Bertha (song)
| Grateful Dead | ||||
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| Live album by Grateful Dead | ||||
| Released | October 24, 1971 | |||
| Recorded | March–April 1971 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock, jam rock, blues rock, psychedelic rock | |||
| Length | 70:12 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. (#2WS-1935) | |||
| Producer | Grateful Dead with Betty Cantor and Bob Matthews | |||
| Grateful Dead chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| The Village Voice | A– |
Grateful Dead is an album by rock band the Grateful Dead. Released in October 1971 on Warner Bros. Records, it is their second live double album. Although published without a title, it is generally known by the names Skull and Roses (due to its iconic cover art) and Skull Fuck (the name the band originally wanted to give to the album, which was rejected by the record company). It was the group's first album to be certified gold by the RIAA and remained their best seller until surpassed by Skeletons from the Closet.
Unlike Live/Dead, the album contained several lead and background vocal overdubs. For the three new original compositions ("Bertha", "Playing in the Band", and "Wharf Rat"), the band invited Jerry Garcia associate Merl Saunders to overdub organ parts. This made the organ playing of Saunders more prominent than that of Pigpen, whose contributions tend to be buried in the mix.
"Playing in the Band" received a good amount of airplay, and became one of the Dead's most played songs in concert (a studio version was released the following year on Ace). The closing segue of "Not Fade Away" into "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" also received airplay and became a fan favorite.
The album's cover art, composed by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse, is based on an illustration by Edmund Joseph Sullivan for an old edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Though the album has been known by the sobriquet "Skull & Roses", the original vertical gatefold cover unfolds to reveal the entire skeleton. The graphic became one of the images most associated with the band.
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