Photography by Chip Maxwell, courtesy of Tony Dwyer/Sky HIgh Productions
The Grateful Dead play at the Kiel Auditorium in 1973.
On December 9, 1971, the Grateful Dead walked onto the stage at the Fox Theatre for the first of two nights in St. Louis. The humming power of the sound system was obvious from the first moments of that concert’s board recording.
Guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and bassist Phil Lesh playfully sound-checked their microphone levels. Noting the beauty of the Fox, Weir then made a request: “Don’t stand on the seats or kick out the walls or rip out the ornaments.” He called the venue “the only place we like to play around here.”
Fortunately, fans abided, and the evidence permeates the profoundly deep new 20-CD set Listen to the River: St. Louis ’71, ’72, ’73. Documenting seven full Grateful Dead concerts across a three-year period, the massive Dead-issued set presents the band during one of their numerous peaks. In addition to the ’71 Fox recordings, the box includes three nights at the 4,500-capacity theater in October 1972 and a pair of late-October 1973 shows to 9,000 fans at the Kiel Auditorium.
Listen to the River
Listen to the River was born after Dead archival producer David Lemieux fell in love with the trio of Fox Theatre sets from 1972 through a tip from legendary Dead archivist Dick Latvala, who died in 1999. Although the band played more than 20 times at various venues in the St. Louis area between 1968 and 1982, the Fox held a special place in the Dead’s heart, and you can hear that reverence in the music.
In an essay accompanying the box, Lemieux explains, “I knew there’d be a release among these three St. Louis shows; I was just having a hard time deciding which one to choose.” Not long before Latvala died, he also gave Lemieux tapes that included the two ’73 Kiel shows.
Lemieux pitched Rhino on a 15-disc set containing the ’72 and ’73 concerts. When the label asked for more, the producer returned to the 1971 Fox recordings. A lost board tape containing half of the December 10 show had recently reentered the band’s archives, and Lemieux “was thrilled with how well [it] complemented the 1972 and 1973 St. Louis shows.”
Among the highlights across the box’s 180 tracks: a labyrinthine 13-minute rendition of “Bird Song,” featuring recently added pianist Keith Godchaux, and raucous versions of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” “Around and Around,” and “Run Rudolph Run.” The legendarily seamless second set from October 18, 1972, features (Deadhead minutiae alert!) the band’s then-new boogie-rocker “Playing in the Band,” which moves into a three-minute “Drums” transition and concludes with a 28-minute trip through “Dark Star” that morphs into “Morning Dew.”
By the time the Dead landed in St. Louis in ’71, they’d relentlessly toured since 1967, clocking more than 700 shows. Along the way, they’d gathered a growing tribe who appreciated their music on a granular level. The band’s mix of country, soul, jazz, folk, and rock had fully gelled into a sound all their own during these St. Louis performances. Although no known film footage exists, you can almost feel the thousands dancing along, lost in music.
Issued by Rhino, Listen to the River: St. Louis ’71, ’72, ’73 comes out October 1. In addition to the 20-CD version ($199.98), the Dead will also release the recordings as a digital package. You can pre-order the set here.
