Grateful Dead - self-tited

This was the record that started it all. They had a long history at this point, playing parties and drug fueled orgies where they had attempted to keep the music tune with the "feel" of the scenes they played but this was the first recorded effort on their part.

Many of the songs, including the opener Golden Road (to unlimited devotion) is acreditted to McGanahan Skjellyfetti which was he authorial pseudonym used by The Grateful Dead for group compositions. The name comes from Kenneth Patchen's novel Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer, in which Skujellifeddy McGranehan was the protagonist's literary agent: “May I call you Skujellifeddy? Mr. McGranehan's sort of awkward”.

The track opens, sounding a sort of standard 60s psychedelic rock track, followed by a more upbeat Beat It On Down the Line and Good Mornin Little School Girl - an ode to a, well, little school girl. A subject we'd see rockers be comfortable with from the 60s until Nirvana hit the scene. Beat it On Down the Line would be a fun romp on a small bar more than a big live show. It has, arguably, a great usage of a tambourine that really stands out rather than fades as a background instrument.

Good Mornin's bluesy bass lines and harmonica, shows the Dead working their way through American genres at lightning speed, just 3 tracks in to their debut.

Side B opens with the slower paced but a tad spacey, Morning Dew. This would become a crowd favorite at shows for the remainder of the bands career. It's a cover of Bonnie Dobson's song, who's lyrics are a fictional conversation in a post-nuclear holocaust. "Morning Dew" became part of the Grateful Dead's repertoire after frontman Jerry Garcia was introduced to the Fred Neil recording by roadie Laird Grant in 1966

The next is another Dead original, New, New Minglewood Blues and followed by Viola Lee Blues cover by Noah Lewis It's a testament to the Grateful Dead that the first song they consistently took to the level we would consider type-II jamming began as a stark, bare bones, blues tune. “Viola Lee Blues” was written by Noah Lewis and originally released by Gus Cannon (with Lewis on harmonica) way back on September 20, 1928. Little did they know that in less than forty years, their country-blues song would be performed as a powerhouse psychedelic trip into another world.