Best Grateful Dead recording?

"Nightfall of Diamonds" is a great commercial live recording. It is taken from the March 1990 run at the Meadowlands and released on Arista. Any of the "Dicks Picks" series from GDP/GDM (Grateful Dead productions/Grateful Dead Merchandising) http://www.dead.net are good too. For studio work, I would look at "Blues For Allah" and "Terrapin Station", and of course original or new releases of "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead". Their best work is not available anywhere except from tapers and live tape traders. If you can hook up with someone with an extensive collection, almost all of the May 1977 shows are great, as is the entire year of 1990 shows.

I concur with the recommendations made previously. In addition, you might want to get a copy of The Other Ones - "The Strange Remain". This was most of the Dead personnel (minus Jerry, RIP) along with Bruce Hornsby on keyboards and vocals and with Steve Kimock filling in the Jerry parts on guitar, captured during the Furthur Festival a few years back. *Very* well recorded live 2 HDCD set, the opening of St. Stephen/The Eleven is awesome...

If you like this kind of music, you simply *must* check out db.etree.org - hundreds of live shows recorded by amateur "tapers", the quality I have seen so far is quite impressive, better than most studio efforts. Check out the Steve Kimock Band, especially the Chester's Place shows...

-rw-

Ladies & Gentlemen, the Grateful Dead.....4 cd's live, HDCD & great sound quality.

Most of the "Dick's Picks" are really excellent recordings. They are all live recordings and surprise me.

Agree with Slipknot. One quick correction: "Nightfall of
Diamonds" was actually from the October 16, 1989 show at the
Meadowlands (yes I was there - Bob Weir's b-day). "Dozin' at the Knick" is a
compilation of the 3-night March, 1990 run at the Knickerbocker
Arena in Albany, NY (yeah I was there too). Both are awesome
soundwise and perfomance-wise but I like "Nightfall" better
simply because it is a single complete show.

Yeah 1988 - 1991 was truly a peak period for the band
(certainly the last). Another great live release on Arista
is "Without a Net" which is a compilation of live recordings from the
Fall 1989/Spring 1990 tours.

Also agree that the May 1977 tour may be one of their best
ever and there are at least two Dick's Picks releases from
that tour: Dick's Picks Vol. 3 (5/22/77) and Dick's Pick's
Vol. 29 (5/19/77 and 5/21/77).

The thing to keep in mind about the Dick's Picks releases
are that they are live-to-2-track soundboard recordings not
carefully produced multi-track recordings like the ones on
Arista. That being said the sound quality is generally
quite good for the Dick's Picks series.