Oil Well Bootlegs - RSC CD: Grateful Dead - Alligator Wine - Oil Well

Grateful Dead - Alligator Wine
Oil Well – RSC 087 CD

1 Not Fade Away 13:00
2 MEDLEY: Alligator / Going Down The Road / Feeling Bad / Cold Rain And Snow 27:41
3 China Cat Sunflower I Know You Rider 8:42
4 Greatest Story Ever Told 2:43
5 Johnny B Goode 4:29
6 In The Midnight Hour 9:42
7 We Bid You Goodnight 3:33

Note:
All songs by Hunter/Lesh/Garcia/Weir unless noted.
Live at Fillmore East, April 28th & 29th, 1971
All songs recorded live at Fillmore East on 29 April 1971 except track 1 recorded on 28 April 1971

Lineup:
Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – keyboards, harmonica, percussion, vocals
Phil Lesh – bass, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Tom Constanten - keyboards on tracks 1,2

This album is a digital clone of Grateful Dead – "Typical Daydream" CD3 - Silver Rarities
Oil Well version has a fine cover, fine quality. Limited to 200 copies only. Due to its rarity and good quality, this disc is recommended.
All songs recorded live at Fillmore East on 29 April 1971 except track 1 recorded on 28 April 1971
Track 1 is: Not Fade Away/ Going Down The Road Feeling Bad/ Not Fade Away Reprise.
Track 2 is: Alligator/ Drums/ Jam/ Going Down The Road Feeling Bad/ Cold Rain & Snow

Entering the live world of Grateful Dead is not an easy thing. Especially in front of the mass of concerts officially registered until 1994. The listener doesn't really know where to start. Certainly 1971 and 1972 were great live years for the Jerry Garcia band. And this concert recorded in 1971 can help many new fans of the band. This album may not present the perfect performance of GD but it does provide a nice document of the band during their early-'70s glory days.

This was an exciting time for the band, and these four discs capture that feeling. It is perhaps somewhat ironic that releases like this one and the Dick's Picks series have revealed the depth and ability of the band much better than any of their studio releases from the same period. One no longer needs to be an avid tape collector to hear the Grateful Dead at their best.

Audio quality:

Quality content:

© Official released material:
Tracks 1,2,6,7 have been released officially on: Ladies And Gentlemen... The Grateful Dead
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Dead of the Day: April 29, 1971

Truckin’ opens the show in strong fashion, with some alternative lyrics and an eruption of laughter from Bobby at one point. A few songs later, the Cumberland absolutely smokes with fiery picking and so much more stuffed into the short little version. The Bird Song – one of the first dozen they played – a song later is elemental, so far from the richer, though no more splendid, renditions from the late eighties and early nineties, nearly three hundred iterations later.

After a Dark Hollow that is sumptuous in its simplicity, the band switches gears completely by heading into a Hard to Handle, which is certainly among the best ever. Pig is solid on the standard vocals and delivers an extended, funky rap before the song transitions into a scrumptious, extended jam featuring Jerry and Phil, returning again to Pig and the chorus one final time.

A bit later, the Morning Dew comes forth as a glorious thing of beauty with the band regally launching off into jams then coming back down for Jerry’s vocals backed by Pig’s luscious organ fills. Next, the Minglewood offers up something else entirely; I have never heard Bobby sing the tune – or any song, for that matter – quite like he does here, all big and up front. Moreover, Pig’s organ is really coming through, providing some depth and texture to the tune along with the blues guitar riffs and strong work by Billy on the drums. As we have commented before, the Dead do a tremendous version of I Second That Emotion, and this one is second to none. It is also the last of the far too few seven that they played. Despite an unbelievably resplendent show up until this point, the real highlight of the night begins with the steamy - and, sadly, the last - Alligator, and continues on with the insane Drums and the Jam> GDTRFB> Cold Rain and Snow.

The jam, with the Stephen tease, takes a little time to get going, but then rockets off into incredible territory with all five members of the band coming together into a writhing mass of pure awesomeness to make it happen. The boys continue on into Going Down the Road and then head off to an incredible Cold Rain and Snow. From there, the rest of the show is just icing on the cake, albeit some of the best frosting ever.
http://gratefuldeadoftheday.com/04-29-1971

Fillmore East – New York, NY 4/29/71
On April 29, 1971, the Grateful Dead played their final show at the famed Fillmore East in New York City. 4/29 was the final night of a five-night run, and it’s clear in the opening Truckin’ that the band was in that rare space between relaxed and tight. The rest of the first set is solid – nice versions of Cumberland Blues, Bird Song, Loser, and Ripple, as well as a deceptively intense Hard to Handle.

The second set is where the magic happens. A Morning Dew that’s by far the heaviest and deepest that I’ve ever heard. A long and beautiful Black Peter. The last Second That Emotion. And the last Alligator, which kicks off an amazing segment that veers into Drums, then a thrilling nine-minute jam, then Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad > Cold Rain and Snow. Again, Blair Jackson:

“[T]he second set jam that night, from “Alligator” through “Cold Rain and Snow,” is one of the Dead’s most famous; somehow, miraculously, it managed to sum up the Dead’s six year history at the same time it sounded completely fresh and pointed in a new direction. The communication among the core four is astonishing in places; it’s the group mind at its highest and most expressive. And there, in just a few notes from Garcia’s guitar before the first verse of ‘Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad,’ you can hear weariness, sorrow, joy and transcendence rolled into one, and you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins – it’s the long, strange trip reduced to its essence.”
A loose China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider follows. And the encore includes Pigpen’s inspired take on In the Midnight Hour.

Highlights from the five-nights were compiled in the 2000 box set Ladies and Gentlemen…The Grateful Dead. That set includes the 4/29 Alligator segment, and the excellent 4/28 Dark Star segment

The concert
SET 1: Truckin'/ Beat It On Down The Line/ Loser/ El Paso/ The Rub/ Bird Song/ Playing In The Band/ Cumberland Blues/ Ripple/ Me And Bobby McGee/ I'm A King Bee/ Bertha

SET 2: Morning Dew/ Me And My Uncle/ Deal/ Hard To Handle/ Cryptical Envelopment >/ Drums >/ The Other One >/ Wharf Rat/ Sugar Magnolia/ Dark Star* >Saint Stephen* >Not Fade Away* >
Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad* >Not Fade Away*
* w/ Tom Constanten