father was dying of cancer.
  • Robert Hunter: “I took the tape home... started writing before I was through with the listening of it and the second listening through, I needed the lyrics up. And that was it. It happened that quick.” (33:05)
• The lyrics evoke both loss and celebration of life; the closing line (“Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there”) draws from folk antecedents (e.g., “Little Birdie” by the Stanley Brothers/Coon Creek Girls).
• “By Box of Rain, I meant the world we live on, but Ball of Rain didn’t have the right ring to my ear. So box it became, and I don’t know who put it there.” — Robert Hunter, mailbag at dead.net (35:52).
• The recording features:
  • Phil Lesh: acoustic guitar, lead vocal (his first on a Dead album)
  • David Nelson (New Riders): lead guitar
  • Dave Torbert (New Riders): bass
  • Jerry Garcia: piano (overdub)
  • Bill Kreutzmann: drums
  • Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia: harmony vocals (with Phil overdubbing some harmonies)

The Studio Experience

(41:23 – 50:49)

• Archival engineer Brian Kehew isolates the multitrack layers: Phil’s acoustic, Torbert’s bright and warm bass tones, Kreutzmann’s multipart drum mix, Nelson’s “country-picking” lead, Jerry’s overdubbed stereo piano, handclaps, tambourine, organ, and intricate vocal blend.
  • “There’s something unexpected... Phil went back and erased over Bob and Jerry’s parts, singing a new section of his own. So... it’s actually three of Phil’s voices singing together.” — Brian Kehew (48:50)
• “Box of Rain” was the last song recorded for American Beauty, with almost no studio demos existing prior—what’s on the record was among the song’s first-ever band runs-through.
  • “The take on the album is surely one of the earliest times the musicians played it together.” (41:39)

“Box of Rain” in Performance

(50:49 – 54:00, 56:46 – 59:09, 66:51 – 69:35)

• Premiered live only once in 1970 (Sept 17, Fillmore East)—an unusual arrangement with Lesh on acoustic, Garcia on piano, Nelson/Torbert from New Riders, and Weir just singing.
  • Gary Lambert: “I was witness to something really unusual... there was an acoustic piano on stage... Jerry played piano. And... the guitar solo is almost note for note what David Nelson played on the album.” (50:56)
• Entered regular live rotation in late 1972, vanished by mid-’73, then dramatically re-busted-out in 1986 after a 13-year absence.

4. “Box of Rain” and the Deadhead Community

(56:46 – 64:38)

• Rebecca Adams (Sociologist): Returned to Dead shows in 1986, happened upon the Box of Rain “bust out” after years away; this moment catalyzed her role in pioneering Grateful Dead academic studies.
  • “A wedding had taken place during set break at the Box of Rain show...” (61:40)
• The “bust out” in Hampton, VA caused “chaos and joy” among fans, highlighting the growing Deadhead community’s depth of knowledge and shared cultural moments.
  • “It was impossible not to understand that something huge was going on and it just kind of filled the hall.” — Tyler (@MrCompletely) (62:53)
• “Box of Rain” was often a setlist highlight in Dead shows from the late ‘80s onwards, connecting generations of fans, both new and old.

5. Cultural Legacy: “Freaks and Geeks” and Beyond

(70:00 – 76:58)

• The episode recounts how “Box of Rain” became central to the emotional climax of the cult series Freaks and Geeks (2000), representing the experience of falling in love with the Dead as both personal revelation and cultural rite.
  • Paul Feig (co-creator/writer): “What I wrote that everybody’s saying and what Lindsay’s discovering in that episode is exactly what I was going through when I first put it on.” (71:33)
• The scene of Lindsay Weir dancing to “Box of Rain” became a “turning point in cultural and critical acceptance” for the Dead in the 21st century.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On American Beauty’s contextual heaviness:
  • Jerry Garcia: “There was this rash of parent deaths...It was just like tragedy city.” (03:56)
  • David Lemieux: “It’s a perfect album title. It’s a perfect album cover. It’s a perfect everything. Every single song is this little piece of perfection.” (04:51)
• On “Box of Rain”’s Recording Approach:
  • Stephen Barncard: “It was teamwork all the way. I don’t think I’ve had that experience that many times.” (27:51)
• Robert Hunter on the Lyrics’ Origin:
  • “I took the tape home and I listened to it once and started writing before I was through with the listening of it and the second listening through, I needed the lyrics up. And that was it. It happened that quick.” (33:05)
  • On the title: “By Box of Rain I meant the world we live on, but Ball of Rain didn’t have the right ring to my ear. So box it became, and I don’t know who put it there.” (35:52)
• Live Impact:
  • Tyler (@MrCompletely): “For at least the first verse, you couldn’t really hear the music. It was all just chaos and joy, really. Joy.” (62:53)
  • Andrew Peerless (first show, last show, Soldier Field 1995): “I probably think every day of my life how lucky I was to see the full Grateful Dead perform Box of Rain live...it is crazy to me how lucky. I feel that in how central it is to my identity, my experience in the world...” (68:54)
• Pop Culture Impact – Paul Feig:
  • “I felt so old, first of all. But... by the end of that episode, everybody was so into that album and into the Dead. My wife completely became an absolute fan.” (72:38)

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Timestamps for Key Sections

• American Beauty recording context & context of loss: 04:21 – 08:27
• Barncard describes studio sessions: 11:03 – 18:29; 27:51 – 29:23
• “Box of Rain” composition and lyric history: 29:23 – 34:20
• Isolated track breakdown: 41:23 – 50:49
• The unique live debut, Box of Rain: 50:49 – 54:00
• Box of Rain’s “bust out” and Deadhead culture: 56:46 – 64:38
• Cultural resonance/Freaks and Geeks: 70:00 – 76:58

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Conclusion

This episode of the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast masterfully interweaves deep musical analysis, oral history, and heartfelt testimony. It presents “Box of Rain” as the beating heart of American Beauty, a song born of sorrow, transformed in the crucible of friendship and creative collaboration, and endlessly renewed by the community it inspires—both on and far beyond the stage.

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Transcript

[Rich Mahan]

Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma. For a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Hello friends. We are so very excited to bring you Season two of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast. And as you quite possibly may have sussed out for yourselves, we'll be focusing on American Beauty this time around, diving into its glorious songs and using them as springboards to discuss all things Grateful Dead. If this is your first time joining us, we invite you to also check out Season one, which does a deep dive into Working Man's Dead, which along with American Beauty are Both celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year. Quite golden indeed. You can always get the latest episodes and link to your favorite listening [e-mail] deadcast who knows what else you may find there that catches your eye? Please help this Dead cast by subscribing hitting that like button and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review. Very kind of you. Thank you. It is the 50th anniversary of American Beauty and the Grateful Dead have prepared a 3 CD set reissue of this classic album, which includes a pristine remastering of the album's 10 tracks, as well as an unreleased live show from February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theater. Along with this masterfully remastered three disc set, we also offer you a new batch of Angel Share Audio Unreleased musical gems from the Grateful Dead's vault that offer a fly on the studio wall vista into the creation of this historic album. Be sure to check out the American Beauty Angels Share audio at your favorite streaming service or download provider. They've been sitting on the shelves for quite some time. The bottle was dusty, but the liquor is clean. Episode one of Season two is kicking off with a very special song by none other than your and my favorite bass player, Mr. Phyl Lesh. Box of Rain is an absolute fan favorite and the band must have loved it too, because it holds the pole position as track one on side one of American Beauty. While Jessie Jarno's sitting down in front of the mic. Dig this.

[Steven Barnard]

I had not had experience.

[Narrator/Host]

Natricia loved the turtles and feared long. Trisha wasn't schizophrenic, just senile. At 23, she had no fun. She didn't neck. Only short kinky haired boys called her.

[Sam Cutler]

They were ashamed of their bodies.

[Narrator/Host]

Now I'd like to tell you that Tricia heard the Grateful Dead and left home and joined Fanny and now can be seen skinny dipping at the Tropicana Motor Hotel pool in your town. But you're no fool.

[Sam Cutler]

You'd complain.

[Narrator/Host]

We'd get in trouble. Jerry Garcia probably would get busted again. So if you don't have the Dead's American Beauty album, we can say you're missing 42 minutes of pleasure in a world that's owned by thousands of little trishes. American Beauty on Warner Brothers. Make your duck a grateful duck.

[Steven Barnard]

I had not had experience.

[Sam Cutler]

I have had some experience.

[Steven Barnard]

I had not had experience.

[Sam Cutler]

I have had some experience.

[Narrator/Host]

American Beauty is a masterpiece. Here's how Jerry Garcia described it to Peter Simon in 1975 on WVOI, 959FM in Massachusetts. And with American Beauty, there was this rash of parent deaths where everybody's parents cacked in the space of about three or four weeks or maybe two or three months. You know, we were working on that record. It was really incredible.

[Sam Cutler]

It was just like tragedy city.

[Paul Feig]

Everybody was getting.

[Narrator/Host]

It was bad news every day, really. It was incredible. And we were working on this record. But, you know, the work gets to be. You're so distracted by what's going on in life that the work gets to be something. It has a lot a mysterious life.

[Paul Feig]

Of its own, and you don't even.

[Narrator/Host]

Notice until way later. It was a heavy time in the Grateful Dead's world. And out came an album filled with sadness, joy, and wisdom. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux. It's a perfect album title.

[Rich Mahan]

It's a perfect album cover. It's a perfect everything. Every single song is this little piece of perfection.

[Narrator/Host]

Tour manager Sam Cutler.

[Sam Cutler]

American Beauty work was a part and.

[Paul Feig]

Parcel of a period where the Grateful.

[Sam Cutler]

Dead were just one of their peaks. I mean, they've had many. It's not the only peak in their life. You know, there are hills and valleys when it comes to bands, and then there's mountaintops, you know, and.

[Narrator/Host]

But if you ask almost any member of the Grateful Dead, they'd probably talk about how Working Man's Dead and American Beauty, released in June and November of 1970, respectively, felt like one continuous album. Here's Jerry Garcia talking to Joe Smith in 1988.

[Sam Cutler]

Working man's dead, American Barbed, kind of one record, really.

[Narrator/Host]

And they have every good reason to recall them together. Here's Jerry Garcia's songwriting partner, Robert Hunter, speaking to WLIR in 1978.

[Steven Barnard]

We were living in the same house.

[Sam Cutler]

At the time, which is one reason that the collaboration through this in American.

[Steven Barnard]

Beauty is so good, because we were.

[Sam Cutler]

Just right there all the time.

[Narrator/Host]

In Bill Kreutzman's memoir Deal, Bill the drummer writes in conversation, I often get Workingman's Dead and American Beauty mixed up with each other. The Grateful Dead were in the midst of the greatest outpouring of original material in their entire career. It all rolls into one, as Robert Hunter wrote during that period. And the impact of these classic albums can be rightly remembered. Together, the Grateful Dead figured out how to write songs. And not only did these songs become standards for themselves and others, but the band's cosmic Americana would become a strain of American songwriting unto itself. Here's Tales from the Golden Road co host Gary Lambert, who bought American Beauty the day it came out.

[Gary Lambert]

Well, it was, you know, it was like a lovely gift to get so soon after Working Man's. And, you know, that in the bigger picture, as you look back on it, it's such a sign of that prolific burst of creativity that those Working man songs having started turning up in 69, right around the time that Aksum Oxen came out, and then right on the heels of Working Mans, or even before Working Man's came out, you're hearing the premieres of some of the American Beauty songs, and then you didn't realize till later that they're premiering American Beauty. The record's coming out, and they're already working on those songs that are going to turn up in this amazing burst of premieres In February of 71, you know, I put it in the rank of, you know, when the Beatles were popping out Rubber Soul and Revolver, you know, and gearing up to sergeant Pepper in that year, you know, slightly over a year of time. It's. It's very impressive and a testament to that particular peak in the band's history.

[Narrator/Host]

In the last season of the good old Grateful Dead cast, we explored how Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter discovered powerful new songwriting territory. On Working Man's Dead. The band's cosmic Americana could seem simple on the surface, but was often anything but, filled with unusual chord changes, profound lyrical wisdom, musical antecedents, catchy melodies, beautiful playing, beautiful singing and beautiful recording American Beauty upped everything up another few notches. Virtually every song became a classic. They're sung at weddings, funerals and hootenannies of all kinds. David Lemieux.

[Rich Mahan]

This is something that I think any music lover talks about. Oh, what albums do you consider to be perfect records? And without a doubt, this one is one of the very few that I.

[Narrator/Host]

Would put up there.

[Rich Mahan]

Not just because I'm a Deadhead.

[Sam Cutler]

I listen to a lot of other.

[Rich Mahan]

Music and very few perfect albums that I would not change a thing. The number of people I know who I've met over the years who are older than I am, and I mentioned, you know, I worked for the Dead, and they all, every one of them, if they're cool and they owned music in the day, every one of them had this and, and, or usually and Working Man's Dead. And that's what they know of the Dead, those two records. And everybody I know who is cool, which is a lot of people, they all had those records. They're like, oh, yeah, American Beauty, Working Man's Dead. I know those records.

[Narrator/Host]

American Beauty and Working Man's Dead aren't just entwined in memory. Warner Bros. Issued them together on a single cassette in the early 80s. That was sort of how I absorbed the albums too. When I was in high school, I bought LPs of both at a flea market and copied them onto a single tape. The two albums were recorded by the same band in the same year, so it stands to reason they're permanently entwined. The two albums were confused before the dad had even finished making American Beauty. Here's a bit of the Dead getting interviewed on WMCA radio in New York. Recorded on September 16, 1970, when they'd come to play the Fillmore East. Host Alex Bennett asks how the band feels about their new album, Working Man's Dead.

[Sam Cutler]

That's not the new album anymore.

[Steven Barnard]

Well, that's not the new album to you. It's the new album to us.

[Narrator/Host]

Just finishing the other new album.

[Steven Barnard]

We peons who don't sit in a studio.

[Sam Cutler]

Well, Working Man's Dead is a nice.

[Steven Barnard]

Lead in to the new album. He said, what's the new album like?

[Sam Cutler]

Oh, it's nice.

[Steven Barnard]

You like it? Oh, I like it a lot. I really like it a lot.

[Narrator/Host]

Cough, cough indeed. Let's disentangle Working Man's Dead and American Beauty. Here's New Yorker staff writer Nick Palmgarten.

[Paul Feig]

One of the great things about the.

[Narrator/Host]

Albums, really, and especially the good ones.

[Paul Feig]

Or the great ones, like Working Man's.

[Sam Cutler]

Or American Beauty or whatever.

[Narrator/Host]

They're these totally unique things, you know, they sound like nothing else in the catalog or even in live performances. Right. None of them really sound like what the Grateful Dead ever sounded like or would sound like again.

[Paul Feig]

They just.

[Narrator/Host]

Each one has its own weird vibe. The person most responsible for capturing the beauty in American Beauty was album co producer Steven Barnard.

[Steven Barnard]

My name is Steven Barnard. I make records, I produce records, I shoot video, I. I don't shoot anything else. I'm a vegetarian. I love life. I used to have a pet lizard and she's gone just the other day. And I have a cat upstairs that doesn't like visitors.

[Narrator/Host]

Steven Barnard was the house engineer at Wally Heider's studio in San Francisco, where the Grateful Dead would set up camp in the late summer of 1970 to make American Beauty. Barnard had spent recent months working on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu and Paul Kantner's Blows against the Empire, among other albums. Like many of us, Stephen Barnard is an American Beauty fan.

[Steven Barnard]

It was a fun, fun session and I could hear that record, I could play it a thousand times, and it's not the case with most of what I do.

[Narrator/Host]

Stephen Barnard would be primarily responsible for making American Beauty sound so incredible. One absolutely singular quality of the album, separate from the songwriting and the musical performances, is its utter magical brightness, its own particular vibe and sound and color. There were a number of factors, all of them colliding, unfolding and colliding again with absolutely Grateful Dead. Like serendipity. When the summer of 1970 began, the Grateful Dead weren't planning on heading back to the studio. They had other plans. Quite a few of them, in fact. In the 80s and 90s especially, the grateful Dead would be known for their epic summer tours, where a notable chunk of the American population could be found following the band around the country. In 1970, though, that wasn't yet the case. Things were about to change. Working Man's Dead was an enormous success and Warner Bros. Couldn't be more thrilled. The label threw their promotional weight behind the album and Billboard called it the most widespread advertising campaign in the label's history. End quote. Their full page ad for the Dead. And that same issue of Billboard told readers to go check out the band on the Caravan of Love tour that summer. Another place where Warner was putting its promotional dollars earlier in 1970, the game changing Woodstock movie and soundtrack had virtually saved the label. They were trying to figure out what was next. Pioneer San Francisco freeform radio DJ and rock entrepreneur Tom Donahue Thought he had the answer. Woodstock on wheels. It was a new era of rock with documentary crews and soundtrack albums baked into vertically integrated business plans. From the get go, Warner Bros. Would sponsor free shows from coast to coast with the Grateful Dead, Crazy Horse. Without Neil Young, former Youngblood singer Sal Valentino and a variety of local talent, it was remarkably prescient. Mostly, here's Tom Donahue.

[Steven Barnard]

Okay, we're getting ready to head out on our medicine ball caravan. We're going to be leaving San Francisco.

[Paul Feig]

And going across the United States for the next 20, 21 days with about.

[Sam Cutler]

150 people, 18 to 20 or so.

[Paul Feig]

Buses and trucks and cars.

[Steven Barnard]

And we're gonna have ourselves an incredible party. Maybe somewhere along the way you'll pick up and join us and be part of it all.

[Paul Feig]

Or maybe later on you get a chance to watch it all in the movie.

[Steven Barnard]

That's Tom Donahue for now.

[Narrator/Host]

A fleet of buses would set forth from San Francisco with all the musicians, plus Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm, the true stars of Woodstock. They would all sleep in tie dye teepees. And it would all be documented by a film crew with audio recording by Alembic, the Grateful Dead's in house sound technicians. Dates in unusual locales were lined up for mini one day festivals. The tour was set to begin August 4, 1970 in Virginia City, Nevada, home of the original Red Dog Saloon, perhaps the country's first psychedelic venue. Then the tour would make its way east before jumping to the UK for a big finale. Those weren't all of the Dead's plans for the summer of 1970. In the same July 25th issue of Billboard that advertised the Dead's participation in the Caravan of Love, an article announced that the Grateful Dead would soon be making their next album. It would be recorded live over two weekends in September, the article said, at a new venue in San Rafael called Pepperland, recently known as the Euphoria Ballroom. The Dead had already played there a few times, located a few blocks from where the Dead would establish their Front street rehearsal hall a few years later. Pepperland was short lived but legendary. It featured a quadraphonic sound system designed by a brilliant young sound engineer named John Meyer. Gary Lambert attended a show there once and remembered the speaker system.

[Gary Lambert]

I went to Pepperland once, the last night of my first visit to California in January of 71. Not for anything Dead related. I saw the Youngbloods, C Train and John Fahey. Pretty amazing Triple Bill. John Myers first real installation. He built these amazing like fiberglass conical speaker enclosures and the bass one was like, massive. And one thing I remember about the Youngblood show was at some point late in the show, an obviously very high guy, like, climbed into this big fiberglass cone. It was like kind of curled up in a fetal position. And it took some doing to get him out.

[Narrator/Host]

Unfortunately, the Grateful Dead didn't get to record their new live album at Pepperland. Plans changed as the Medicine Ball Caravan geared up for departure. Jerry Garcia, Dead manager John McIntyre and others attended a pre tour meeting in which the band reluctantly agreed that they wouldn't bring their guns with them on the road. But then some small questions and comments were brought up. Where was all the money going? Wasn't this an exploitation in the making? Where were the musicians really going to sleep? The musicians didn't want to sleep in tepees. That one was more a comment than a question. By the time the caravan departed San Francisco on the morning of August 4th, the Grateful Dead were no longer participants. Here's Grateful Dead tour manager Sam Cutler.

[Sam Cutler]

The Grateful Dead were asked to be on that. Garcia and I thought it was a shit idea. Well, it was a shit idea. It was Tom Donahue's idea. You know, we just felt it was like a, I don't know, somehow kind of, you know, trying to make money off of kind of a faux concept of what constituted the hippie dream, you know, I mean, and everybody was over that, man. We, you know, sick to death of.

[Paul Feig]

Hearing about hippies and nobody wanted to.

[Sam Cutler]

Even be called a hippie, you know, that Everybody had celebrated the death of hippie long before fucking Altamont, you know what I mean?

[Paul Feig]

The Grateful Dead left the Haight Ashbury.

[Sam Cutler]

Because it was fucked. They could see the writing on the wall. So the basic premise of the Medicine Ball Caravan or whatever didn't appeal to us at all. Didn't appeal to me and Jerry. So yeah, I cleared it with Jerry and nixed it. We didn't want to be involved, so we weren't, we weren't against it as such.

[Paul Feig]

It didn't jive with what we were trying to do.

[Narrator/Host]

Though the Grateful Dead weren't part of the Medicine Ball Caravan, nearly their entire crew was. Sound was provided by the tie dyed speaker system of Alembic, which otherwise served as the Grateful Dead's pa. And more specifically, the music on the Medicine Ball Caravan would be captured by the engineering team of Bob Matthews and Betty Kanter, the Dead's closest audio comrades in the studio and on the road, who just helped them finish Working Man's Dead. This is the vacuum in which The Grateful Dead recorded American Beauty, diving into a new studio with a new producer and making one of the most extraordinary albums of their career. A few weeks after bailing on the Medicine Ball Caravan, with a few adventures in between that we'll get to in future episodes, the Grateful Dead made their way to Wally Heider's studio at 245 Hyde street in San Francisco, where they partnered with the capable staff engineer, Steven Barncard.

[Steven Barnard]

Mel Tanner came to me and he said, the Grateful Dead are coming to the studio. And I said, oh, okay. And then they said, and mind me, I was not a fanboy. I came to record jazz. I'm a jazz guy, you know, And I was slumming, basically. I was slumming it as an assistant until, like, you know, I could actually do sessions. I wanted to produce, you know, I wanted to act. No, I just wanted to produce. You know, I was getting into it, you know, I was really working a lot and enjoying the work. I had, basically very primitive by today's standards, tools to work with. But to me, it was like, well, these are the tools. Let's make them work. I had recorded Jack Cassidy's bass on something. Or I knew the setup because at that time, Phil and Jack had the same setup, possibly because Jerry had been working at Wally Heiders and liked the studio. And because the Medicine Ball Caravan went out and all the crew guys were gone, they were free to choose whatever and whomever they worked with. And they decided to work with a staff guy. And I don't know if I had a reputation by then or not. I had been working with Seals and Crofts and some other acts, but somehow I got the gig.

[Narrator/Host]

Steven Barnkart had only seen the band live once.

[Steven Barnard]

I don't like concerts, actually. Not a concert goer. I'm kind of like the crew. If I go to a concert, I kind of hang out backstage. You know, I feel more comfortable not being out there. But there was one show that I attended at. I don't know if it was called the Carousel or what it was. And it was above a car dealership, right? And it was New Year's Eve 1968 to end of 69. I had come to the west coast the year before, and I was returning to Kansas, but on the way back from Los Angeles, because I had a terrible Los Angeles experience, as I always have had a terrible Los Angeles. I hate that city. We said, well, let's go through San Francisco. On our way back, we'll take the northern route. This is the dead of winter. We went up to the show, and I got it, you know, and I wasn't tripping or maybe a little bit high with some weed or something, but during Dark Star or something, I saw the band sort of levitate off the stage. And then I said, well, how'd they do that? And then I saw the groovy guy with the beard on the stage, and I said, oh, that must be that must Jerry guy. And I got it. I got it. There was one of the classic sets, and I had a little Norelco recorder with me. And it got stolen from me. I wish I had it because I played it back later. It was pretty good. And I just sat on the floor and held the mic out and I said, well, nobody's objecting. And it was plenty of room, and it was a big place. It was a nice, big, spacious place.

[Narrator/Host]

When Steven Barnard made it back to San Francisco in the summer of 1969, looked up recording studios in the phone book and got an assistant engineering job at Heiders, he couldn't have landed at a better place at a better time. He started as an assistant, working with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Harry Nilsson, Credence Clearwater Revival and others.

[Steven Barnard]

I was just an assistant, but I was certainly a fly on the wall, and I, you know, set up everything. I worked with Harry Nilsen, and I worked with Credence as an assistant and with the RCA guys, third assistant. So it was like I just smoked joints with Harry, and it was pretty much a dream gig. Pay was really good, too. Believe it or not. Assistants were rare, hard to get in demand. And I got 10 bucks an hour in 1969, which is phenomenal now. It's like, can we get this minimum wage? Maybe like 11, you know, there was a guy that was the first guy there, Russ Carey, and he was actually the first engineer on Deja Vu. But he moved on. He basically teamed up with Credence a lot. And Stu Cook developed a remote truck with him. It was called the DSR truck. So he was out of the picture by default. By attrition, I became the top guy, you know, like in a year. Amazing.

[Narrator/Host]

Jerry Garcia had already been through Hiders a number of times that summer, most notably playing on sessions for what became Paul Kantner's Blows against the Empire, the first album to bear the designation Jefferson Starship. With these sessions, Wally Hiders on Hyde street solidified as the studio for San Francisco musicians, where the boundaries between the bands dissolved into an amorphous supergroup, a psychedelic wrecking crew that would turn out a rapid sequence of beloved albums.

[Steven Barnard]

It's almost a continuous strip between Blows against the Empire when I was an assistant and there were two RCA guys recording that and. And this sort of thing building at Wally Hydra Recording. And Wally was busy opening up these rooms really as fast as he could. And there were three rooms. There was Studio A downstairs, there was Studio C upstairs, and then another studio upstairs called Studio D. Studio C was the first one that was completed and that's where we did the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young record Deja Vu. And that's sort of where the whole blending of the band started in a way, because Kantner eventually got the room downstairs and basically Block booked it.

[Narrator/Host]

Paul Kantner had a name for the amorphous crew of musicians that gathered to create Blows against the Empire and continued to circulate through the Heider studio hallways for the next several years.

[Steven Barnard]

Well, it was Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra and that was Kanter. And Crosby was downstairs sometimes, you know, previously to this, before he was doing his record, and sometimes I didn't even know I was doing other things. He was downstairs with Kantner & Co. And Baron von Tolbooth and the Chrome Nun. And during one of those records I was an assistant on Blows against the Empire. But I think there were other records after that. This was a continuous. Paul was always recording, whether it was Starship or Airplane or whatever, but mostly his records. That was Paul's term. When people started coming in, we actually started just ending up with a. A day that was nothing but the other people and know David, not just David, I. I wanted to label the tape box Planet Earth Rock and Roll but there was not, you know, sideways on a 2. You can't get that in 2 inches. So I abbreviated it P E R R O which is a little bit longer than this coffee drink that I was using called Pero P E R O if one influenced the other. But I extrapolated that though none of.

[Narrator/Host]

The musicians from the Paro sessions played directly on American Beauty, the spirit still permeated the album and became a backdrop to its creation. Here's Steve Silberman, author of the best selling Neurotribes and co creator of the incredible Skeleton Key, A Dictionary for Deadheads.

[Rich Mahan]

American Beauty came along at such a rich time for all the members of this big family that, you know, in retrospect, we've now christened the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra. Although that was only a joke, you know, that Paul Kantner made at some point. And it was for this group of psychedelicized folk musicians who had really been playing together in some form or another and been a big sort of musical caress, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, since really the early 60s. Like, if you think about it, the mental foundations of Pero were really laid down by the fact that Paul Kantner and David Crosby were both fans of science fiction by people like Robert Heinlein in the early 60s. And stranger in a Strange Land set forth in science fiction terms, the archetype of the communal households that took over, you know, in the later 60s. And in the Bay Area in particular, where there were at least 300 communes that were thriving at the height of the Haight Ashbury period, back in the early 60s, that is, before the birds, Paul Kantner, David Crosby, David Freiberg, Gray Slick. They were all living in this house in Venice that had a group money bowl. And, you know, so that aesthetic of give what you can, take what you need got then carried into music in a sense. And that all happened at Wally Hyder's, which is where American Beauty was recorded. Blows against the Empire, this whole suite of albums that we call para. And the engineer at Wally Heiders was Stephen Barnard, the young engineer. The reason why the Dead went to Wally Hider's to record American Beauty was because Bob and Betty were off with Medicine Ball Caravan. You know, in a sense, it fell into Stephen Barnard's lap and he was the perfect guy. He had an exquisite sensibility for recording acoustic guitars and multi part harmonies. He was so good at it. And that's what you hear on Crosby's if I Could Only Remember My Name. And that's what you hear in American Beauty. So that glow is actually quantifiable. It's like the vibe of Wally Hiders.

[Narrator/Host]

And as the Grateful Dead and Stephen Barncard discovered, they had a chemistry all their own.

[Steven Barnard]

There wasn't a lot of level writing. We pretty much went for the dynamics that were played. It was a very dynamic record. It just works. And like jazz, you know, Phil was over there, you know, he was right next to me the whole time. And we had like mental communication. He didn't have to, he just kind of made a face. He said that he's quoted somewhere. I just have to make a face and I would make a move and you know, you know, it was totally telepathic at one point because we, we just knew when it was right. It wasn't like, you know, like I was like the great God of recording or they were like knowledgeable or anything. It just kind of assembled itself. It was. It was pretty magical. They were under a bit of duress because I believe this is a period where Mickey's dad had flown the coop with all the money. So this was an extremely tense time that Jerry's mother had died. Something was happening with Phil's parents. It was an amazing range of emotions that went into this record. Not just, you know, the behind the scenes stuff. Hunter was there every, every minute, right next to Phil. So, you know, he was right there, front and center, glued to the speakers, glued to the meters. It was teamwork all the way. I don't think I've had that experience that many times.

[Narrator/Host]

Let's listen to some Grateful Dead.

[Rich Mahan]

Look.

[Sam Cutler]

Out of any window, any morning, any even, any day.

[Narrator/Host]

That's how American Beauty starts. If you were the most hardcore Rachel Dead fan in 1970 who went to as many of their concerts as possible, or even if you were just hearing American Beauty for the first time in any year, the sound of Bots of Rain might still come as something, as a pleasant shock. It was the new, newest, Grateful Dead archivist, David Lemieux.

[Rich Mahan]

I got my copy here of American Beauty, and I put it on, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, first of all, beautiful melody. I think that it's just beautifully recorded, beautiful melody. And then the vocals come on. And I knew by that point I very much knew Bob Weir's voice, and I very much knew Jerry's voice. I even knew Pigpen's voice, but this was an unfamiliar voice. So, you know, as we do when we're listening to our vinyl, we're, you know, reading the back cover. You know, it's what we do, or, you know, or we're rolling something on the front cover. And so I'm listening to it, and I realize that this is Phil singing, which I hadn't heard. I hadn't heard Mars Hotel yet. So I heard this beautiful voice, and it is a beautiful voice. And I remember listening to it before I even went on to Friend of the Devil. I put it back on.

[Narrator/Host]

Gary Lambert.

[Gary Lambert]

A beautiful way to start an album. A wonderful song, an emotionally resonant song for reasons we didn't even know at the time. You know, we didn't know the lyrical subtext or about Phil's dying father or any of that. But it's a song that. That hits really hard. And having a Grateful Dead album open with a Phil Lesch lead vocal, of course, is a one time only occurrence. And I think it's maybe Phil's loveliest recorded vocal.

[Narrator/Host]

There was a lot going on in The Grateful Dead's world, and a lot of it is wrapped up in Box of Rain. Let's start with that opening guitar. Listen again for a few seconds. That's Phil Lesh leading the song on acoustic guitar. The instrument on which he wrote was his first time singing Lean on a Dead album. Classically trained, Lesch studied with Italian composer and electronic music pioneer Luciano Berio and developed a lead bass style that reflected a deeply musical mind. In some ways, Box of Rain is simple. If you play acoustic guitar, the entire song can be played with the simplest open chords. But try memorizing it. In his memoir Searching for the Sound, Loesch wrote that in the spring of 1970, he began to tinker with a chord sequence on an acoustic guitar, an instrument he barely played. He described the song's structure as, quote, a repeated phrase with deceptive cadences leading to three different endings, one leading back to the beginning, the others leading first to a chorus and then in the second instance, to a coda. Soon, Lesh said, it had cohered into an entire song structure, complete with melody lacking words. I made a rough cassette with just guitar and my melismatic vocal and presented it to Hunter, who I felt was the only man for the job. End quote. That summer, Phil's father, Frank Hamilton Lesh, was dying of prostate cancer. Phil had been working on the song for much of the year. When he gave his demo cassette to Robert Hunter, he mentioned that he would be visiting his ailing father and practicing his vocals on the drive up to Livermore, where his father was staying. It wasn't intended as an instruction or even a guideline, but Hunter ran with it. Here's Robert Hunter speaking with David Ganz in 1977. Thanks for sharing this, David.

[Sam Cutler]

That Box of Rain was an exceptionally quick song. I took the tape home and I listened to it once and started writing before I was through with the listening of it and the second listening through, I needed the lyrics up. And that was it. It happened that quick.

[Narrator/Host]

Phil Lesh was taken aback in the most deeply heartfelt way possible. Box of Rain is no dirge, and the lyrics aren't mournful. A celebration of life in all its brief beauty, like American Beauty as a whole. It is heavy and joyful at once, Phil would say. The lyrics that Hunter produced were so apt. So perfect. It was very moving, very moving for me to experience that during the period of my dad's passing. With Box of Rain finished, Frank Hamilton Loesch passed away on September 2, 1970. Almost instantly, the song's meaning grew deeper Less than a week later, on September 8th, Jerry Garcia's mother, Ruth, known to most as Bobby, was in a horrific car accident while making American Beauty. Jerry, his brother Tiff, and their partners spent time saying goodbye. She died a few weeks later.

[Sam Cutler]

Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there.

[Narrator/Host]

The lyrics for Box of Rain are beautiful and symbolic and don't need much by explanation. One lyric in specific, that closing line we just heard has a folk music antecedent that's worth pointing out, though. A song called Little Birdie, originally recorded by the Coon Creek Girls, released on the 78 rpm shellac record by Vocalian in 1938. But the line in question appears slightly later on the Stanley Brothers recording for the richertone label in 1954. Here's Carter and Ralph Stanley Little birdie.

[Sam Cutler]

Little birdie come and sing to me A song got a short time to stay here and a long time to be gone.

[Narrator/Host]

If there's any doubt that Robert Hunter knew the song and its lineage, Jerry Garcia certainly did. Here's Jerry with the Sleepy Hollow hog stompers on July 11, 1962, at the Boar's Head in San Mateo from the wonderful before the Dead box set.

[Sam Cutler]

This is a song that was recorded originally by the Coon Creek Girls, whoever they are. Little birdie.

[Narrator/Host]

Little birdie, come sing to me your song.

[Sam Cutler]

I have a short.

[Narrator/Host]

Time to stare and a long time to be gone. Another lyric worth calling out the title what is a Box of Rain? The answer to that is anything you decide as a listener. But there's another, slightly different question, and that very slight difference is only worth mentioning because somebody thought to phrase it like this and received an answer. What was Robert Hunter thinking when he wrote the phrase box of Rain? For a period in the mid-1990s and into the 2000s, Robert Hunter published an online [e-mail] in which he would occasionally answer questions one might think he'd never answer. Sometimes nobody even asked. In this case, though, the query came via his mailbag from reader Charlie Bass. And this is how Robert Hunter well, I don't like to do this, since it encourages others to ask about what I had in mind when I wrote a song. And mostly, you need to have my mind to understand even approximately what I had in it. By box of Rain I meant the world we live on, but Ball of Rain didn't have the right ring to my ear. So box it became, and I don't know who put it there. If the studio version of Box of Rain doesn't sound like anything else the Grateful Dead recorded before or after. It's not just because it's Phil Lesh singing and playing acoustic guitar. It was performed by a pretty heavily modified version of the Grateful Dead. Here's how Jerry Garcia described the song in December 1970 on KPPC FM in Pasadena. Interviewed by DJ Ted Alvey. See, it was Phil's song, and Phil wrote the song because he had a guitar and he had this guitar, and he doesn't normally play the guitar. He's not like a guitar player turned bass player. Like a lot bass players are. So he was playing the guitar, singing the song over at my place, and there was a piano there. So I started banging away on the piano. And when we went into the studio, and then he thought that, you know, in his head and the arrangement in his head, which is what a record is about, getting the arrangement in your head out onto into the world, into the real world. He's like. He heard like Dave Nelson style guitar and so on. American Beauty, David Nelson from the New Riders of the Purple Sage plays lead guitar alongside Phil Lesh's acoustic. Jerry Garcia plays piano, Bill Kreutzman is on drums, and Dave Torbert from the New Riders plays bass. Steven Barnard remembers it all going by quickly.

[Steven Barnard]

That was a nice turnaround, actually. Really kind of cool thing to do. Those parts went really fast and I just barely remember, you know, if I hadn't worked with Nelson later or Torbett, I wouldn't have remembered any of that.

[Narrator/Host]

David Nelson remembers the Box of Rain session coming together extremely casually.

[Sam Cutler]

I think we were in the studio and Phil said, hey, can we take a break? I want to record this other song. Something like that, you know, it was very impromptu, seemingly, you know, so Phil was open for another bass player to try it. And Tover tried it. And of course Tover was just nailed it, I thought.

[Narrator/Host]

The song's strange structure overwhelmed the New Riders guitarist at first, the Box of.

[Sam Cutler]

Rain different than anything. And over the years I found it. Now I see Phil's logic in it. And that should have been understandable, but it was not like any kind of folk song, I'll tell you that. All I remember is going in. He took me in. We did it in the booth, you know, with the guitar and plugged into the board and just a couple of times through, and we had it, you know, it was just great. I just was so happy with that. Steve Barnard was the engineer.

[Narrator/Host]

The solo in the middle of Box of Rain is sometimes mistakenly attributed to Jerry Garcia's Pedal steel guitar. And sometimes to Nelson playing a B Bender modified guitar, an instrument he would later play with the New Riders of the Purple Sage. But Nelson said that it was just him on a standard issue six string electric.

[Sam Cutler]

No, I was imitating a B Bender. I was doing bends that were very much like a B Bender, but I didn't get a B Bender until years later on the road.

[Narrator/Host]

Let's listen to David Nelson's Spotlight Box of Rain solo from the newly remastered 50th anniversary edition of American Beauty.

[Sam Cutler]

Sam.

[Narrator/Host]

If you're keeping score at home. While piano was part of the song's conception, Garcia didn't play it on the basic live take.

[Steven Barnard]

If he played piano, he played it on an overdub, most likely. I don't think that was on the basic. I don't think we were really set up for that because that would have required some more isolation and padding and stuff to get the piano from separated from the other stuff. But the tracking was almost always two acoustic guitars, drums and bass. Always, always. And I just don't remember, like setting up special and bringing up the piano on another. I'd have to find the tracks for the piano.

[Narrator/Host]

Box of Rain was the last song written for American Beauty. Here's Brian Kehue, archival engineer behind the sonic wonders of the angel share.

[Brian Kehue]

There's a few things like a Box.

[Sam Cutler]

Of Rain, different mix because we had nothing for it.

[Paul Feig]

There's no demo on the demo reels because it wasn't written yet.

[Narrator/Host]

And then we had just the master tape.

[Sam Cutler]

There was no session tape for Box of Rain.

[Brian Kehue]

But I did find some interesting things in there.

[Narrator/Host]

Box of Rain hadn't yet been performed live. The song had barely been played at all. And the take on the album is surely one of the earliest times the musicians played it together. There's a remarkable amount happening. Here's Brian to break down Box of Rain.

[Brian Kehue]

Instead of being on the bass, we have Phil Lesh counting in the song and then playing an acoustic guitar track all the way through.

[Rich Mahan]

1, 2, 3, 4.

[Brian Kehue]

And then on bass, instead of Phil, we have Dave Torbert from the New Riders. There are two tracks that make up the bass tone. The first one sounds a bit like this. The sound is bright and clear, designed to pick up a certain aspect of the bass. You can even hear a bit of the drums in the background as they play. Also recorded at the same time from the same bass performance was a second microphone with a bit warmer, kind of a Motown sound. And here are both combined together. The brighter, clearer sound with the deeper Warmer sound. Bill Kreitzman's drum track. Here's all the drum tracks together, four in all, that create the drum sound we hear on the record. To get this drum sound, they used two microphones on the kick drum. One microphone sounds like this. And the other microphone sounds slightly different like this. And here's the sound of both combined together. Much fuller and stronger sound. This neck track is the snare drum microphone close to the snare drum, although it's not exceptionally strong or clear. And then we have the overhead microphone, which picks up a lot of the cymbals. And also the snare drum as well. And once again, here are all the drum mics combined together to make the final sound from the record. And another change up, this time, David Nelson from the New Riders. Perfectly suited to playing lead guitar on this one. Country picking on the left speaker. And literally continuing the musical chairs. Now, Jerry Garcia is playing piano. This is on two tracks in stereo. So we have the left microphone and then we have the right microphone. And then we have both together for the stereo piano sound. And then one of the most distinctive parts of this record is actually the hand clap sound. I don't know who's clapping on this one, but they are clapping together on a microphone. And that sound is being sent into the echo chamber of the studio to add the nice distant reverb effect. And that continues nice and steadily throughout the song. There's also a tambourine part adding to the rhythm. And there's a Hammond organ track. It only appears briefly twice during the song and sounds like this. And here we have it, the man himself on lead vocals, Phil Lesh.

[Narrator/Host]

Look out of any window Any morning.

[Sam Cutler]

Any evening, any day maybe the sun is shining Birds are winging no rain is falling from a heavy sky.

[Brian Kehue]

We have a harmony vocal track from Bob Ware.

[Narrator/Host]

Any morning, any evening, any day.

[Sam Cutler]

Rain.

[Rich Mahan]

Is falling from a heavy sky.

[Brian Kehue]

And another harmony track from Jerry Garcia.

[Sam Cutler]

Any morning, any evening, any day Birds are winging and rain is falling from a heavy sky.

[Brian Kehue]

Now let's hit the blend with all three of them working together.

[Narrator/Host]

Look into any eyes you find by you you can see clear to another maybe been seen before through other eyes on other days while going home.

[Sam Cutler]

What do you want me to do for.

[Narrator/Host]

You to see you through?

[Brian Kehue]

There's something unexpected that happens on the third line of each verse. And you've just heard it, but probably didn't notice it. As we all haven't noticed it for many of these years. It turns out that Phil went back and he raced over Bob and Jerry's parts singing a new section of his own. So at that point in the third line, what do you want me to do? It's actually three of Phil's voice singing together. Here's Phil doing one harmony replacing Bob's.

[Sam Cutler]

What do you want me to do?

[Brian Kehue]

And here's Phil doing another harmony replacing.

[Narrator/Host]

Jerry's what do you want me to do?

[Brian Kehue]

And here's all three Phil's singing together.

[Sam Cutler]

What do you want me to do.

[Rich Mahan]

For you to see you through?

[Brian Kehue]

Now let's hear a verse as it actually is with the original two harmony lines, third line belonging all to Phil and then returning back to Bob and Jerry for the final harmony line.

[Narrator/Host]

Maybe been seen before through other eyes on other days while going home.

[Sam Cutler]

What do you want me to do for.

[Narrator/Host]

You to see you through?

[Brian Kehue]

And there we have it. On the 16 track tape they're using up four for drums, two for the bass, two on the stereo piano. There's one acoustic guitar, one electric, one of hand claps, another percussion of tambourine. Then we have the lead vocal and two harmony vocals using up 15 channels on the 16 track tape. That's the complete record.

[Narrator/Host]

Lots of deadheads have stories about the first time they heard a song live, but Gary Lambert's first Box of Rain was especially singular.

[Gary Lambert]

I have a story behind My first Box of Rain, which is really interesting because as far as I know, of course there was a period in 1970 where some shows are poorly documented in terms of tapes or set lists, so I can't know this to 100% certainty. But I believe they only performed Box of rain once in 1970, September 17th in the acoustic set at Fillmore east, and then not again until 1972. Now what's interesting about that performance on September 17, 1970, is I'm quite sure it was the one and only time it was performed as on American Beauty, meaning Phil Lesh on acoustic guitar, Jerry Garcia on piano, David Nelson on lead electric guitar, Dave Torbert on bass, and Bob Weir not playing an instrument, just standing there and singing harmony vocals. And I think it was probably Billy on the lone acoustic set, drum kit and Mickey playing claves or something like that. There is, I think only a very kind of murky sounding audience tape of that. But if you listen to that, you can hear that the guitar solo is almost note for note what David Nelson played on the album. And the piano playing is Jerry. Now this is interesting in that there was an acoustic piano on stage at Fillmore east, which I think was the only time that happened for an acoustic set. On some of those acoustic sets during that week, I think you can hear Pigpen playing piano a little bit on Truckin and maybe some other songs, but on this one, Jerry played piano. And one of the great regrets is that I have seen no visual documentation of that moment, because it is a one of a kind in Grateful Dead performance history of those guys playing some of them, not their main instruments, and having the guest guys on. And this is also one of the shortcomings of those in the taper community to whom we are incredibly grateful for all they gave us. Some of the early tapers tended to hit the pause button between songs because they wanted to save tape, obviously, in time, their tape flips and all that stuff. So there are a lot of audience tapes where you miss banter and tuning, which I love hearing because I think it gives little historical clues. And I quite vividly remember them saying, oh, we're going to bring our friends Dave Torbert and David Nelson out and try something different. And you don't hear that on any of the audience tapes that I've ever heard, so that would confirm it. But I asked Amelie Rothschild, the house photographer at Fillmore east, if she happened to have been there that night. She was not. She didn't work every night. She'd usually work one or two nights of a given run. So there's no visual evidence of it. But I was witness to something really unusual, and the song right away caught my ear, obviously. And then, you know, we didn't hear it again until the album came out.

[Narrator/Host]

Perhaps someday the soundboard reels of September 17, 1970 will surface. Until then, you can find that version of Box of Rain via your nearest local tape trader. It's probably best heard on cassette. In late 1972, the song finally entered the band's repertoire rearrange for their regular lineup, with Lesh back on bass, Jerry Garcia back on guitar, Keith Godshow on piano, and Donna Jean Godchau joining the vocal blend. Here's how it sounded on November 17, 1972 in Wichita, Kansas. From Dave's Picks, Volume 11. Look out of any window. One interesting part of these early 70s versions of box of Rain is that Jerry Garcia would occasionally play slide guitar, evoking both his own pedal steelwork and David Nelson's faux B Bender licks before handing the break over to Keith God Show. Here's a nice version of that, recorded June 26, 1973 in Seattle, released on the 2018 box set Pacific Northwest 73. 74 the complete recordings. About a month after that version, following a performance in front of an estimated half million people at the Watkins Glen Summer Jam, Box of Rain disappeared from the Grateful Dead set lists. When the band returned to the road following a hiatus in 1975 and early 1976, Phil Lesh all but stopped singing. I never felt comfortable with lead vocals, especially live, he said in 1981. For some people it's easy, but for me to play the bass and sing, almost impossible. Despite this, like all Grateful Dead songs, Box of Rain remained a breathing organism, and its lifespan in the band's repertoire tells its own story, leading to many other stories. Rebecca Adams is a sociologist, and her experience with Box of Rain is a beautiful example of how the history of a song can transcend its original recording. In a way, Box of Rain would play a part in Dr. Adams becoming one of the pioneers of the burgeoning field of Grateful Dead studies.

[Rebecca Adams]

My first show was September 20, 1970, at the Fillmore East. My main memory is that it had both an acoustic and an electric set, which now everybody knows. But I do actually remember that from the night. I also remember that while we were waiting to go in, the guy in front of me basically told me I'd already missed the best show. I should have come the night before. Later, many years later, at the Grateful Dead Caucus, David Ganz presented on that show from the night before, and I realized they had played Dark Star the night before, which is probably why this guy was saying I had already missed the best show. I turned 18 at the show at midnight. My 18th birthday was on September 21st. So just recently I turned 68. So I just passed my 50th anniversary of my first show.

[Narrator/Host]

Rebecca missed the original live performance of Box of Rain by three nights, but saw the Grateful Dead for the first time exactly as they were in the midst of finishing American Beauty. She would continue to see them over the next half decade or more, including the Watkins Glen Summer Jam, where she did see the band perform Box of Rain. But in the late 70s, she stopped seeing the Grateful Dead and moved along to a career in sociology, where she took a job at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

[Rebecca Adams]

In 1986, my husband got his first job in a corporation. Up until then, he'd worked in small companies, and so I had this new role as corporate wife, and his boss asked us to go to hear some music in Virginia, and my husband, who isn't known for details, at first I thought we were going to the symphony or something. You know, I was being a corporate wife. Well, it turned out we were going to hear the Grateful Dead in Hampton. And I was. I thought, okay, I can fill this role, you know. So we drove up there with his boss and his girlfriend and went to the 1986 Hampton show, the one in the spring. And it was the Box of Rain Bust out show.

[Narrator/Host]

On March 20, 1986, at Hampton Coliseum in Virginia, the Grateful Dead performed Box of Rain for the first time in nearly 13 years, since Rebecca Adams had last seen it at Watkins Glen.

[Rebecca Adams]

At the time I heard Box of Rain at the Hampton show, I didn't realize it was a bust out. I didn't realize that the term bust out even existed. And I remember being very surprised at how excited everyone was when they started playing it. I was incredibly confused by, well, you know, I like this song, but what's the big deal? Because it had been a long time since I'd heard the dad. And I had to learn about that, in retrospect, that they hadn't played it for a long time. And, you know, people were excited because of that reason. The really strange thing at the first show that I went back to after my hiatus was that I didn't actually understand that people had been following the Dead around and that a community had formed around the band. You know, when I'd heard them in 78, all of that was just starting. And so my first reaction in 86 was really, are they imitating, you know, hippies? They don't quite have it right. You know, is this like a Sha Na Na thing? I mean, I was, like, very confused by the audience. And tie dyes were so vivid, and they hadn't looked like that the last time I'd seen them. And I. It was just. It was really like, what the heck is going on here? You know, people were doing psychedelic trail things and stuff. And I thought, are they really doing psychedelics or are they just dancing like they are? And, I mean, I remember being very suspicious. Who knows, that could have been the end of it. Except that a young man who was a sociology major was also at that show. He was not one of my students. I never had him in class. Matt Russ, who owns Tate Street Coffee Shop. And he came to my office the next Monday and he said, look, I understand your theoretical interest in communities that don't have permanent territory. He said, oh, your study of editors who go to professional conferences would be really interesting, except no students are going to be interested in it. I think you should study people who go to Grateful Dead shows instead. And I said, well, yeah, but do they form a community? And he said, yes, yes, I have evidence. And he had taken these photographs of a wedding that had taken place during set break at the Box of Rain show. And he showed me the pictures. I still have them someplace. He kind of talked me into being interested in thinking about a study of the Grateful Dead community.

[Narrator/Host]

The scene that Rebecca Adams rediscovered in 1986 was more than a community, it was a growing community. Though she didn't realize it at the time, the disproportionately huge cheer that she heard when the Dead launched into Box of Rain was exactly a sign of that community. There was an audible quorum of Deadheads inside Hampton Coliseum who understood enough of the band's history to know the song hadn't been performed in many years. One young member of the growing community who was at Hampton Coliseum that night was a teenage Dead freak named Tyler, known to Twitter heads as Mr. Completely.

[Sam Cutler]

When it started, I didn't really get it, and I didn't recognize it right away because, of course, it wasn't acoustic. But then the level of people losing their minds in the crowd was just a cascade of emotion that was, you know, it was impossible not to understand that something huge was going on and it just kind of filled the hall. And for at least the first verse, you couldn't really hear the music. It was all just chaos and joy, really. Joy. So that was great. It was kind of a bewildering experience. It was the first time like, that I'd experienced anything like that. And just by benefit of having Hampton as my local venue, I experienced it again a few times over the next few years.

[Narrator/Host]

Around the country, phones started ringing in Deadhead households. Box of Rain was back at a certain bar in the Bay Area. There was a certain payphone that would ring on certain nights at a certain hour. With Deadheads out on tour reporting back to their friends, I hope someone was there that night to answer.

[Sam Cutler]

There was the start of Hampton as kind of the bust out capital. Why they decided that Hampton was the venue to start either playing new songs or bringing old ones back, no one knows. Maybe it was just because it was usually the first shows on tour. That was the only thing we could ever figure it out. That actually started in 86 with visions of Johanna. They played that there. And I did not know that song. Like I said, I was in high school. I was kind of young and dumb. I didn't know the Dylan catalog yet. In retrospect, it's actually a really good performance of that song. Bobby also sang Roadrunner at those shows.

[Narrator/Host]

Like many in Those years, Tyler got on the bus in a big way and would see many, many shows over the next years. He's what we call a tour head, emphasis on both words.

[Sam Cutler]

There was nothing really like that. That first one with Box of Rain, just because it was so out of nowhere. It was part of Phil starting to sing more again. Again, something I wasn't aware of at the time, but I became more aware of over the next couple years as I started to learn the tapes and the history and see things like dead basses and set lists. And from prior years, Phil had started singing more again in 84 and had added Tom Thumb Blues and stepping up to the vocal mic more in general. And Box of Rain was kind of the culmination of that. Of course, after that, it showed up pretty frequently for the next while and was always welcome. Everyone always loved it. And, you know, there's a bunch of great versions that have been released since then that you can hear. And one of my favorites was at Alpine in 89. The well known shows that are released on Downhill From Here and have been at the meetup at the movies. And Phil actually selected that Alpine version to release on Fallout from the Fill Zone, the compilation album that he selected. Everything.

[Narrator/Host]

Breathe in water Believe it if.

[Rich Mahan]

You need it if you don't just.

[Sam Cutler]

Pass it on Sun Shout.

[Narrator/Host]

Sometimes the Grateful Dead are known as a 60s band, sometimes a 70s band, maybe even an 80s band when they scored their biggest hit. But they were at their biggest in the 1990s, and they were still making deeply committed Deadheads right up to their last tours with Jerry Garcia. For Andrew Peerless, a teenager growing up in the Midwest in the 1990s, seeing box of Rain live would help cement his lifelong love of the band.

[Sam Cutler]

I was 16 and a friend and I drove about six hours to get to the show. We knew nothing about what they had played in the previous nights. We were not Set List watchers. We were both big fans. But kind of early in our fandom, we got lost a bunch of times, ended up making our way to the show. And it was just the culmination of, I would say about a year, a year and a half of quasi obsessive fandom. Learning as much as I could about the band, reading books and magazines and reading relics and walking into the parking lot for the first time, just feeling like this quasi mythical world had just opened up in front of me in a way that I wasn't prepared for. Being a pretty sheltered kid from the suburbs, it just felt like the possibilities of being there were endless. And I remember just wanting to walk up and down the rows of Shakedown, seeing everything that was available for sale, and feeling like I would never be able to understand everything that was out there unless I saw it for myself. We ended up going into the show instead of spending too much time in the lot. And I would say it was a really. I think about this a lot. It was a really perfect moment in my fandom to see the band in the condition that they were in in 1995. I was at that, I would say, eager, exuberant, and really naive state of fandom where I thought that everything that the band did was genius because it was the Grateful Dead doing it. And I could listen to a tape from 72 or 73 or 85, and I didn't care. It was all great. I knew absolutely nothing about Jerry's health issues.

[Narrator/Host]

Andrew didn't know all the songs, but that didn't matter.

[Sam Cutler]

As soon as the song would start, it was almost like you could just hear it in the ether because everyone around you was whispering it to their friends. And that was kind of an interesting, cool, cool moment. I specifically remember it during Cumberland because we couldn't figure out if it was going to be Cumberland or Big river or Maggie's Farm, because they all sort of sounded the same.

[Narrator/Host]

One song that Andrew recognized was Box of Rain.

[Sam Cutler]

Black Muddy river felt Sad as a closer. I was not expecting a second encore, and I don't think anyone was. I probably think every day of my life how lucky I was to see the full Grateful Dead perform Box of Rain live. And it is crazy to me how lucky. I feel that in how central it is to my identity, my experience in the world that I was able to see the band at least once. Because of course, my. My first show was the final show, July 9, 1995, at Soldier Field. It ended with fireworks over the stage and a slow retreat out of the stadium.

[Narrator/Host]

But even after Jerry Garcia died in August 1995 and the grateful Dead stopped touring, Box of Rain continued to do its work. In the final episode of the cult TV show Freaks and Geeks, created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow and said in 1981, main character Lindsey Weir, played by Linda Cardellini, finds herself in a crisis. And her long haired guidance counselor, Jeff Rosso, offers her some wisdom.

[Steven Barnard]

Maybe you're tired and broken your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear what do you want me to do? To do for you to see you.

[Narrator/Host]

Through why are you talking like that? Just quoting the Dead.

[Steven Barnard]

I Know, it always makes me feel better.

[Sam Cutler]

What?

[Gary Lambert]

Quoting the who?

[Sam Cutler]

Not the who.

[Narrator/Host]

The Grateful Dead.

[Steven Barnard]

When I was in college, back in the early 1700s, I'd put their album American Beauty on whenever I was stressing out.

[Sam Cutler]

It always helped.

[Narrator/Host]

Rosso lends Lindsay his copy of American Beauty, and she has a revelatory experience listening and dancing with the camera, showing her moving the turntable needle back to the start of Box of Rain to listen again and again. Freaks and Geeks was canceled after only one season, but it found a new audience on DVD and became a new turning point in the Grateful Dead's cultural and critical acceptance. In the years after Jerry Garcia's death, audiences were able to experience the Grateful Dead's music anew through Lindsay Weir's ears, whether they were already a Dead fan or not. If you've never seen the show before, I can't recommend it enough. But some spoilers are going to follow. In fact, we're just going to tell you how the whole series ends. Ready? Okay. So to discuss the story of how Lindsay Weir ran off on Grateful Dead tour, we have series co creator and episode writer Paul Feig. You may know from his work directing movies like Bridesmaids, the recent Ghostbusters, as well as television shows like the Office and Arrested Development.

[Paul Feig]

I have to admit, I knew the Grateful Dead from their hits, but I did not know the Deep Cuts and all that. And so, you know, when we were trying to figure out what we wanted to have happen in that last episode, I remember Judd and I just going, like, she should become a Deadhead. Like, she should just, like, you know, completely surprise everybody and head off at the end of the show. And so I started, obviously listening to music, but also doing a lot of reading on the Grateful Dead, but then started listening to American Beauty and had embarrassingly never heard it before. And so, honestly, I was so blown away by it, all I could do is keep listening, just playing over and over and over and over and over again for forever. And when I was writing the episode. But what I wrote that everybody's saying and what Lindsey's discovering in that episode is exactly what I was going through when I first put it on. I mean, I literally, I was dancing around like Lindsay and just being so affected by it and being very emotional listening to it. So it really just inspired that entire episode.

[Narrator/Host]

Were any of the actors involved in those scenes familiar with the Dead?

[Paul Feig]

No, not really. Our cast was so young. I mean, honestly, some of them, when they first came on and, you know, I had to, like, teach them about Led Zeppelin and all those kind of things. I felt so old, first of all. But no, well, actually, the. The guy who we hired as the Deadhead, he knew. He knew about the Grateful Dead, so he was very kind of into that.

[Narrator/Host]

But that.

[Paul Feig]

The woman. I don't. I don't remember if she knew or not, but I tell you, by the end of that episode, everybody was so into that album and into the Dead. My wife completely became an absolute fan. And she was just playing, you know, playing him over and over again and all that. But, yeah, I definitely have had people say, you know, gosh, I just. You know, I never really thought about that album, or I just didn't know about it, you know, again, because we had.

[Narrator/Host]

I don't know.

[Paul Feig]

The show was always so strange because we had such a cross section of people who watched it. In the beginning, I don't think a lot of younger people watched it. It was mostly people my age. But then in the 10, you know, 10, 20 years since then, especially once we came out on DVD and have been streaming and on all the. More and more young people have discovered it. So it's really cool because, you know, they've discovered the Dead from there, but they've also discovered a lot of the other bands that, to me, were just so known.

[Narrator/Host]

That's.

[Paul Feig]

That's the crazy thing about getting older. You kind of. You. You bring all your experiences forward and go like, well, sure, everybody knows everything that I knew from the past. And then you kind of go like, oh, my gosh. There's so much stuff that people don't know that you think they would know. So that's why. It's one of the many reasons why I love doing what I do. I like being able to let people discover great things, you know, that they might have missed or they might have forgotten about a lot of times. Well, that's what I loved about the fact that we could tell the story of somebody discovering the dead compared to completely from scratch. You know, that's why that. I mean, there was a lot of. When we were putting the show together, there was some consternation in the writers room and among some of the other producers, that the scene with Lindsay starting to dance to the Dead was actually a very cringy scene. And I remember one of our. When I showed the first cut of the show, one of our writers just started laughing uproariously, like, derisively, like, oh, my God, this is so bad. And I was like, I don't know. I think it seems like such a pure Thing. And Linda Cardellini is so great that her, you know, her movement to it is. Look, it's a hard scene to have to kind of, like, have somebody get swept up in something. It's sort of one of the toughest things. It's like doing a movie or a show about somebody who's hilarious and everybody goes like, wow, they're really funny. Because all we go like, well, they're not that funny. So, you know the dangerous thing when you go like, somebody's getting into something and we're going like, well, what are they dancing? That. That's not so great. But the song is so great, you know, and then. And then the way that she does it. And then we just had to really do it through A lot of. You look at the scene. It's a lot of dissolves going on of kind of time passage. Time passage. You know. The most important shot, I think, in that sequence is her. We continually see the needle getting picked up and going back. So she's playing it over and over and over again and just, you know, becoming completely inspired by it, you know, and just how she just gets swept up in it. And it was really. It's one of my proudest moments directorially, I have to say.

[Narrator/Host]

There were plans for a second season in which maybe Lindsay Weir has too much too fast.

[Paul Feig]

I just thought it'd be interesting if she got completely, like, swept up in this and sort of got in over her head a little bit of just kind of having too good of a time. And so I just kind of like the idea that maybe she went a little too far at one of the Dead show, maybe being taken out on a stretcher or something. But as we know, that doesn't happen at a Dead show, as we know. But maybe somebody slipped or something or. I just thought. I just love the idea if you get busted coming back, you know, from Leaving for the Dead, that you really have to come back to your parents, not only just contrite, but also in a hospital.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm personally glad it didn't happen quite like that.

[Paul Feig]

So many people kind of will go about Freaks and Geeks like, oh, it's so bad you didn't get it ended officially and this and that. It's like we kind of knew we were over. So I look at that ending as being completely official. Because, you know, the only way you can end a show where you know exactly where everybody ends up for the rest of their life is if you have an episode where everybody dies at the end. Because as we know, everybody's life goes on and takes twists and turns and changes and all that. So to me it's the most poetic ending. I love that last image of just the van going off in the distance.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm going to sign off with a little bit from one of my own personal favorite versions of Box of Rain. This one is by Robert Hunter himself, recorded on his 1980 album Jacka Roses.

[Gary Lambert]

What do you want the to do.

[Paul Feig]

To do for you, to see you.

[Narrator/Host]

Through all this is all the A.

[Sam Cutler]

Dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.

[Rich Mahan]

As the old tour T shirt says Great bass L filling I have my own favorite box of rain it was August 23, 1987 at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds. We had an epic crew of friends in attendance, and as the band kicked into Box of Rain, as the show opener, skydivers were landing right behind the stage, pushing the excited energy into overdrive and kicking off one hell of a good show. Also of note, they played Good Morning Little School Girl that weekend, the first time since 9 1970. Bobby sang it and Carlos Santana sat in with the band both nights for the last two songs of the first set. Good times indeed. Thanks very much for tuning in. Visit us [e-mail] deadcast and we'll see you next episode. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast, Mark Pincus and Doran Tyson. Produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.