Grateful Dead Selects 1969 Concerts For ‘Dave’s Picks Volume 43’

The Grateful Dead will issue two “virtually complete performances” from 1969 as Dave’s Picks Volume 43. The 3CD set featuring concerts held Live At Family Dog At The Great Highway in San Francisco on November 2, 1969 and at McFarlin Auditorium in Dallas on December 26, 1969 is available for pre-order now via Dead.net.

The concerts were recorded by beloved Grateful Dead family member, “King Of LSD” and ahead-of-his-time audio engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux, the namesake of the series produced the set. Bear’s son, Starfinder Stanley and fellow Owsley Stanley Foundation board members Hawk and Pete Bell shared the following about the box that yielded the recordings “with a wink and a nod from Bear”:

A sealed, unlabeled box sat undisturbed for decades on a shelf in the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael tape vault on Front Street, its contents an enduring mystery, even to those few with access to the vault. All David Lemieux knew about that box when he became the Dead’s archivist was that it contained tapes belonging to Bear—Owsley Stanley, the Dead’s first soundman and architect of the Wall of Sound. Even in the Dead Heads’ Holy of Holies, the taped-up box was tantalizing. But this was Bear’s personal property, and so he didn’t touch the box out of an abiding respect for the elder luminary of sound. Bear’s archive of Sonic Journal recordings had been kept safe for him for years within the Grateful Dead’s vault—over 1,300 reels of tape stored in heavy-duty cartons like old banana boxes. At any time, David could have popped the tops and explored them to his archivist heart’s content. But they were off-limits without the nod from Bear.”

Dave’s Picks Volume 43 is limited to 25,000 numbered copies. Jeffrey Norman mastered Bear’s recordings to HDCD specs with Starfinder, Hawk and Pete Bell telling more of the story behind the “Mystery Of Bear’s Banana Boxes” within the set’s liner notes. Included within are two +20-minute “Dark Stars,” the first full acoustic set the Grateful Dead performed, a “once-lost-now-found” version of “Dancing In The Streets,” Ron “Pigpen” McKernan-led renditions of “Midnight Hour,” “Next Time You See Me,” “Good Lovin'” and more.

Watch Lemieux’s “Seaside Chat” for Dave’s Picks Volume 43 below: