Dick's / Dave's picks

It's not Dan Healy who has the reel masters ("Betty Boards") of the missing May '77 shows (and many others as well), but the anonymous buyer of 2 steamer trunks worth of reels auctioned off in 1985 from Betty Cantor-Jackson's storage locker.  Then there is a third trunk which included the Academy of Music '72 shows (released officially from DAT copies of the reels; those reels are also missing from the Vault), and even a 4th batch (!) recently "uncovered", some or all of which may be returning to the vault.

Either way the shows are out there and honestly I'll take a Charlie Miller master any day of the week over official releases. Listening to his remasters of 8/29-30/69 of Family Dog at the Great Highway and holy crap they sound amazing!

Not to take anything away from Charlie, but he only very very rarely does any "mastering" in the traditional sense.  He will try to clean up recording or transfer mistakes (clicks, pops, dropouts, volume irregularities, etc) but does nothing else (e.g. EQ, compression, etc)

rbbert, 
thanks so much for completing the story here! That is just what i was hoping would happen. Great news! Or at least better to hear than Healy having the May 77 shows with him, as that would continue to seem hopeless. He does have some but sounds more promising than I had suspected.