Compilation Features Phil Lesh & Jay Blakesberg Chats About Each Year Of Grateful Dead

Between January 2, 2015 and November 7, 2016 Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, California hosted a series of shows honoring each year of the Grateful Dead’s touring career. Terrapin Crossroads proprietor, Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, would re-create a Dead show from the year being featured at each installment with a Phil & Friends ensemble. Nearly every concert of the series started with a chat hosted by photographer Jay Blakesberg in which Phil would give context to the music fans were about to witness. A new compilation put together by Osty Gale includes each and every Lesh/Blakesberg chat from Terrapin Crossroads’ Grateful Dead history series.

The compilation below starts with Phil and Jay’s chat about the origins of the Dead and the year 1965 from the first show in the series on January 2, 2015. From there, the talks are presented in chronological order through the chat about 1995 from earlier this month. The pair were joined by Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady for the 1973 discussion and sound engineer Dennis “Wiz” Leonard for the 1972 discussion. Note that there were no talks before the 1992 and 1993 shows, so Lesh and Blakesberg include discussion of the years as part of the 1994 chat. Take a listen: