The classic tracks Grateful Dead never recorded
When stepping foot on the pathway of Grateful Dead’s historic annals, the sense that a heavily muscled musical minotaur lurks around every corner is a serious and realistic threat. The band is so widely intertwined with the very notion of chaos that their sonic roots can be more accurately seen as inescapable knotweed. So deeply entrenched in the fertile soil of counterculture, the group is uniquely positioned as one of the most fascinating bands of all time.
Most people’s infatuation with the group begins with their live shows. Not necessarily their infamous jams at the Winterland, which included contributions from some of the greatest collaborators around, nor even their wild shows in Egypt in 1978, but the fact that there is a strong chance that one devoted Deadhead was at both sets of performances.
The band’s most notable intrigue is the fans that follow them. Deadheads, as they are affectionately known, are recognised as some of the most determined music supporters in rock history. Famed for their willingness to travel across the country, accompanying the band at every stop of a tour, the fanatic fanbase would often give up their jobs and worldly possessions simply to get lost in the essence of the group.
On stage, it must be said, is where the Grateful Dead came alive. Led by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, the amalgamation of powerhouse performers would often spend hours under this spotlight noodling their way through a collection of hits and cover songs. It was on stage that Garcia, especially, believed the musical artist could truly be free. It meant no two Dead shows were ever the same, and it is likely why the band were so eagerly followed up and down the highways of America and beyond.
As such, it’s little surprise that the group sometimes saved a song or two for just their fans. In today’s musical climate, the idea of holding on to a track, not recording it, and only playing it live for fans is simply unthinkable. So precious are those numbers that give them away for free by not recording them and still playing them live, which is a business decision most rock stars would not make. But the Grateful Dead always did things differently.
There are a whole heap of tunes that the band would play live and yet never take them into the studio, preferring instead to capture the live element that made them so appealing in the first place. They may exist as bonus tracks or live extras, but, on the whole, below is a collection of Grateful Dead efforts that never saw the inside of a cassette. Thankfully, the group’s devoted fanbase has collated a list worthy of revisiting.
On the list are two of the group’s most notorious tracks, ‘Bertha’ and ‘Wharf Rat’ which not only suggest just how intrinsic the band’s unwillingness to record in the studio was, but just how powerful the live experience of these jams were.
The songs Grateful Dead never recorded:
- ‘Brown Eyed Woman’
- ‘They Love Each Other’
- ‘Peggy-O’
- ‘He’s Gone’
- ‘Tennessee Jed’
- ‘Brother Easua’
- ‘Playin’ in the Band’
- ‘The Eleven’
- ‘Bertha’
- ‘Wharf Rat’
- ‘Jack Straw’
- ‘Mr. Charlie’
- ‘Ramble On Rose’
- ‘Corrina’
- ‘Days Between’
- ‘Liberty’
- ‘Wave to the Wind’
- ‘Samba in the Rain’