The Grateful Dead will be eternally remembered as a live band, a band that transcended audience expectations by embracing experimental ideas that gave each member complete freedom to move within the structures of their songs.

For a while, though, they were also a wildly creative studio band. In the first half of the ‘70s, as ‘album rock’ was coming to the fore of popular music, The Grateful Dead were among the most influential studio bands of the era. Some of their studio work was so elaborate that much of it was rarely performed live, so these albums present a side of the band that sometimes gets overlooked by music historians. “American Beauty” certainly represents some of the band’s best work.

Featured tracks include:

Box of Rain

Friend of the Devil

Sugar Magnolia

Operator

Candyman

Ripple

Brokedown Palace

Till the Morning Comes

Attics of My Life

Truckin’

November 1970 - Billboard Charted #30