Blair’s Golden Road Blog — Cornell ’77 Enshrined for the Ages
by Blair Jackson
On May 23, the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry announced this year’s list of 25 songs, instrumental pieces and historic recordings to be added to the prestigious institution’s permanent collection. There’s lots of great stuff on the list: Prince’s “Purple Rain”; Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors”; Vince Guaraldi’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas”; Donna Summer’s euro-disco “I Feel Love”; the first-ever commercial recording—a version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” created for the first talking doll by one of Thomas Edison’s employees; the only surviving record of early 20th century Broadway sensation Lillian Russell; the 1943 NY Philharmonic debut by conductor Leonard Bernstein; the Grateful Dead’s May 8, 1977, concert at Cornell University’s Barton Hall… Whaaaaat? Where did that one come from?
Maybe it helps to have friends in high places. After all, Mickey Hart has been associated with the Library of Congress for many years. But when I asked him about it the morning the list was announced, he denied any involvement. “What can I say? The people have spoken!” he said with a laugh. “It’s true that I wrote part of the legislation for the [LOC’s digitization and preservation] project in 2000. It was copied after the Lucas-Spielberg Film Preservation Act. But when it came to voting, I recused myself.”
Voting? “People have been voting all year, and then the board decides what is culturally significant, and the librarian, James Billington, makes the final cut and the call.”
Ah, the power of Dead Head unity in action. Stuffing the ballot box—a tradition as old as this great republic itself!
All kidding aside, a copy of Cornell 5/8/77 is a perfect choice for the National Recording Registry. Consider this: It has never been released commercially (legally), yet it is probably among the most collected, traded and downloaded concerts by any band ever. That’s not hyperbole, either.
The original pristine audience recordings of this show started circulating among tape collectors very shortly after the concert, and quickly became a favorite of everyone who heard them—this at a time when Grateful Dead tape trading was just beginning to explode nationwide. In the pre-digital age, when all we had were cassettes, the show was part of any respectable tape collection, passed among untold thousands of people. It was always big news each time a cleaner, lower-generation copy would come through my circle of traders; had to have it! (It was also bootlegged as vinyl records and, later, CDs, and sold — boo, hiss! Not cool!) One of the late, great taper Jerry Moore’s greatest legacies is his audience recording of 5/8/77. I'm not sure whose recording I had originally; I didn't know any tapers by name back then.
But we really thought we’d gone to heaven when the much-ballyhooed show turned up among the famous “Betty Boards” in 1986-87—200+ hours of soundboard masters recorded by Grateful Dead sound engineer Betty Cantor, who stashed them in a storage locker for years, until they were auctioned off (due to non-payment of storage fees)—and bought by Dead Heads! What a treasure trove of tapes that turned out to be! So, gorgeous new SBD copies of 5/8/77 soon circulated to hundreds of thousands of collectors, further solidifying its reputation. (This chain of events also explains why 5/8/77 is, alas, not in the Grateful Dead tape vault, where it rightfully belongs, as the Dead, not Betty, were the rightful owners of their own master tapes, auction be damned.)
The show was reproduced many thousands more times when collectors transferred their tapes to CD. “Gotta get Cornell!” Again. By the time online live music repositories started popping up in the late ’90s—such as etree and the Internet Archive (Archive.org), who entered into a cooperative arrangement—high quality versions of the show became available to anyone with a computer, for streaming or downloading. There are currently 15 versions of 5/8/77 up on Archive—audience recordings, soundboards, and matrix combo versions. I frankly haven’t investigated deeply enough to know what the differences are—which came first, which is an “upgrade,” etc. (My own rule of thumb with Archive Dead shows is I look for Charlie Miller’s name, and if it’s attached to a recording, I’ll usually check that out first, since his name is synonymous with the highest quality transfers and upgrades.) Want to know how many times 5/8/77 has been downloaded from Archive.org? Are you sitting down? I added up the numbers beside each version: 928,006 as of May 23! I’m guessing that adding in all the copies that were made (tape and digital) in the years when the Grateful Dead was actually around, and when collecting was at its apex, the number could easily reach 2 million. Incredible for a so-called bootleg recording!
Is Cornell ’77 the greatest Dead show ever, as many have asserted through the years? (It’s been a consistent poll-winner.) Is it even the best show of the justly heralded spring ’77 tour? It doesn’t matter. It’s all opinions in the end, and we each have our own preferences for certain years, certain songs, etc. I don’t like to deal in those sorts of absolutes.
But it’s indisputably an amazing show. (OK, some might even dispute that. Sorry, this time you’re wrong!) The first set is solid and occasionally spectacular—the “Loser”; that speedy-confident “Lazy Lightning” > “Supplication”; “Row Jimmy” with beautiful Garcia slide, a fantastic “Dancing in the Street” that puts every disco song on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (released fall of ’77) to shame. The second set reaches some of the highest moments the Dead ever attained—particularly the jam after the second (final, in those days) verse of “Fire on the Mountain” and the completely transcendent version of “Morning Dew,” which has to be heard to be believed. Throw in “Scarlet,” “St. Stephen,” a really dynamic and elongated “Not Fade Away” and the then-new “Estimated Prophet”—each played with unbridled energy and enthusiasm—and you’ve got one helluva set. Is it perfect? No. Does that diminish its greatness? Not at all.
I asked Mickey what, if any, recollections he has from the show? He laughed. “Oh, I don’t remember shows that way. I know it’s famous. I guess there’s a great ‘Morning Dew’ and some others. I haven’t heard it in many years. But if the Dead Heads say that it’s one of the best shows, I believe them. They know.
“What’s funny is my wife [Caryl] was a student at Cornell at the time but she didn’t go to the show. She was off with her boyfriend seeing Barry Manilow or some dumb thing! She never got to see the Grateful Dead until we met in the ’90s.”
Well, it’s never too late to get into 5/8! Dig it now, Caryl!
All right, now it’s time to put you on the spot. If you were to choose just one Dead concert to represent the band forever in a digital archive, which would you pick and why?
12-29-77
This show is representative of primal, X-factor, unbridled, just-exactly-perfect-brothers-band Dead! From the Jack Straw start to the Terrapin Station/Johnny B. Goode finish, this show shines. There is so much energy and confidence in everyone's playing (well, maybe not everyone; Keith is, well, late 70s Keith). I only wish Dick, RIP, had included Roses and Sunrise to make it a complete release with DP10. I guess the filler from the next night was good enough reason ;)
At many times during the show, Garcia's Wolf guitar literally sings. The solo in the aforementioned Jack Straw; TLEO; my absolute favorite Loser; beautiful accompaniment in LLR; and a Sugaree that rivals any of the other played during that wonderful year of '77.
After a truly muscular first set and start of the second (Bertha-Good Lovin'), there is a spaced-out Playin into a boppy China-Rider into a gorgeous China Doll. There is a brief drums workout before more muscle with NFA-Playin' reprise. What a glorious set of pristine, adventurous music!
Finish it all off with a double encore and you have one hell of a great Grateful Dead concert. This, my friends, far surpasses Cornell '77 and is more deserving of enshrinement in the LOC.
Peace!
5/8/77 doesn't exist in the Vault, so which copy of this show will be chosen for the National Recording Registry? One of my favorite sayings is- If it's good enough for the Library Of Congress, it's good enough for me. I think this is even inscribed on one of my coffee mugs. Please- take the copy chosen for the National Archives, Normanize the glory and finally release this show. So the fans can then cherish this national treasure in our own personal archive. And God save the Queen!
We all know that one show can't convey the many variations the band went through, but if I had to choose a single show , I'd go with 5/2/70. With the acoustic set, the New Riders, and the electric sets you get a plateful of what the experience of a live show felt like. I think most people unfamiliar with the Dead, and that's presumably the crowd this is meant for, would hear some of their finest songs from WMD & AB plus plenty of the psychedelic weirdness that made them (in)famous in the first place. I'd really prefer 9/20/70 but it's wobbly sound disqualifies it.
But 5 8 77 does have the best Dancin and Dew, for sure. It's induction is justified. If I had to answer quickly I'd probably say 11 2 77. My fave Lazy>Supp and a great Terrapin encore. Great country also.
Every time I ask you guys to come up with something that on the surface is ridiculous--best "Dark Star," ONE representative show (?!), etc.--you always come through with amazing suggestions, and you jog my memory about shows I love but haven't heard for ages (like 2/15/73 above, and a bunch of the "Dark Star" suggestions from last week) and shows I don't know at all, like the 3/7/81. As I've said before, so many shows, so little time!
I'll go with 9 2 80
alternate 11 4 77
I did this exercise as quickly as I could - chose six shows from six years - bam!
2/14/68 Charlie Miller version
1/26/69 The Eleven>Lovelight
5/02/70 I'd love to hear an update!!!
12/15/71 Dark Star>Deal>Charlie Miller
8/27/72 Somethin' Else!
2/15/73 Dark Star>Eyes
6/18/74 Charlie Miller
Which show is best representative? 2/14/68 and check the set list.
That was fun! Thanks, blairj.
Remember, the question is not what is the best Dead concert ever, its which one is most representative of the Dead. Still a very tough question, but when I imagine being at a great Dead show, this one could be it.
Another one that sounds equally fun to have been there and is fantastic to listen to is Lewiston, Maine 1980.
I couldn't name the best Dead show I ever attended much less choose the best show I've heard -- ask me today, maybe I'd say Hartford 10-15-83; tomorrow, maybe Meadowlands w/ Stephen Stills ("Love the 1 you're w/"); next day . . . Hampton 10-9-89; following day anything from Europe '72. That's what I love about the serius GD station -- they choose the tunes & shows (much better than I could by the way) and I get turned onto stuff I either don't have or wouldn't think to play or if I have it, I have an old scratchy recording or somethin like that.
There's a show from the Capitol Theater (I think) w/ the very last "Operator" that I absolutely DIG! The GD w/ Pigpen and the GD w/out Pig seem like close cousins - same family; different cats or same soup; different recipes. Too young to ever have seen Pig, but somehow have this indescribable affinity for the cat -- modest, soulful, no bullshit but selflessly considerate -- and I get all of that just from hearing the guy play/sing -- Would really, really like to have known the dude, especially in my partying days -- but I digress -- sorry, but Pig is m' buddy like it or not!
Anyway, best dead show or best dead tune? The one that is presently playing (which is why I keep comin back to the post Jerry shows -- the spirit still exists and shines every now and again and when ya least expect it -- like when Joan Osborne or Chris Robinson sings a Pig tune! Ah, I knew this would come full circle at some point.
Don't keep the faith -- SPREAD it!
Locations
But if you are holding my feet to the fire....You could do worse than 5/26/73. I do wonder why anyone would choose a post retirement show though???