Bear's Choice 50

Summary

GOOD OL' GRATEFUL DEADCAST

Episode: Bear's Choice 50
Release Date: March 30, 2023
Theme: Celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Bear’s Choice”—the Grateful Dead’s first archival release and heartfelt tribute to the band’s original bluesman and founding member, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.

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Overview

Season seven of the Deadcast examines the context, story, and legacy of "Bear’s Choice" (History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1), a unique live album curated by the Dead’s legendary soundman and LSD chemist Owsley “Bear” Stanley. Hosts Rich Mahan and Jesse Jarnow, together with guest perspectives (David Lemieux, Starfinder Stanley, Alan Arkish, Gary Lambert), discuss the music’s roots, recording circumstances, and how the album became a significant artifact both musically and visually for Deadheads old and new.

Main Purpose:
Dive deep into the circumstances, music, personalities, and visuals surrounding "Bear’s Choice," exploring its origin as a contractual obligation, its transformation into a Pigpen tribute, and the birth of iconic Grateful Dead imagery.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Album Origins & Contractual Context

• Bear’s Choice is the Dead’s fourth live album, but unlike earlier releases like Live/Dead, Skull and Roses, or Europe ‘72, it’s a single disc with a mix of acoustic and electric tracks.
• Recorded live at the Fillmore East, February 13-14, 1970 – just three years before the album’s release.
• The album was partially assembled to fulfill a legal commitment to Warner Bros. after financial mismanagement by manager Lenny Hart (11:19).
  • Bob Weir (1973):

    “We had a commitment to Warner Brothers and for expediency gave them some old tapes that Owsley had collected.” (11:55)

  • Garcia’s Rolling Stone explanation:

    “We could have been cut loose if we gave them two single records rather than one triple album. We ended up giving them four discs instead of just two, just to be able to go to Europe.” (12:19)

2. Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley: Man, Myth, and Sonic Journals

• Bear was an early and influential Dead sound engineer as well as a legendary LSD chemist.
• Starfinder Stanley (Bear’s son):
  • On the nickname:

    “He started using Bear as the nickname, which he had as a teen… he could be gruff at times, so it did suit him.” (07:34)

  • On Bear’s philosophy:

    “It has to be real. It has to represent what happened. There is so much power in that truth of the music as it emerged. And you can’t fix it because it’s not broken… This is the way it happened. You have to honor that.” (10:02)

• Bear’s unique recording methods sought to be “transparent,” capturing not just the band, but the room and the moment (27:10, 32:30).

3. A Pigpen Tribute

• Although the album began as a contractual workaround, Pigpen’s death in March 1973 (age 27) shaped it into a memorial.
  • David Lemieux:

    “They were in development on this project and then Pig died right in the middle of it. That’s when…Katie Mae got put on there…to further make this a Pigpen tribute.” (15:18)

4. The Fillmore East: A Sonic Home

• The Fillmore’s legendary status and technical excellence, with a pioneering sound system by Bill Hanley, earned deep respect from Bear and the Dead.
  • Alan Arkish:

    “It was remarkable how good it sounded. The sense I got of the space…was really overpowering to me.” (19:00)

  • Starfinder Stanley:

    “He didn’t just catch the sound, he catches the place the sound happened in, the whole experience of being in that room.” (20:06)

• Stories of the backstage world, Angel visits, and midnight antics illustrate the band's raw, communal world (29:08, 30:06).

5. The Acoustic Set: Deadfolk & Americana

• First official Live Dead album with a full acoustic side, documented during their transition from psychedelic to folk- and roots-based material.
  • Gary Lambert (attendee):

    “It was the first time…that we saw the Dead have a little interlude where they played some acoustic instruments on stage...it was wonderful.” (39:27)

  • Bob Weir banter (on capos):

    “…this insidious device known in common circles as a cheater.” (42:37)

• Explores origins of “Dark Hollow,” “I’ve Been All Around This World,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Black Peter.”
  • Dark Hollow traced from early folk roots to Dead favorites.
  • The Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie” as a major influence on Jerry & Bob’s harmonies (50:14).

6. Side 2: Pigpen’s Blues

• Side 2 is a showcase for Pigpen: “Katie Mae”, “Smokestack Lightning”, “Hard To Handle.”
  • Phil Lesh (via memoir):

    “Never was Pigpen more at home than with a bottle of wine and a guitar.”

  • “Katie Mae” as both party favorite and deep blues dance tune, nodding to Lightnin’ Hopkins.
  • The Dead’s “Hard to Handle” is compared to Otis Redding’s original, and its transformation into a signature Pigpen jam.

7. Bear’s Recording & Production Philosophy

• Bear strived to be as invisible as possible, capturing the real sound of the band, the stage, and the venue.
  • Bear (1991 interview):

    “I was always a recordist…My way of doing that was constantly playing the tapes back, making the tapes as exactly like the house...I become as transparent as possible.” (27:10)

• His work influenced the band's consistency, driving nightly reflection and improvement.

8. Iconic Artwork: Dancing Bears & Steal Your Face

• “Bear’s Choice” introduced the Dead’s two most legendary images: the “Steal Your Face” skull/lightning and the “dancing” (or marching) bears.
  • Starfinder Stanley:

    “The art on it has some of the most persistent and ubiquitous Grateful Dead iconography that’s out there.” (70:15)

  • Explains how Bear needed a symbol for Dead gear—hence, the birth of the skull-and-bolt logo, later refined into the iconic form by artist Bob Thomas (72:12).

9. The Enduring Legacy of “Bear’s Choice”

• While rarely cited as the greatest Dead live album, it’s foundational for newcomers, old-school fans, and anyone interested in the Dead’s mythos.
• The “History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1” hinted at more volumes, but the band never followed it up. Starfinder reflects:

  • “Volume One…marked a turning point in the evolution of the band…Bear was really absolutely certain that the Grateful Dead was an entity that existed beyond the members of the band.” (78:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Starfinder Stanley on Pigpen and Bear: (17:02)

  “It's funny because Pig Pen didn't like acid and my dad didn't like drinking...yet they still had that deep soul connection. His persona was so gruff...but he was, from all reports, such a sweet guy...I think that probably is one thing my dad loved about that duality.”

• Alan Arkish on Black Peter: (53:17)

  “The performance of Jerry on Black Peter really sums up the ambition of that record...to hold 2500 people like that, and there’s not a cough in the room...it’s about as beautiful a live recording as I've ever heard.”

• Bear (Owsley Stanley) on his Approach: (27:10)

  “My idea about the soundman is that he has to become transparent...making the tapes as exactly like the house...get the earphone sound just like the house, walk around the house...so it was mostly just the band.”

• Starfinder Stanley on Grateful Dead's Continuity: (79:18)

  “Even when all of you are dead and gone, there will still be a Grateful Dead, because the Dead’s more than that...The Dead is the energy of the experience.”

• Bob Weir on acoustic set banter: (42:37)

  “Let me put on this insidious device. Here I’m strapping on an insidious device known in common circles as a cheater.”
  [followed by]
  “You can lose a finger trying to use one of those things.” (46:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:37 – Opening performance excerpt: “Freight Train”
• 07:10 – Introduction of Bear (Owsley Stanley) and the roots of his nickname
• 09:23 – First proper Bear credit; Pigpen’s authenticity on tape
• 11:55 – Bob Weir on contractual obligation for Warners
• 13:10 – Release of competing “History of the Grateful Dead” by MGM
• 14:44 – Pigpen’s passing shifts the album to become a tribute
• 17:02 – Starfinder Stanley reflects on friendship between Bear and Pigpen
• 19:00 – Alan Arkish on the sound of the original pressing
• 27:10 – Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley 1991 interview on his recording methodology
• 29:08–31:35 – Fillmore East backstage tales, Pigpen’s “couch,” Hell’s Angels
• 33:33 – Gary Lambert recounts attending the Fillmore East shows
• 41:01 – Early Dead acoustic sets: a shift towards folk/americana
• 42:37, 46:16 – Banter between Weir and Garcia during “Dark Hollow,” capo jokes
• 53:17 – Alan Arkish on the impact of “Black Peter”
• 56:54, 57:38 – Pigpen brought out for his acoustic solo; engages with the crowd
• 63:21 – Gear talk: Garcia’s use of a rosewood Telecaster at these shows
• 70:15–74:44 – The iconic artwork: Steal Your Face and Dancing Bears
• 78:08–79:18 – Starfinder on the meaning of “Volume 1” and persevering Grateful Dead energy

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Structure of "Bear's Choice": Music & Mood

• Side A: Acoustic
  • “Dark Hollow” (first Dead performance!)
  • “I’ve Been All Around This World”
  • “Wake Up Little Susie”
  • “Black Peter” (new at the time, soon to be a staple)
• Side B: Pigpen Blues
  • “Katie Mae” (rare Pigpen solo)
  • “Smokestack Lightning” (Howlin’ Wolf cover)
  • “Hard to Handle” (Otis Redding cover, Pigpen’s signature)

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Conclusion

“Bear’s Choice” was born of business necessity, became a personal artistic statement from one of rock’s most enigmatic sonic innovators, and transformed posthumously into the Grateful Dead’s primary memorial to Pigpen. Its songs, stories, and art have become part of the Dead’s living legacy—an evolutionary leap preserved in acid-etched vinyl, honest, raw, and (uniquely for the Dead) grounded.

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For further exploration:

• Linked videos, interviews, rare photos, and additional reading at dead.net/deadcast
• Participatory stories: stories.dead.net

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(Hosted by Rich Mahan & Jesse Jarnow. Guests: David Lemieux, Starfinder Stanley, Alan Arkish, Gary Lambert. Special archival audio: David Gans. All excerpts remain in the original lively Deadcast tone.)

Transcript

[A]

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. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to Season seven of the Good Old Grateful Dead cast. I'm your co host Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. Well, we hope you enjoyed the past two episodes covering the life and times of Ron Pigpen McKernan. This episode follows suit thematically as we cover the 50th anniversary of Bear's Choice, the history of the Grateful Dead Volume 1, which is widely regarded as the Dead's tribute to Pigpen. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast and check out all of our past episodes including the complete seasons 1 through 6. You can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how you like to listen. Please help this podcast by subscribing, hitting that like button and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review. Thank you very much. You know we have transcripts for a lot of your favorite Dead cast episodes now, right? Well those of you waiting on season one don't have to wait any longer. Season one transcripts are now up for your viewing [e-mail] start sl deadcast index. Check them out. Announcing History of The Grateful Dead Volume 1 Bears Choice 50th Anniversary Remaster this is the original album, newly remastered by Grammy Award winning engineer David Glasser using plangent processes from the original analog two track tapes recorded live by Owsley Bear Stanley at the famed Fillmore east on February 13th and 14th, 1970. There are two versions available, a black 180 gram vinyl edition and a limited edition custom vinyl available [e-mail] Both of these releases are out as of May 5th, but you can pre order any and all of the Bears Choice 50th anniversary remaster releases and merch [e-mail] and thanks to everyone who has left their [e-mail] we're now asking you to share your stories of serendipity and the most unbelievable, craziest stories ever told. Share those stories [e-mail] and you just may hear yourself on The Dead Cast Bear's Choice, the History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1, documents an important period in the band's progression and pays tribute to their fallen bandmate Ron Pigpen McKernan. What is it that makes this album special? Well, let's hand it off to Jesse Giorno as he takes us on a deep dive into the music and the backstage happenings at the Fillmore east, where this classic music was recorded.

[B]

So blow your whistle freight train Take me far on down the trail I'm going away I'm leaving today I'm going but I ain't coming back.

[C]

In the summer of 1973, the Grateful Dead put out their fourth live album in five years, History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1, Bear's Choice. It was different in several key ways from the double albums Live Dead and Skull and Roses, released in the Falls of 1969 and 1971 respectively, and the Triple LP Europe 72 released in fall 1972. For starters, Bear's Choice, as most people know the album was was a single disc, and unlike their previous live albums, it included a side of acoustic music.

[B]

Upon the Blue Ridge Mountain There I'll take my stand upon the Blue Ridge Mountain There I take my stand Rifle on my shoulder Six shooter in my hand Load load I've been all around.

[C]

This world the music on Bear's Choice was recorded in February 1970, barely three years old when the album came out, it was the first official archival Dead release, with so many other archival albums released subsequently and even so many Dead live albums already on the market, both legal and otherwise, when it came out in 1973. I can say from personal experience that it's easy for Behr's Choice to slip through the cracks of the Dead's discography. Not today. Another way to say that is that Bear's Choice is also an easy album to underestimate, but it's also a special place all its own. And that's where we're going today.

[B]

Wake up little Suzy wake up wake up little Susie wake up Please welcome.

[C]

Back good old Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.

[D]

I remember getting that album when I was probably 15 years old, and by then I'd heard from the live canon, Live skull n roses, Europe 72, dead set and reckoning. So I then got bear's choice and expected it to sound similar Multi track, Et cetera. And I Put it on. And I certainly was not disappointed, but I was in awe of how different it sounded. I've never thought of the album as History of the Grateful Dead. Volume one, parentheses. It's just Bear's Choice. And I see the title. When we see internal documents on this, I'm like, oh, yeah, it's called, but it's just Bear's Choice. Just as we all have our other phrases for Skull and Roses. You know, it's just. Just the way it is.

[C]

The bear in question was Augustus Owsley Stanley iii, AKA Owsley, AKA Bear. Known for being the world's first and best underground LSD chemist, He was also the Grateful Dead's primary sound engineer in 1966 and again from 1968 through 1970. Please welcome back to the good old Grateful Dead, cast from the Owsley Stanley Foundation. Owsley's son, Starfinder, he started using Bear.

[E]

As the nickname, you know, which he'd had as a. As a teen. When he hit puberty, he started sprouting chest hair before all of his friends. And so he teased him he was turning into a bear. And, you know, he could be gruff at times, so it did suit him. And so he started using that name as well. And in part, it was just kind of a wink. Those that know know, and those that don't should be as confused as possible.

[C]

We've done a few special Deadcasts about Owsley, known as Bear drops, who one in 2020 and one in 2021. Going into some of the myths and legends and tapes recommended. We've Posted [e-mail] deadcast despite being their sound engineer from nearly the start, Behr's choice was the first chance Owsley had to apply his ideas to disc.

[E]

These are really some of the early Sonic Journal recordings, the first ones that came off the reels and were put out on vinyl. I know that Bear looked at it as his tribute to Pigpen after Pigpen died. There are a lot of heads that never knew Pigpen because he was Early Days. And there are a lot of people who encountered the dead in the 80s and 90s and have that later Dead experience. And Pigpen's music was such an integral part of where the Dead came from and how they developed their sound. That combination of Jerry's fiddle tune, bluegrass, banjo guitar approach and Pig Pen's blues, that soul and that gritty bar band, that's the Dead that Bear encountered and fell in love with. But it's so much a part of their DNA. So I think this is a really important album. For people to listen to because it gives you more insight into those roots.

[C]

It would be Owsley's first proper credit on a Dead album. Compared to the other official live dead LPs. Bear's Choice is raw. Pigpen even admits to making a mistake in the first verse of the first song.

[B]

Well, you know Katie Mae's a good girl I made a mistake and she don't run around at night yes, and you can bet your last dollar Katie May will treat you right.

[E]

It has to be real. It has to represent what happened. There is so much power in that truth of the music as it emerged. And you can't fix it because it's not broken. Right? It's not. It might not be perfect, but it's real. That was one thing that Barrett always came back to with his recordings, is this can't be fixed because there's nothing to fix. This is the way it happened. You have to honor that because if you don't, you lose something and, and you may not realize what it is, but it's tangible and it's substantial.

[D]

As a 15 year old, I couldn't really articulate what I was hearing. But am I dead center? Am I on the stage? That wasn't how I saw things. But it sounded different and it sounded incredible. It was again, it was unlike. This is what I love about the Dead. Every tour, every year, every era is so different. And this album was so different from any other live album. And yet it was still clearly Grateful Dead music. So even at 15, it was, it was so remarkably different from the other five live albums I'd heard. I loved it immediately from day one. And then, you know, the artwork, I mean, everything about that album to me, and so much pig pen on side too, just blew me away.

[C]

There were a few shifting sets of circumstances that shaped the album that became Bear's choice. The first was the circumstance known as Lenny Hart. When he was managing the Grateful Dead in fall of 1969, he signed a three year extension of the band's contract with Warner Bros. And pocketed the money, locking the band to the label through the end of 1972. The second circumstance was, was that by the time Europe 72 came out in November, the Grateful Dead had also decided to launch their own record company, Grateful Dead records. Here's Bob Weir's rather unsexy explanation of Behr's choice on WAER in 1973.

[F]

We had a commitment to Warner Brothers and for the sake of expediency, I guess what we did was gave them some old Tapes that Ozan and we had for a while named Baird has collected.

[C]

Getting out of that commitment to Warner Bros. Required executing some very Grateful Dead like math, which Terry Garcia explained to Rolling Stone. We weren't contracted for it originally, he said, but we had to give it to them in order to make Europe 72 a triple LP. We could have been cut loose if we gave them two single records rather than one triple album. We ended up giving them four discs instead of just two, just to be able to go to Europe. The third circumstance, or maybe the fourth, was that in the summer of 1972, Owsley had been released from federal prison. The band assigned him the task of assembling an album from his recordings, which he took to with his usual zeal.

[D]

Two weeks ago. Three weeks ago was in the vault. And I was just checking out what master tapes were in there for future projects. And I knew these tapes were there, but I really. I scrutinized the track list, but it was an original version of Bear's Choice, so I guess presumably it had been in the plans in earlier 73 as a get out of the Warner Brothers contract ending thing.

[C]

I've mostly lost track of the circumstances by now, and it's impossible to know how this one played in. But back in 1966, before the dead signed with Warner Brothers, they agreed to a contract that resulted in the 1970 releases of the unofficial live albums Historic Dead and Vintage Dead.

[B]

Look at black lies don't believe I love you look what a fool I feel don't believe I'm singing the good.

[C]

The shows were recorded at the Avalon ballroom, probably in December 1966. The dead weren't psyched with their release by a subsidiary of MGM records in 1970, and they were probably even less psyched in early 1973 when a different subsidiary of MGM repackaged the recordings on a new LP titled the History of the Grateful Dead.

[B]

I know.

[C]

I really have no idea how one played into the other, but it seems impossible to be a coincidence that Pride put out a record titled History of the grateful dead and February 1973, and the dead followed with their own record with exactly the same title only a few months later. It was during that window that another circumstance shaped Bear's choice. The death of Ron Pigpen McKernan at the age of 27 in early March 1973. We spoke extensively about Pigpen over the last two episodes of the Dead cast. Bear's Choice is often rightly remembered as a tribute to him, but it didn't start out that way.

[D]

The first side did not include Katie May. They were in development on this project and then Pig died right in the middle of it. That's when I think the Katie Mae got put on there as well. To further make this a Pigpen tribute.

[C]

Album, the original track list for the album included Direwolf and Smokestack Lightning on the first side. The second contained Monkey and the engineer Little Sadie, Wake Up Little Susie, Black Peter, and concluded with Katie Mae, with Katie Mae moved to the top and the entire second side given over to Pigpen Jams. Bear's Choice became a tribute to Pigpen when it was released in the summer of 1973.

[B]

Whoa, smoke stack of lightning Shining just like gold why can't you hear me cry?

[C]

Despite being hand produced by the preeminent LSD chemist of the 1960s, coming packaged with some of the most Lysergic album art in the Dead's Hole catalog, and being drawn from one of the more psychedelic weekends in the band's history to date, the music on Bear's Choice was paradoxically as grounded as the Dead got. The final circumstance, as it turns out, was the band themselves. According to late Dead archivist Dick Lotvalla, he once asked Bayer why no psychedelic jams made it to the album, and Bayer told him, I submitted over a hundred different ideas and everyone was rejected and this was the one that got through. Transforming it into a Pigpen tribute was a good assignment for Owsley.

[E]

I wish I had met him. He was such an important person to my dad. They were such wonderful friends. Brothers really. And it's funny because Big Pen didn't like acid and my dad didn't like drinking, and Pig Pen loved drinking, but yet they still had that deep soul connection. His Persona was so gruff and rough and hell's angley and just tough guy. But he was, from all reports, such a sweet guy, just gentle and and quiet and thoughtful. I think that probably is one thing that my dad loved about that duality of the nature of who he was.

[C]

There was one thing Bear's Choice had in common with Skull and Roses. They were both products of the Fillmore east, and that's no coincidence. We discussed the Dead's relationship with the venue in a pair of episodes in season three about side D of Skull and Roses, followed by a bonus late show at the Fillmore East. We've linked to [e-mail] deadcast let's go back to the Fillmore east and get into the music on Bear's Choice. Why, hello there, Mike Wallace. If you're puzzled by the hypnotic effect that today's rock musicians have on the young, not just on their taste in music, but on their fashions, their manners and morals. Spend the next several minutes with us in New York's East Village at a place called Fillmore East. Joining us today is dead cast comrade Alan Arkish, who worked at the Fillmore east in various capacities in the stage crew and light show from not long after its opening in 19 through its closing in 1971.

[F]

I went and pulled out my vinyl on Bear's Choice, which was an original pressing of it, okay. And I put it on my system, which is a very good system. And it was remarkable how good it sounded. I mean, inordinately good. And the sense I got of the space of the place and the time of night was really overpowering to me.

[B]

All of my friends come to see me last night. I was laying in my bed and dying.

[E]

That's the magic of Bear's recordings, his sonic journals.

[F]

He.

[E]

He didn't just catch the sound, he catches the. The place that the sound happened in, the. The whole experience of being in that room.

[F]

It's remarkable how great it sounds and the presence, and it feels like you're there. It really does. And I think that's a tribute to Bear working with the best sound house ever.

[C]

The house system at the Fillmore east was designed by Bill Hanley, a genuine pioneer of live sound, who'd created the system for the Newport Jazz and Folk Festival starting in the late 1950s and had moved into the world of rock when he was drafted to build audio for the Beatles 1966 return to Shea Stadium. His speaker system for the Fillmore east is one of the few that Owsley and the Dead deemed to be for real. The band's relationship with the venue went deep.

[F]

If you think of the fact that they're touring all the time, think of the Fillmore east as their pit crew. And so Osley, he could set up there with people who respected him, no union problems.

[C]

The soundboard at the Fillmore east was located in a balcony box on stage left, the right side, if you're in the crowd. There's a classic photo of Bear running sound from that position. In the fuller version of the photo, you can actually see Alan Arkish standing next to the side door, just under the sound engineer's box, taking in the show with fellow crew member Danny Opatashu. But the core of the venue's sonic operations was actually underneath the stage. This is a good place to point out a really amazing project by a music fan. Named Keith Mueller. Using blueprints for the Village Theater, he's created an animated walkthrough of the venue, occasionally fitted in photos. It's like, pretty wow. We've posted a [e-mail] deadcast when you.

[F]

Walk in the theater, there's a center aisle and I believe, a far right and a far left aisle. As you're facing the stage, you walk down the far right aisle and it came to a curtained area. That's where one member of the stage crew would be. And you had to have a pass to get further than that. So you went through there. And as you went through this little hallway to your left was the whole stage and the backstage area. But if you kept going to the back wall, there was a staircase continuation which took you downstairs. And it opened up to the whole under the stage area. You saw that as you went around into this big open to the left was all the tech stuff. They built shelving into it and desk work and areas, and that's where they hung out, you know, that's where they did all their work. To the right was kind of an open storage area.

[C]

And this is where we're going to hang out today, basically under the stage at the Fillmore. In a few ways, it was just as important as the stage itself.

[F]

So left area was also where the super secret, I think it was a TIAC tape player was. There was a line from the board through there to that tape player. And that's where, I guess the Dick's Picks came from. And almost every show was secretly taped.

[C]

That's not where Bear's choice comes from. But many of the other Dead recordings you've heard from the film or east very likely do. Bear's choice was almost certainly recorded by the venue's soundboard overlooking the stage. But even Bear's choice was to hang out with the gang underneath the stage.

[F]

That was also where Osley spent a lot of time when he came to the Fillmore East. Any bit of electronic equipment that they didn't have, they could get to him within an hour. Because we were downtown, so we were near Canal street, which is where all the electronic stores were. What I remember about him is that he was always in motion, that he was always very, very busy. And he was always setting something up or doing something. And he would take his equipment down there with the soldering guns and everything. There was all these tech Deadheads all working together like crazy and throwing ideas back and forth, which is why he was allowed to mix on the house mixing board. Other groups that would bring sound people. They didn't know anything. They were just like a friend of the band, you know? And they weren't allowed to touch the board. Whereas Osley was totally trusted. One of the things that Bear did that no one else did was that in the sound check or before the sound check, he would do a pink noise and a white noise generator on the stage. Now, that was something that the guys at the Fillmore knew all about, okay? Because on Sunday nights, as they were putting in the show in the first year or two, they were refining the sound in the house. So they would get up there and I would be on the stage crew just helping. I didn't have anything to do with this. I didn't know what they were doing. But they would generate white noise and it would fill the speakers, and they go around the house and measure it and measure the quality of it. And then they would add padding to certain parts of the room to help that. Because they had two challenges. When you went straight back towards the lobby, the divider between the lobby and the Fillmore was glass. So. And you had an overhang. And they refused to. To be handicapped by the overhang. That was like the hill they were going to die on. Whereas, as you know, in every other. Every other rock theater you've ever been, if you sit in the overhang, it's like echoey and everything. So they put padding everywhere. And so they were doing that. So when Bear would come in, he would double check and make any adjustments, and then Jerry would come in, and Jerry would play on the stage, and Bear would go around with a Nagra tape recorder. The best of all, that's the perfect tape recorder. That's what they recorded movies on, you know, and a special, obviously super microphone, because those guys were like, if it isn't gourmet, it's gone, you know? And he would record Jerry in various places in the house and in places that he would normally think would be problematic because of the shape of the room. And then they go back and they listen to it and figure out if there was anything they could do, thanks.

[C]

To the magic and generosity of David Ganz. Here's Owsley talking about the process that Alan describes and how it led to Bear's choice. This is from the 1991 interview included in Conversations with the Dead, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast. For a whole lot more like this, check out our LA66 episode.

[G]

My idea about the soundman is that he has to become transparent, a recordist Is different. And I was always a recordist, right? But a soundman running the house sound system. He's only an assistant to the musician. If he's a total contributing musician and is a member of the band, that's fine. If he's not, he should make himself so transparent as to not be there. My way of doing that was constantly playing the tapes back, making the tapes as exactly like the house. I'd listen to the house, listen to the tape, listen to the house, adjust them, listen to the tape, listen to the house and get the. Get the earphone sound just like the house, walk around the house, walk all over, walk up on stage, make the sound in the headphones like what I experienced, as close as possible to what I was experiencing in the hall. Then you play the tapes back to the band and it can tell you whether you're right or wrong, not whether that's what they would do. So I become as transparent as possible. After every show, we'd gather in the hotel, play back the night's gigs. That's why I was recording all the time. That's how Bear's Choice got made. It got made because we were always taping was always a tape. If it wasn't a reel to reel, it was a cassette. It was always a tape being made. Something that could be played back, something that could be listened to. That was how I was learning. They were telling me when to balance was right, when the balance was wrong, when this didn't sound right, when that didn't sound right. They were critiquing their own performances and so forth and so on. We find a weakness and we try to correct it. On and on and on and on. They taught me, I taught them, they taught themselves. We all learned. It was a learning matrix in which everything was constant flow of ideas and so forth. And there was no isolation. Everybody was involved.

[C]

At the Fillmore east, the soup was thick.

[F]

There was this whole mix of people. And the dressing rooms were small, so there was a lot going on backstage.

[C]

The big workshop area underneath the stage also became Pigpen's hangout. When the Dead were in town, that's.

[F]

Where they put Pig Pen's couch and a lamp and a table. And they may have even put, oh, I know I put a cooler down there.

[C]

Pigpen's zone under the stage mirrored his home life at 710 Ashbury a few years earlier when he occupied a room off the kitchen. Here's how Jerry Garcia described it to Blair Jackson in the Great Pigpen tribute by the golden you'd go in there, and there might be a half a dozen hippies and some black people hanging out, drinking wine and listening to Pigpen do whatever he was doing. He was a real crackup. People be hanging on his every word. It was under the stage that Pig received visitors from the Hell's Angels, whose clubhouse was only a few blocks away.

[F]

When the Angels were there, they would go underneath the stage and hang with him, or they would be hanging around backstage.

[C]

This next story happened during the Dead's January 1970 trip to the Fillmore East. Now on Dave's Picks 30. We at the Dead cast certainly don't endorse what Alan's about to describe.

[F]

But it happened not just when Osley was there in General, Ramrod Parish, Jackson. A couple of them would walk around and have these little Visine bottles inside. The Visine bottles was acid. So if you wanted to get dosed, you held out your beer can, or if they saw a beer can or something of someone who needed to be dosed in their minds, and they would hit it. So that was like a constant buzz around that time. If you knew that they had been dosed, they would put a little dent in it, okay? And some point during that weekend, Bill, who had been flying back coast to coast, comes backstage, and while the Dead are playing, behind the screen is like a couple of Dead roadies and the Hell's Angels twirling, doing that Grateful Dead twirl. And he turns to Jonathan Kaplan, he goes, when did this start? And Jonathan goes, bill, I have no idea.

[C]

That was Dancing in the street from Dave's picks 30, the show Alan was just talking about, and the Dead's last trip through the Fillmore east before the recordings that became Bear's Choice and Dick's Picks four. In between those two sets of shows, the Dead and their crew got busted in New Orleans in late January, dropped a band member and began production for a new album. The bust was a violation of Owsley's probation and thus confined him to California. The shows at the Fillmore east would be the last road gigs Bear recorded for more than two and a half years. When he reached for his Sonic journals in early 1973, they may have been relatively fresh on his mind. In a sense, they represented something close to the most evolved version of Bayer's ideas about audio before he was forced to take a break. Here's how he remembered it to David Ganz in 1991. You can check out the rest of David's interview with Bear and David's great book Conversations with the Dead, which We've posted a link [e-mail] Deadcast Bear's Choice.

[G]

Is an example of the tapes where I was trying to make myself as transparent as possible, right? And it's very interesting. There's only like 16 mics on the stage, period. The mics, I just move the mics around until the sound coming to the hall was like the sound on the stage and it if it meant one mic here and one mic sort of halfway between there and there and only two mics on each drum set or whatever, I just moved them all around. I got it so that I got a coherent lifelike sound that was out in the hall like if I was standing on stage that was on the tape like it was in the hall. And tried to make myself as little as my input as little as possible or as perceivable as me as possible. Tried to get rid of that. So it was mostly just the band.

[C]

Naturally our friend Gary Lambert was there. Please welcome back to the Deadcast the co host of the Golden Road on SiriusXM and a shakedown stream near you, the esteemed Gary Lambert. My first interview prompt for Gary was holy shit. You were at the February 1970 film or east shows.

[H]

Oh yeah. That was pretty well into my first year of complete fanaticism. You know, I really taken the plunge all in, in 69 after first seeing them in 60 and had already been to some multi show runs and seen several shows in multi show runs. So when those tickets for Fillmore east went on sale, I remember two things distinctly. I was indignant that the Dead were getting big enough that I couldn't automatically wind up somewhere in the first 10 rows because it was actually becoming. I heard about those shows on very short notice. I think the, the ad ran in the Village Voice or wherever the ads customarily ran. And I kind of, they kind of slid by me. So I actually I, I, I ditched school early to run down to Fillmore east in a cab and, and get some tickets and I got decent seats for, for all the nights. The other notable thing about that ticket on sale was I'm pretty sure it was the first shows that I bought tickets for in which the prices at Film Maurice had gone from a top of $5 to $5.50, which was considered the apex of capitalist greed and avarice. And Bill Graham, vilified as he was so often by the Lower east side freak scene as we know, mostly unjustly because he ran shows better than anyone else and gave you incredible value for your dollar.

[C]

And yes, that Meant Gary was going to both the early and late shows.

[H]

My greatest immersion in excess had happened the previous fall. You know, they played two nights at Fillmore east in late September of 69. Two shows each, and then there was a night off or they played somewhere else, I can't remember. And then they played three nights of two shows each at the Cafe of Gogo. I saw 10 shows over the space of six nights, with one night off in the middle.

[C]

The three nights at the Fillmore east in February 1970 would become legendary for numerous reasons, and we discussed them a bit in our Fillmore East Late show bonus episode. But to recap, the first legendary part of the shows was the opening act. Great to lead. Meet the Allman Brothers. That was mountain jam from February 11, 1970. The Fillmore east, now available from the Owsley Stanley foundation, of course. We've posted a [e-mail] deadcast. The Allmans had first appeared at the Fillmore in December 1969 and quickly became a favorite of the Fillmore crew. Along with sets by Arthur Lee and Love a Band, we at the Deadcast dig more than Owsley did. The shows also included massive psychedelic versions of Darkstar and a power jam with members of the Allmans and Fleetwood Mac. The Fillmore crew is in heaven.

[F]

The Fillmore tech people invented headset system that could be used during a concert to communicate and be heard over a band. No one had ever done that before. So you had stage left, stage right, sound, lighting designer, spotlight operators, me running the light show, and Tom Shoesmith in the light show, all on this system, all coordinating the show, and on some nights, giving a running commentary of what we thought of the band and their music. I mean, you really don't want to hear what we said about Sir Lord Baltimore. We would talk about the band and that's why we shows were so tightly run, because, you know, some we would say, okay, we're like 20 seconds away from the end of Whipping Post. All right, they're building here. When they get to the peak, go to black on everyone but Greg, you know, so then those big chords. And the lighting designer would call it out. 3, 2, 1. Black. Everything goes off. And a blue spotlight on Greg's face as he goes. Sometimes I feel. And then everything kicks in. It was like a Broadway show that was in the moment.

[B]

Sometimes, I feel.

[C]

But while they love the almonds, they were stone dead freaks.

[F]

Those six times the dead appeared and 69 to 70 built to that weekend because we knew their set really well. So when they come up on the stage and they're playing acoustic. It was such a treat to hear the evolution of them. And the material that became Working Man's Dead, which was being worked out during that period, made us all feel like part of it.

[H]

They stand tall in the overall cosmology of things, do they not? Yeah, it's spoken of with such awe and by the people who weren't there as much as the ones who were there. Really glad that some of it was finally immortalized on Dick's Picks Volume 4. Even if you take away the guests and the massive jams and all that, it was notable in that it was the first time, in my experience, at least, that we saw the Dead have a little interlude where they played some acoustic instruments on stage. And that was really a great and really a treat. Hearing Bobby and Jerry sing Wake Up Little Susie was an absolute gas. And we got the first solo acoustic pig pen moment most of us had ever seen beyond Palo Alto or wherever. So that was really. That was wonderful.

[C]

In December 1969, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir played a few mini acoustic sets to open Dead shows. Because of delayed band members in early 1970, they started doing it more deliberately, first with acoustic mini sets late in the evening. Usually Garcia and Weir would run through five or six songs before beckoning Pigpen out for a few solo numbers. The February 1970 Fillmore east shows marked the Dead's East coast acoustic debut at the Fillmore East. All the bands played early and late shows, running through all three acts, clearing the house and doing it again with a ticketed time of 11:30 and two acts before them. That means that the first side of music on Bear's Choice all took place between roughly 2:30 or 3:00 clock in the morning. As with Money, Time worked differently in the 1960s.

[H]

It was a callback to their folk roots, and considering how uncompromisingly and relentlessly psychedelic they had been not many months before, you know, to have that stuff turn up was really kind of a revelation and a harbinger of what was to come. This was just a few months before Working Mans came out, though.

[C]

Bear's Choice begins with the Pigpen tune We'll Let him Hang out on his Couch under the stage a bit longer. Consider, though, that for most of the first sight of Bear's Choice, Pigpen was probably chilling just below his bandmates feet.

[B]

I'd rather be in some dark hollow where the sun don't air shine Then to be home alone Knowing that you're gone Would cause me to lose my.

[C]

Mind Dark hollow has become an acoustic standard for Bob Weir, still in his repertoire a half century later. But the version on Bear's Choice, February 14, 1970, is actually the debut of the Dead's version. Before the song starts, you can hear Weir suggested off mic and Garcia's reaction. Another small thing about Bear's Choice is that it's the first of the Dead's live albums to include bits of the musicians bantering back and forth. For fans without access to live tapes, it was a first small peek at their personalities. Here, Weir and Garcia riff on the wonders of guitar capos. Sure, let me.

[B]

Let me put on this insidious device. Here I'm strapping on an insidious device known in known in common circles as a cheater.

[D]

A cheater.

[E]

I always like that name.

[C]

That's the Vulgate. Still, one of the only times I've heard the word Vulgate in action. Much of Dark Hollow comes from older sources. Consider, for example, Buell Casey singing East Virginia blues from 1927, collected by Harry Smith on the Anthology of American Folk Music.

[B]

Or I'd rather be in some dark colored where the sun refused to shine. As for you to be some other man's woman Never on earth to Clarence.

[C]

Ashley recorded a similar song called dark Holler in 1929. But the version the Dead played didn't come together into the form of dark Hollow until 1958, when Bill Browning released it as a B side to Born with the Blues.

[B]

Take me far on down the track I'm going away I'm leaving today I'm going but I ain't I' ma try.

[C]

While Bill Browning is credited as writer, he was perhaps more a curator, circulating the song into the bluegrass world. In 1981, Jerry Garcia told our friend Ken Hunt that me and Weir got into our little duet version of it, and it's more or less loosely based on Clarence and Roland White's duet version. They used to do a duet version in the Kentucky Colonels.

[B]

Take me far on down the track I'm going away I'm leaving today I go in but I ain't coming back.

[C]

That was the Kentucky Colonels in 1965, from the archival release Live in Stereo. But surely Garcia learned it from hearing the Colonels in person sometime before that, perhaps even taping it himself. It was part of Jerry's Pre Dead repertoire, sung by Sandy Rothman with the Black Mountain Boys a few times in 1964. The Dead themselves would include Dark Hollow in their 1980 acoustic sets, too, and release it on Reckoning, helping to lock its place as a post revival folk standard, though it had a slightly more filled out arrangement than the spare 1970 duo versions.

[B]

Far on down the track. I'm going away I'm leaving today But I'm going But I ain't coming back I'm going away I'm leaving today But I'm going But I ain't coming back.

[C]

Weir wasn't done with the capo jokes. This one doesn't quite translate without the visual, which we'll let Gary Lambert explain.

[F]

Ouch.

[B]

That's the Bill Russell double action capo they call it. You can lose a finger trying to use it.

[H]

Weir says. Yeah, you can lose a finger trying to use one of those things, and Garcia gave him an amusing sidelong glance.

[C]

Jerry Garcia's solo cover Spotlight also survived the Reckoning Era and beyond.

[B]

Upon the Blue Ridge Mountain There I'll take my stand upon the Blue Ridge Mountain There I take my stand Rifle on my shoulder six Shooter in my hand Lord Lord, I've been all around this world.

[C]

I've been all around this World was also recorded during the Late show On Valentine's Day 1970, the last night of the Run, and has even muddier folkier origins than Dark Hollow. We've posted links to our friend Alex Allen's work on those songs, as well as various mudcat [e-mail] deadcast the song seems to have come together from numerous sources along a single melody in one reading. The first verse makes it a fighting song from Kentucky, but there's nothing else in the song that quite follows up that thread. Jerry Garcia probably learned it from the Grandpa Jones version recorded for king Records in 1943.

[B]

Lou Lou My Lou Lou Come and open the door Lulu My Lou Lou oh come and open the door before I have to open it with my old 44 foot doors.

[C]

One thing I like about Garcia's version is the way his voice evokes the soulful and beautifully mellow country blues hero Mississippi John Hurt. When I started researching this episode, I assumed that's where he must have learned the song. I love the quiet groove on the 1980 acoustic version from Reckoning. There's actually footage of the Very Dead performance that made it to Bear's Choice, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast it's black and white and a little bit shaky, probably shot from the stage left balcony aisle, but nonetheless you can watch Garcia and Weir play this very recording. One takeaway is that Garcia and Weir are wearing their matching Fillmore east sports jerseys that the venue ushers wore.

[H]

They were kind of like softball shirts Bill probably gifted the band with them. They they decided in a in a rare spasm of onstage uniformity, to put.

[C]

Them on the video actually leads to some questions. There were lots of film students around the filmorist, including Alan Arkish, but he's not even sure where it comes from. There's an Amelie Rothschild photograph from the Late show that seems to depict a bearded guy in the front row at the foot of Pigpen's B3, pointing a boxy early video camera towards the stage at an angle that matches some of the video, except Phil is wearing the Fillmore east jersey in the footage from the early show and a white T shirt in this photo making it from the late show, which I mention because it means there might also be footage of the late show still out there. More questions than answers, as we like to say around here. There's no question where Weir and Garcia learned their other cover on the album's first side.

[B]

Wake Up Little Susie Wake up Wake.

[C]

Up Little Susie Wake up the Everly Brothers had a smash number one hit with Wake Up Little Susie in 1957, when Garcia was 15 and Weir was 10.

[B]

We both been sound asleep Wake up little the movie's over it's four o' clock and we're in trouble deep Wake up will you Suzy Wake up with Susie what are you gonna tell your mama what are you gonna tell your papa? What are you gonna tell your friends when they say ooh la la Wake up little Susie Wake up a little sleep.

[C]

When the Dead's harmonies are mentioned, the influence of Crosby, Stills and Nash often comes up. But Everly and Everly were probably just a big influence on the Garcia Weir vocal blend. Wake Up Little Susie was written by the husband and wife songwriting team of Felice and Boudou Bryan, authors of other hits for the Efferly Brothers and many others, including Bye Bye Love, All I have To Do Is Dream and Rocky Top. Unlike those and any of the other songs on Bear's Choice, for that matter, wake Up Little Susie was banned in Boston for being, you know, wink, wink.

[B]

Well, I told you mama that you'd be invited well Suzy baby, looks like we go again Wake up with this Suzy, wake up with you Susie, we.

[C]

Gotta go home Next thing you know they'll start freaking out about rainbows or something. The Dead's version of Wake Up Little Susie is from the Late show on February 13, 1970. As with dark Hollow, it's the first known Grateful Dead performance. It was the staple of the Dead's acoustic sets that year, with Weir and Garcia playing it one more time in 1983. The first side of Bear's Choice closes with the album's only original song.

[B]

Just in the Wind came scorching, but who can the weather command?

[C]

Black Peter would have been mostly new to the Fillmore east crowd, give or take anybody who'd been at the January shows. The song had debuted in December, just before Altamont. The version they played in January was electric.

[B]

Just Wanna have a little peace Today and a Friend or Two I Love at.

[C]

That was From Dave's picks 30 from January 2, 1970, played at nearly every show in that period. It was a song of which the Dead were rightly proud.

[F]

Alan Arkish I think that the performance of Jerry on Black Peter really sums up the ambition of that record and what the Dead were doing. It's an intimate song about a day like any other day, but it's a day that you're dying. And to hold 2500 people like that, and there's not a cough in the room, you know, and his performance is as if he's sitting in the room with you, you know, and it sounds like that you feel the room when you listen to that recording. You know, it's a. It's about as beautiful a live recording as I've ever hear.

[B]

Everything leads up to this day, and it's just like any other day that's ever been.

[H]

It conveys the intimacy and how, again, how lucky we were to be seeing them in this small theater with a great pa and, you know, they were sitting in chairs, you know, playing that acoustic set. I think when they did the acoustic sets later in the year, they stood up, but it was kind of really. It was like being in a folk club that was only slightly larger than.

[C]

A folk club at the moment it was performed for Bear's Choice. It represented the leading edge of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's unfolding songwriting partnership and would provide a heavy moment on side B of Workingman's Dead. The story of Black Peter is one we dealt with pretty extensively in the first season of the Dead cast. To summarize briefly, there was an evening in June 1969 when Robert Hunter got dosed with way too much acid to the Fillmore West. Here's how his housemate Jerry Garcia described the situation to Dennis McNally, which can be heard in the Jerry on Jerry audiobook available from Hachette, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast.

[E]

Hunter was lying on Market street lobsters from the 9th dimension were devouring downtown.

[C]

San Francisco to find out how Robert Hunter's vision of lobsters devouring downtown San Francisco resulted in writing Black Peter. Check out episode six from the first season of the Dead cast. Black Peter, of course, was not only on Working Man's Dead, but unlike anything else on Bear's Choice would remain a staple for the rest of the Dead's career. We traced its history on that episode too, but here's how it sounded on Working Man's Dead, recorded within a month of the Bear's Choice performance.

[B]

Sun going up and then the sun hit going down Shine through my window and my friends they come around come around.

[C]

Alright, it's time to get Pigpen from the couch under the stage. Pigpen's solo acoustic tune begins Bader's Choice, but would come after the Garcia Weir acoustic segment in the actual show. Here's some of the audio that comes just before the needle drops on Bear's Choice as Garcia introduces Pig. We're going to have something new for New York. We're going to have Pig Pen do.

[B]

A little solo tune out here with the guitar. I only done this once before and I can't even see the. Can't even see that. Oh, thank you. Now I can see the strings.

[C]

It was Pig Pen Sour late at night at the Fillmore's east or west were the family dog were perhaps the closest the band would ever approximate to late nights at a kitchen table in Palo Alto or 710 Ashbury, where they knew they were among friends. Chill enough for Pigpen to hold court. Pigpen didn't do much talking outside his raps and turn on your love light and good lovin'. So I love the little bit of him bantering with the audience at the very beginning of Bear's Choice.

[B]

What do you think I'm trying to do, man? What you do Let me make my mistakes on my own.

[C]

I don't need your help.

[B]

Let's get this thing stuck up here and see what happens.

[C]

And when Pigpen starts playing, he makes mistakes all his own. And it's late at night Wherever or whenever you're listening.

[B]

You know, some folks say she must be a Cadillac I see she got to be a team model fool yes sir she got the shape all right but you can't car no heavy load.

[C]

As Phil Lesh wrote in his memoir Searching for the Sound, never was Pigpen more at home than with a bottle of wine and a guitar. At home or at some party improvising epic blues rant lyrics, playing Lightning Hopkins Songs. Here's what the 1946 original of Katie May sounds like.

[B]

Yeah, you know Katie May, the good.

[C]

Girl.

[B]

Folks, ain't she don't run around.

[C]

In.

[B]

The yeah, you know Katie made a good girl folks and she don't run around tonight yeah, you know you can bet your last dollar Katie and me will treat you right.

[C]

What might not be apparent now, more than three quarters of a century later, is that Katie Mae Blues was a song for dancing. Listen again to Wilson Thundersmith's piano with a groove far behind it.

[B]

You know some folks say she must be a Cadillac But I say she must be a T model fool yeah, you know some folks say she must be a Cadillac But I say she must be a tea model fool yeah, you know she got the shape all right but she can't carry no Heavy Loaf.

[C]

It was big on jukeboxes throughout the Southwest. Pigpen's version is a subtle reinvention.

[B]

Last words I've got to say Cause if I don't meet you tomorrow I'm going to get you early in the next day.

[C]

Even during the Dead's acoustic sets in 1970, Pigpen didn't do his thing too often, playing Katie Mae a dozen times besides maybe the family dog. He may have been the most comfortable at the Filmoriste though, where he performed solo acoustic three times, expanding to a proper three tune mini set of his own by the final time they did it later that summer. Pigpen's other two songs on Bear's Choice, constituting the entirety of side B, were both long lasting in the Dead's repertoire, played regularly before and after 1970. Fix yourself a Drink or a jazz Cigarette and flip the LP Smokestack Lightning was a different kind of late night vibe.

[B]

Why can't you hear me cry?

[C]

The song first turns up on Dead tapes in late 1966, and it's especially hard to guess its repertoire history based on the versions that survive, turning up nearly every year for a few performances, usually in close proximity. But with only eight known recordings before the Bears Choice takes, it also includes.

[B]

Some co leads by Bob Weird.

[F]

So I'm listening to the electric part of that album, right? And so because now I'm attuned and I'm hearing that Jerry's guitar has a sharpness to it, you know, I've been listening to all the box sets that are being sent out, so I've been listening to dead, 77, 83, whatever, and I'm listening to this and there's a bite to the guitar. Do you know which electric guitar he was playing that weekend.

[C]

Why, yes, Alan, that's one we can field. Garcia was playing a 1963 Rosewood Fender Telecaster, which he'd switched to the previous October, one of his first turns towards the Bakersfield Dead sound of the early 70s smokestack lightning as we know it was written and recorded by the great Chicago blues man Howlin Wolf in 1956. Wolf had been playing the same song in some form since the 1930s, when he was performing in the Mississippi Delta, but some of its lyrics were floating verses that hopped from feel to feel. In our Europe 72 season, we learned that It Hurts Me Too is genetically related to the Mississippi Chic's version of Sittin On Top of the World, among other songs. It turns out that Smokestack Lightning has Jugman genetics, too.

[B]

Smoke stack black baby them shining like gold now don't you I am talking putting mama smoke like there shining light gold crying I found my baby laying.

[C]

On a cooler that was the Mississippi Chic's one of the great jug bands of Memphis with Stop and Listen Blues. The Howlin Wolf song became a blues standard covered by John Lee Hooker, the Yardbirds, the allman brothers and 1980s 90s and beyond. Bob Weir this is Weir doing it June 24, 1985, in Cincinnati. @ present, the only officially released Grateful Dead version post Pigpen.

[B]

Smoke Stops.

[F]

Just.

[B]

Like.

[C]

The final song on Bear's Choice might be heard as a double tribute. As I hope I don't have to point out, hard to Handle was originally by the fabulous incredible no Words too high to describe Otis Redding.

[B]

But you.

[F]

Got to go home with me I.

[B]

Forgot some good old love and then I got some in store When I get through throwing it on you you got to come back for more.

[C]

Written in the studio by Redding along with Stax collaborators Alan Jones and Al Bell, it began as a send up of a guys who project quote badass Cool in the words of Alan Jones.

[B]

Boys and things will come by the devil that ain't nothing but drugstore loving.

[E]

Pretty little thing living life to count.

[B]

Cause mama I'm so hard to hell and now yes around.

[C]

Otis Redding recorded the song in 1967, but it wasn't released until 1968 after his death, and as a B side at that, it was a minor hit and the Dead started covering it in the spring of 1969. It was one of the newer additions to Pigpen's repertoire after they built his initial songbook in 1965 and 1966. It takes some chutzpah to Cover Hard To Handle as a honky white blues band from San Francisco, but the Dead made it their own. There's Portapack video of this version too, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast do not let me stop you from vibing with the version on Bear's Choice, but I would be remiss not to tell you about the sweet middle jam the song developed the following year, which you can hear in a bunch of versions, but especially the one from the Hollywood Palladium in LA from August 6, 1971. Now Road Trips, Volume 13.

[B]

Sam.

[C]

That'S dope. Let's listen to a little more of it, specifically when Phil Lasch articulates a set of chord changes under the jam. The last version of Hard to Handle with Pig Pen came in New York around three weeks after the Hollywood Palladium version. With Pig Pen's influx of new material in late 1971 and early 1972, he never sang it again. The band revived it for a few performances with etta James in 1982, but we'll just give those a little wink. Hard to Handle wasn't usually a set closer, and it wasn't at the Fillmore, but it serves that purpose just fine on Behr's Choice. Perhaps even more than the music on Behr's Choice, it was the art that had the most impact.

[E]

That's one of those things about this album that it seems like it doesn't get nearly the exposure on some levels musically as as some of the other albums. I mean, you know, it's not one of the. When people list their like top three, right. It not always present yet the art on it has some of the most persistent and ubiquitous Grateful Dead iconography that that's out there.

[C]

In fact, Bear's Choice introduced what were perhaps the Dead's two most famous pieces of art. At the center of the front cover was the skull and lightning bolt logo that became known as the steal your face. The back cover was circled with what have come to be known as the dancing bears. Both were placed there by artist Bob Thomas, one of Bear's oldest friends and lab assistants.

[E]

Bob Thomas was a brilliant painter and another brother of my. Of my dad, just as much as Pig. You know, he was a perennial housemate and a talented sculptor, painter, musician, bagpiper. He played the Edwardian Renaissance music, you know, and the Golden Toad. There were so many different elements to Bob's talents. He really was, you know, I think, like, like Bear, he was a Renaissance man, right? He just had so Many different interests and so many different talents. But, you know, Bear always said about Bob that Bob could paint the patterns that you see when you're tripping. He'd embed him in his art. And so, you know, if you look at the backgrounds of his art, there's a lot of stuff going on there that's a bit subliminal.

[C]

Both the front and back covers of Bear's choice fall into this category. The front is a riot of red, white and blue with dizzying lettering that if I'm reading correctly, says good old Grateful Dead. In the center is the steal your.

[E]

Face, the skull and lightning bolt that first came out of Bears wanting to figure out a way to be able to identify the band's equipment cases. When they went to festivals, you know, they basically would go to multi band fests and they would. Everybody would, you know, push their gearboxes off to the corner of the stage and there'd be like 20 big black road cases and they'd all stencil their names on the side of them with spray paint. But they'd be in front of each other so you only see like a letter and you couldn't tell which band it was. So Bear was like, ah, we need, we need just like a. A picture that we can spray paint. You know, it's an icon that just. We look, see any part of it. We're like, that's our. He had this vision of a circle struck through with a lightning bolt. I think he was probably driving down a road in, in a crazy storm at night in the wintertime and maybe saw, you know, DO not enter wrong way sign catsy as he careened around a corner and in a flash of lightning and it kind of burned itself into his brain. So he had a friend who showed him how to make a quick stencil that you could one piece stencil that you could gray a circle with the, with one stencil and then have a kind of half moon shaped ragged edged that you could put over, spray red and then flip it over, spray blue and the white. So you spray a white circle, spray the red side, flip it over, spray the blue side, and then the white would be around the edges and the lightning bolt in the middle.

[C]

You can see the early draft on photos of the dead's gear in 1969 or so. But like a lot of things, it got more refined.

[E]

He thought, oh, you know, there's all these, you know, poster art with these cool calligraphy. Wouldn't it be cool if we could write Grateful Dead and make it look like a skull. So he went to Bob and said, hey, I got this idea. What do you think? And Bob said, I'll see what I can come up with. So he went off for a few hours and he came back and he said, well, I couldn't get the letters to work, but what do you think of this? And he showed him what we now know and love as the ubiquitous Steely Bear. Always called it the Skull and Lightning Bolt. He didn't like calling it a steal your face.

[C]

The completed Skull and Lightning Bolt logo first shows up on Dead Gear in the early summer of 1971, when Bear was serving at Terminal island, though likely was completed sometime before that. On the back cover of Bear's Choice.

[E]

Were bears, the Dancing Bears, as they're colloquially known, but the Marching Bears, as Bear would tell you they should be known. But that's neither here nor there, although it's funny because I always have viewed it as an inside joke. Bear was very into many, many different things in his youth, and he studied ballet extensively for a while. And so it was not uncommon when he got into the music and beyond a certain level of stoned on acid, for him to start doing ballet, you know, to the music at shows. And so I'm sure more than once he was pointed to as the Dancing Bear. My kids call them grandpa bears.

[C]

Well, that's certainly the cutest thing I've heard all day. If you look at the credits on Bear's Choice, you might notice that while the recording credit on the album goes to Bear, the production credit goes to Owsley Stanley.

[E]

The album was always kind of around, and I was at that kind of teenage or early teen period of poking through the vinyl and listening to stuff, looking at all the art and reading the notes. And I looked at the back of that one and I was like, wait a minute. Recorded. Recorded by Owsley and. And produced by Bear. And, And I, I, I went to Bear. I was like, hey, who's the idiot who wrote this? He's like, me. Well, wait a minute. I assume you knew you were two different. You weren't two different people. It's like, it goes back to. He had been Owsley, and then Owsley became a known name. And so he started to notice that when he was doing sound and they would call back to him through the microphones, hey, Owsley, fix this. Heads would start to swivel. The name started to have meaning beyond the music scene, and he valued his anonymity. Bear really was allergic to fame. He didn't mind being notorious but he didn't want to be known. He had a long standing rule that he did not want his photograph taken. He was very camera shy, to the point that my mom never took pictures of him. We don't have a lot of pictures from certain periods because he said no pictures, and she didn't take pictures.

[C]

Though Starfinder insists it's just a side effect of Behr's choosing, having the proper name of Owsley Stanley on the album itself would also likely make it easier for Consensus Reality to deal with getting his producers residuals.

[E]

Bear's compensation for his contributions to Grateful Dead music was that they considered him to be equivalent to a band member. That is how much the Grateful Dead honored Bear's contributions to the music. They paid him equal scale.

[C]

As we know by now, there's never been an Official Volume 2 to go along with the History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1. Not long after it came out, some deadhead DJs on WAER asked Bob Weir about it.

[F]

We tried to at least initiate a sort of a History of the Grateful Dead program with them by labeling the History of the Grateful Volume One. So that hopefully they'll follow suit and say History of The Grateful Dead Volume 2, Volume 3, and that's what they.

[E]

Can name their best of albums.

[F]

But, you know, it's all together up to the end.

[C]

But Starfinder offers another explanation which I'd not previously considered, which reflects in a fascinating way on Owsley and how he thought of the band.

[E]

I think that the reference to Volume One was more talking about how this album marked a turning point in the evolution of the band. The band had had its Volume One, and Bear was really absolutely certain that the Grateful Dead was an entity that existed beyond the members of the band. That the magic that happened to make that music was a synergistic beast that was independent of its individual components, and that the Grateful Dead would continue on regardless of whether members perished along the way. And they lost more than one. To say that the Grateful Dead ended when Pig died, because Pig was such an integral part of of what the Grateful Dead were, he knew that wasn't what was going to happen. He knew the Grateful Dead would continue. They'd be different, but they'd still be the Grateful Dead.

[C]

That is, perhaps the Volume one in the title refers to the Dead themselves and not as the potential series of albums. Bear saw this line of thinking all the way through.

[E]

When Jerry died, he was really mad that the band decided, no, we're gonna hang up the Grateful Dead and we'll be the Dead. We'll be the other ones. We'll be further. We'll be a million iterations of something that's related to but we're not the Grateful Dead anymore. He was hopping mad about that. He was jumping up and down and saying, no, you are the Grateful Dead. You will always be the Grateful Dead. Even when all of you are dead and gone, there will still be a Grateful Dead, because the Dead's more than that. You know, The Dead is the energy of the experience. Volume one was him saying pig is gone. And the Dead is. What is the saying here? The King is dead. Long live the king. The Dead is dead. Long live the Dead.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

A lot of you have heard me say that. My favorite show is 8671 from the Hollywood Palladium, the show Jesse referred to earlier in this episode. That version of Hard to Handle from that show is absolutely incendiary. And besides being a prime example of Pigpen rocking the house, it also includes what I consider to be one of Bob's best solos. Check it out. It's right around the 256 mark. You could also find this jam on the Fallout from the Phil Zone release, but it's worth your while to track down the original show because there are so many amazing performances. If you can find the audience tape version from your local taper, make sure to grab that one because it really highlights how in tune the audience was with the band that night. Check out how the audience is clapping in complete unison at the end of Hard to Handle after they drop back into that main groove after the jam. Great example of group mind and full display. We'd like to thank our guests from this episode, Alan Arkish, Gary Lambert, David Lemieux and Starfinder Stanley. Extra special thanks to friend of the Dead cast David Ganz for contributing audio from his interview archive. Thanks very much for tuning in. Don't forget to like and subscribe and keep your tour stories coming by recording yours [e-mail] 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.