Grateful Dead Scores Two Top 15 Albums On Billboard Chart

The Grateful Dead did something this week they’ve never done since the band was formed over 52 years ago. Both May 1977: Get Shown The Light and Cornell 5/8/77 scored spots within the top 15 slots on Billboard’s Top Albums charts, showing Deadhead love has yet to fade away.

The May 1977: Get Shown The Light box set features four full shows the Grateful Dead played during their landmark Spring Tour 1977 including a famed stop at Barton Hall on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Get Shown The Light debuted at #15 on this week’s chart, while a separate release of just the Cornell concert debuted at #10.

“These four concerts have been the holy grail of wish-list releases both externally and internally for a long, long time,” said David Lemieux, Grateful Dead archivist and the producer of Get Shown The Light. “During the 18+ years I’ve worked with the Grateful Dead, no concert has garnered as much attention and as many requests for release as Cornell, with the New Haven, Boston, and Buffalo shows following very closely behind. For those who didn’t know the history of these master tapes and about their absence from the band’s vault, and for those who have, like us, lamented this hole in the collection, we join with you in celebrating what might be, minute-for-minute, song-for-song, the most high quality Grateful Dead release ever produced.”

Both Get Shown The Light and Cornell are on sale now via Dead.net. Watch a mini-documentary about the Dead’s Cornell ’77 show: