The latest previously unreleased Grateful Dead recording to get the Dave’s Picks treatment is the band’s December 9, 1979 show at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Dave’s Picks Volume 47 is set to arrive on July 28 (pre-order)
While keyboardist Brent Mydland played his first show with the Grateful Dead on April 22, 1979 in San Jose, California, his contributions on keys and vocals were already a big part of the band’s sound by the time they rolled into St. Louis 47 shows later on December 9 after an extensive year of touring.
Dave’s Picks Volume 47 contains Brent’s “Easy To Love You” along with earlier favorites like “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Shakedown Street,” and “Terrapin Station.” The latter two songs come during an adventurous second set with eight songs before “Drums,” which is prefaced by a stellar jam out of “Saint Of Circumstance.”
Along with “Saint” and “Easy To Love You,” now classic songs — “Lost Sailor,” “Alabama Getaway” and more — that would appear on the Grateful Dead’s 1980 album, Go To Heaven, also pop up on Dave’s Picks Volume 47. The second frame ends with a late set “Bertha” into “Good Lovin’” ahead of a rollicking “Don’t Ease Me In” for the encore. Dave’s Picks Volume 47 is “rounded out…with an extra nugget from ’79,” as per a press release.
The December 9, 1979 concert was recorded by Dan Healy and mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Dave’s Picks is curated by Dead archivist David Lemieux. Check out a Dave’s Picks Volume 47 preview video with Lemieux below:
