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 The Legends of Laurel Canyon
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best
Karen Dalton
Transfiguration of Vincent
M. Ward
Muswell Hillbillies
Kinks
Christmas in the Heart
Bob Dylan
Glitter and Doom Live
Tom Waits
Let It Roll: The Best of George Harrison
George Harrison
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
Elvis Costello
Playing for Change
Songs Around the World
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Jerry Garcia
Compiling something called “The Very Best of Jerry Garcia” must have been a Herculean task, if not a Sisyphean one; how can you possibly cull thousands of hours of recordings down to 140 minutes? It’s either heroic, or it’s impossible. The answer lies squarely in the middle. This is a nice collection, and very representative of Garcia’s solo career, but any true fan would recognize anything called “The Very Best of Jerry Garcia” to be an oxymoron. His solo work was incredibly erratic and uneven, soaring from the unequivocal genius of his first album, “Garcia,” but sinking to the confusing morass entitled “Run for the Roses.” Strictly speaking, a greatest hits collection would encompass all of the former while (more or less) ignoring the latter, but that is not what a career retrospective disk ought to do, and that is what this really is. To be truly representative, it must gloss over highlights while lingering a bit too long on weaker efforts.
The layout itself is quite intelligent, dedicating one disk to the studio recordings, while dedicating the second to live highlights. The “Garcia” album does have five representative tracks, including the magnificent “Deal,” “Bird Song,” and “Sugaree,” but overlooks “To Lay Me Down” and the totally weird spacey psychedelia of “Late for Supper/Spidergawd/Eep Hour.” Meanwhile the thoroughly unremarkable “…Roses” album is represented three times. Garcia’s take on “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is an aural sedative, and “Without Love” is a decidedly non-climactic ending to an otherwise satisfying disk.
Fortunately, the live disk compensates nicely. Here, the combination of cover songs and originals compliments Garcia’s abilities, and the track selections are more…umm, selective. “Dear Prudence” totally reinvents the Beatles song, and while it may not be an improvement, it at least shows Garcia’s penchant for inhabiting his material. “Senor” is a much more inspired song selection than “…Heaven’s Door” (as is “Positively 4th Street,” marking three Dylan tunes on Garcia’s compilation), while “The Harder They Come” is a tried and true take on the reggae classic. Plus, it’s always great to hear something from Garcia’s traditional folk outfit, Old and In the Way. A better, or more honest, album title for this collection would be “A Brief Synopsis of Garcia’s Solo Work.” It is a great place to start if you are wondering which part of his career to investigate; either that, or you could pick up his first solo album and take it from there.
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