Mike Bloomfield - The Best of The Boots 1966-74 (Bootleg) + Bonus

Size: 290 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in NY
Some Artwork

Mike Bloomfield: The Best of the Boots 1966-74

This best-of CD was assembled for visitors to this Web site from the numerous in-performance recordings that exist of Mike Bloomfield playing with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Electric Flag and Michael Bloomfield & Friends. The material will be familiar to most long-time Bloomfield fans, but for those just learning about the guitarist, it will serve as a sampler of Mike's extraordinary talent. While the selections are by no means definitive, each tune captures Mike at his best, and though the sound quality varies, the playing never does.

01. Our Love Is Driftin’ – Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, Sept. 30, 1966
02. Work Song – Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Unicorn Coffee House, Boston, Spring 1966
03. Willow Tree – Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, Sept. 30, 1966
04. Messin’ with the Kid – Electric Flag: Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, Sept. 22, 1967
05. Texas – Electric Flag: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, Dec. 8, 1967
06. Groovin’ Is Easy – Electric Flag: Santa Clara Pop Festival, San Jose, May 18, 1968
07. Born In Chicago – Mike Bloomfield & Friends: Fillmore West, San Francisco, Feb. 1, 1969
08. Driftin’ & Driftin’ – Mike Bloomfield & Friends: Swing Auditorium, San Bernadino, February 19, 1971 
09. One More Mile – Barry Goldberg & Friends: Shrine Auditorium(?), Los Angeles, 1969
10. Sweet Little Angel – Mike Bloomfield & Friends: U. of Miami, Coral Gables, Apr. 4, 1974
11. Never Be Lonely – Mike Bloomfield & Friends: Bottom Line, New York, Mar. 31, 1974

Bonus:

Andy Warhol's Bad: Music by Mike Bloomfield

This 1977 release starred Carroll Baker, Perry King and Susan Tyrrell, and featured music by Michael Bloomfield. A sardonic study in bad taste, black humor and whacky excess in the style of John Waters, the film's plot concerns a beautician who runs a side business providing hitwomen for a series of unsavory customers. 

Long unavailable, the movie has recently been issued on DVD with Bloomfield's soundtrack intact. Here, for Bloomfield completists, is all his music from Warhol's film.

01. Bad Theme  
02. On the Street  
03. On the Phone  
04. In the Bar  
05. Marsha and Glenda  
06. In the Garage  
07. Feel Better  
08. Bad Theme  
09. Five Dollar Bill  
10. Pyromaniac  
11. Murder, part 1  
12. Murder, part 2
13. Beauty  
14. Bad Theme

Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
or
Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
.

Mike Bloomfield - Columbia Studios,Chicago, Dec. 7, 1964

Mike Bloomfield - The Butterfield Band on stage 1966
(open picture in a new window for 100 size)

Mike Bloomfield - Bottom Line New York 1974 & 1975 FM (Bootleg)

Size: 324 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found in NY.
Some Artwork

Michael Bernard Bloomfield was born July 28, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois. An indifferent student and self-described social outcast, Bloomfield immersed himself in the multi- cultural music world that existed in Chicago in the 1950s. He got his first guitar at age 13. Initially attracted to the roots-rock sound of Elvis Presley and Scotty Moore, Bloomfield soon discovered the electrified big-city blues music indigenous to Chicago. At the age of 14 the exuberant guitar wunderkind began to visit the blues clubs on Chicago’s South Side with friend Roy Ruby in search of his new heroes: players such as Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Howling Wolf, and Magic Sam. Not content with viewing the scene from the audience, Bloomfield was known to leap onto the stage, asking if he could sit in as he simultaneously plugged in his guitar and began playing riffs.

Bloomfield was quickly accepted on the South Side, as much for his ability as for the audiences' appreciation of the novelty of seeing a young white player in a part of town where few whites were seen. Bloomfield soon discovered a group of like-minded outcasts. Young white players such as Paul Butterfield, Nick Gravenites, Charlie Musselwhite, and Elvin Bishop were also establishing themselves as fans who could hold their own with established bluesmen, many of whom were old enough to be their fathers. In addition to playing with the established stars of the day, Bloomfield began to search out older, forgotten bluesmen, playing and recording with Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, Little Brother Montgomery and Big Joe Williams, among others. By this time he was managing a Chicago folk music club, the Fickle Pickle, and often hired older acoustic blues players for the Tuesday night blues sessions. Big Joe Williams memorialized those times in the song "Pick A Pickle" with the line "You know Mike Bloomfield...will always treat you right...come to the Pickle, every Tuesday night." Bloomfield’s relationship with Big Joe Williams is documented in "Me And Big Joe," a moving short story detailing Bloomfield’s adventures on the road with Williams.

Mike Bloomfield - Late summer of 1974

Bloomfield's guitar work as a session player caught the ear of legendary CBS producer and talent scout John Hammond, Sr., who flew to Chicago and immediately signed him to a recording contract. However CBS was unsure of exactly how to promote their new artist, declining to release any of the tracks recorded by Bloomfield's band, which included harp player Charlie Musselwhite. With a contract but not much else, Bloomfield returned to playing clubs around Chicago until he was approached by Paul Rothchild, the producer of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band albums. Bloomfield was recruited to play slide guitar and piano on early recordings (later released as The Lost Elektra Sessions) which were rejected for not fully capturing the sound of the band. Although more competitors than friends ("I knew Paul [and I] was scared of him" remembered Mike), the addition of Bloomfield to the Butterfield Band provided Paul Butterfield with a musician of equal caliber -- Paul and Michael inspired and challenged each other as they traded riffs and musical ideas, one establishing a pattern and the other following it, extending it, and handing it back.

Mike Bloomfield - Stanford University
in Palo Alto 1974

In between recording sessions with the Butterfield Band, Bloomfield backed up Bob Dylan on the classic Highway 61 Revisited album, and appeared with him at the Newport Folk Music Festival in 1965 when Dylan stunned the purist folk music crowd by playing electric rock-and-roll. Declining an offer from Dylan to join his touring band, Bloomfield and the Butter Band returned to the studio; with the addition of pianist Mark Naftalin they finally captured their live sound on vinyl. The first two Butterfield Blues Band albums, the Dylan sessions, and the live appearances by the Butterfield Band firmly established Bloomfield as one of the most talented and influential guitar players in America. The second album featured the Bloomfield composition "East-West" which ushered in an era of long instrumental psychedelic improvisations. Bloomfield left the Butterfield Blues Band in early 1967 ostensibly to give original guitarist Elvin Bishop, in Mike's words, "a little space." Undoubtedly he had also become uncomfortable with Paul Butterfield's position as bandleader and was anxious to lead his own band.

That band, The Electric Flag, included Bloomfield's old friends from Chicago, organist Barry Goldberg and singer/songwriter Nick Gravenites, as well as bass player Harvey Brooks and drummer Buddy Miles. The band was well received at its official debut at the Monterey Pop Festival but quickly fell apart due to drugs, egos, and poor management. Bloomfield, weary of the road, suffering from insomnia, and uncomfortable in the role of guitar superstar, returned to San Francisco to score movies, produce other artists, and play studio sessions. One of those sessions was a day of jamming in the studio with keyboardist Al Kooper, who had previously worked with Bloomfield on the 1965 Dylan sessions.

Super Session, the resultant release, with Bloomfield on side one and guitarist Stephen Stills on side two, once again thrust Bloomfield into the spotlight. Kooper's production and the improvisational nature of the recording session captured the quintessential Bloomfield sound: the fast flurries of notes, the incredible string bending, the precise attack, and his masterful use of tension and release. Although Super Session was the most successful recording of his career, Bloomfield considered it to be a scam, more of an excuse to sell records than a pursuit of musical goals. After a follow-up live album, he "retired" to San Francisco and lowered his visibility.

Mike Bloomfield 1974

In the seventies Bloomfield played gigs in the San Francisco area and infrequently toured as Bloomfield And Friends, a group which usually included Mark Naftalin and Nick Gravenites. Bloomfield also occasionally helped out friends by lending his name to recording projects and business propositions, such as the ill-fated Electric Flag reunion in 1974 and the KGB album in 1976. In the mid-seventies Bloomfield recorded a number of albums with a more traditional blues focus for smaller record labels. He also recorded an instructional album of various blues styles for Guitar Player magazine. By the late seventies Bloomfield's continuing drug and health problems caused erratic behavior and missed gigs, alienating a number of his old associates. Bloomfield continued playing with other musicians, including Dave Shorey and Jonathan Cramer. In the summer of 1980 he toured Italy with classical guitarist Woody Harris and cellist Maggie Edmondson. On November 15, 1980, Bloomfield joined Bob Dylan on stage at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco and jammed on "Like A Rolling Stone," the song they had recorded together 15 years earlier.

Michael Bloomfield was found dead in his car of a drug overdose in San Francisco, California on February 15, 1981.

Mike Bloomfield and Friends
The Bottom Line Cabaret, New York,NY,USA
FM Broadcast MARCH 31, 1974

♦ Mike Bloomfield - Guitar, Vocals
♦ Al Kooper - Keyboards
♦ Barry Goldberg - Keyboards
♦ Roger 'Jellyroll' Troy - Bass, Vocals
♦ George Rains - Drums

01. Band Introduction
02. Don't You Lie to Me
03. Linda Lou
04. Sweet Little Angel
05. Unchain My Heart
06. Inside Information (Cuts in) 
07. Tryin' to Find the Door
08. Glamour Girl
09. Heartbreak (Tape Flip,Fades in)
10. Imagination
11. Let The Talk (FM Signal Drop aT About 1;00)
12. Trouble Ahead of Me (Some FM Signals Problems)
13. If i Get Started All Over Again


Mike Bloomfield and Friends, 
The Bottom Line Cabaret, New York,NY,USA  
WLIR-FM Broadcast, (2nd night) January 25, 1975

♦ Michael Bloomfield - guitars, vocals 
♦ Nick Gravenites - vocals, guitars 
♦ Mark Naftalin - keyboards 
♦ George Raines - drums 
♦ Roger "Jellyroll" Troy - bass and vocals

01. You've Been Wrong  
02. Band Intro 
03. Orphan's Blues 
04. Blue Highway 
05. Buried Alive in the Blues 
06. I'll Never Get Over Losing You  
07. DJ Announce 
08. Lights Out 
09. I Believe 
10. My Labors 
11. Wine 

Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
or
Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
.

Mike Bloomfield

Grateful Dead - Selftitled (1st Classic Album US 1967)

Size: 157 MB

Bitrate: 256

mp3

Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock

Artwork Included

Source: Japan SHM-CD Remaster

The Grateful Dead is the debut album of the Grateful Dead. It was recorded by Warner Bros. Records, and was released in March 1967. According to bassist Phil Lesh in his autobiography Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead, the album was released as San Francisco's Grateful Dead.

The album was recorded primarily at Studio A in Los Angeles in only four days. The band had wanted to record the album in their hometown of San Francisco, but no good recording studios existed in the area at the time. The group picked David Hassinger to produce because he had worked as an engineer on the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow album (on the latter of which Jerry Garcia had guested as well having suggested the album's title). 

Demands by Warner Bros. resulted in four of the tracks, originally longer, being cut short. Phil Lesh comments in his autobiography that "to my ear, the only track that sounds at all like we did at the time is Viola Lee Blues. ... None of us had any experience with performing for recording ... although the whole process felt a bit rushed."

The album was seen as "a big deal in San Francisco." Even though this was true, it did not see much air play on AM radio stations outside San Francisco. It would be a couple of months before free-form FM radio stations began to take shape. Warner Bros. threw the band a release party at the Fugazi Hall in North Beach. Joe Smith is noted for saying he is "proud that Warner Bros. is introducing the Grateful Dead to the world."

A remastered version with the full versions of five album tracks, plus six bonus tracks, was released by Rhino in as part of the box set The Golden Road (1965-1973) in 2001, and as a separate album in 2003.

The song "Alice D. Millionaire" was inspired by an autumn 1966 newspaper headline "LSD Millionaire", about the Dead's benefactor and sound engineer Owsley Stanley.

Grateful Dead (Billboard Magazine Advertise 1967)

In the original design for the album cover, the cryptic writing at the top read, "In the land of the dark, the ship of the sun is driven by the Grateful Dead", with the phrase "Grateful Dead" in large letters. At the band's request, the writing, except for "Grateful Dead", was changed by artist Stanley Mouse to be unreadable. According to fan legend, the saying is from Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The band used the collected pseudonym McGannahan Skjellyfetti for their group-written originals and arrangements. The name derived from a corruption of a character name in the Kenneth Patchen work The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer.

The entire LP was remixed in the early 1970s by the Grateful Dead themselves—the original mix is found on LPs bearing the Gold (1967 stereo/mono) Warner Brothers label or W7/WB dark green Warner Brothers label (1968-1971). The remix (palm trees Burbank label) differs significantly from the original 1967 release.

The album was reissued for Record Store Day 2011 on 180g vinyl cut from the original analog/mono masters from 1967. This is the first time in 40+ years it has been released in this form.

The 2013 high definition digital remastered release features the edited versions, as released in 1967, of the four tracks which were extended in the 2003 Rhino release.

Open picture in a new window
for 100% size

The Grateful Dead's eponymously titled debut long-player was issued in mid-March of 1967. This gave rise to one immediate impediment -- the difficulty in attempting to encapsulate/recreate the Dead's often improvised musical magic onto a single LP. Unfortunately, the sterile environs of the recording studio disregards the subtle and often not-so-subtle ebbs and zeniths that are so evident within a live experience. So, while this studio recording ultimately fails in accurately exhibiting The Grateful Dead's tremendous range, it's a valiant attempt to corral the group's hydra-headed psychedelic jug-band music on vinyl. Under the technical direction of Dave Hassinger -- who had produced the Rolling Stones as well as the Jefferson Airplane -- the Dead recorded the album in Los Angeles during a Ritalin-fuelled "long weekend" in early 1967. 

Rather than prepare all new material for the recording sessions, a vast majority of the disc is comprised of titles that the band had worked into their concurrent performance repertoire. This accounts for the unusually high ratio (seven:two) of folk and blues standards to original compositions. The entire group took credit for the slightly saccharine "Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)," while Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) is credited for the noir garage-flavored raver "Cream Puff War." Interestingly, both tracks were featured as the respective A- and B-sides of the only 45 rpm single derived from this album. The curious aggregate of cover tunes featured on the Dead's initial outing also demonstrates the band's wide-ranging musical roots and influences. 

These include Pigpen's greasy harp-fuelled take on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl" and the minstrel one-man-band folk of Jessie "the Lone Cat" Fuller's "Beat It On Down the Line." The apocalyptic Cold War folk anthem "Morning Dew" (aka "[Walk Me Out in The] Morning Dew") is likewise given a full-bodied electric workout as is the obscure jug-band stomper "Viola Lee Blues." 

Fittingly, the Dead would continue to play well over half of these tracks in concert for the next 27 years. [Due to the time limitations inherent within the medium, the original release included severely edited performances of "Good Morning Little School Girl," "Sitting on Top of the World," "Cream Puff War," "Morning Dew," and "New, New Minglewood Blues." These tracks were restored in 2001, when the Dead's Warner Brothers catalog was reassessed for the Golden Road (1965-1973) box set.] [Wikipedia + AMG]

Personnel:

• Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals, arrangement

• Bill Kreutzmann – drums

• Phil Lesh – bass guitar, vocals

• Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – keyboards, harmonica, vocals

• Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

01. "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" (Grateful Dead) – 2:07

02. "Beat It on Down the Line" (Jesse Fuller) – 2:27

03. "Good Morning Little School Girl" (Sonny Boy Williamson) – 5:56

04. "Cold Rain and Snow" (Obray Ramsey) – 2:25

05. "Sitting on Top of the World" (Lonnie Chatmon and Walter Vinson) – 2:01

06. "Cream Puff War" (Jerry Garcia) – 2:25

07. "Morning Dew" (Bonnie Dobson and Tim Rose) – 5:00

08. "New, New Minglewood Blues" (Noah Lewis) – 2:31

09. "Viola Lee Blues" (Lewis) – 10:01

Bonus Tracks:

10. "Alice D. Millionaire" (Grateful Dead) – 2:22

11. "Overseas Stomp (The Lindy)" (Jab Jones and Will Shade) – 2:24

12. "Tastebud" (Ron McKernan) – 4:18

13. "Death Don't Have No Mercy" (Reverend Gary Davis) – 5:20

14. "Viola Lee Blues" (edited version) (Lewis) – 3:00

15. "Viola Lee Blues" (live at Dance Hall, Rio Nido, CA 9/3/67) (Lewis) – 23:13

* The Japan CD reissue contains the full-length versions of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", "Sitting on Top of the World", "Cream Puff War", "Morning Dew", and "New, New Minglewood Blues"

* Tracks 10–13 recorded at RCA Victor Studio A, Hollywood, CA on February 2, 1967

* Track 14 is an edited version of track 9.

* Track 15 recorded live at Dance Hall, Rio Nido, CA on September 3, 1967; the master analog reels of "Viola Lee Blues" are said to exclude the beginning of the song.

1. Link
or
2. Link
.

open picture in a new window for 100% size

Warlocks & Grateful Dead - Early Material 1965-66 (Bootleg)

Size: 366 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Founded in OuterSpace
Some Artwork Included

House band for Ken Kesey's acid parties, the Warlocks were the larval stage of the butterfly which became the Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia had already undergone several career metamorphoses-as a folk/bluegrass enthusiast he'd done stints with the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, Hart Valley Drifters, Wildwood Boys and Black Mountain Boys--to name a few. By July '64, he, Bob Weir and Ron (Pigpen) McKernan-formerly of the Second Story Men--were playing together as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions at the Tangent in Palo Alto, CA. At McKernan's insistence, Mother McCree's "plugged in" and by July '65 were performing as the (electrified) Warlocks. 

On November 3rd, with bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann in tow, the Warlocks entered San Francisco's Golden Gate Studios to record an LP for Autumn Records tentatively titled, "The Emergency Crew." The Six songs were committed to tape: I Can't Come Down [2:59] ; Mindbender [2:39] ; The Only Time Is Now [2:47] ; Caution (Do Not Stop On The Tracks) [3:14] ; I Know You Rider [2:37] ; and Early Morning Rain [3:14]. The session was never released, though bootlegged soundboard recordings have circulated (e.g. Mason's Children). After Lesh claimed he'd encountered another group of musical "Warlocks," the moniker was dropped. With the new year came a new name-the Grateful Dead.

Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind-expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades. The object of adoration for popular music's most fervent and celebrated fan following -- the Deadheads, their numbers and devotion legendary in their own right -- they were the ultimate cult band, creating a self-styled universe all their own; for the better part of their career orbiting well outside of the mainstream, the Dead became superstars solely on their own terms, tie-dyed pied pipers whose epic, free-form live shows were rites of passage for an extended family of listeners who knew no cultural boundaries.

The roots of the Grateful Dead lie with singer/songwriter Jerry Garcia, a longtime bluegrass enthusiast who began playing the guitar at age 15. Upon relocating to Palo Alto, CA, in 1960, he soon befriended Robert Hunter, whose lyrics later graced many of Garcia's most famous melodies; in time, he also came into contact with aspiring electronic music composer Phil Lesh. By 1962, Garcia was playing banjo in a variety of local folk and bluegrass outfits, two years later forming Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions with guitarist Bob Weir and keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan; in 1965, the group was renamed the Warlocks, their lineup now additionally including Lesh on bass as well as Bill Kreutzmann on drums.

The Warlocks made their electric debut that July; Ken Kesey soon tapped them to become the house band at his notorious Acid Tests, a series of now-legendary public LSD parties and multimedia "happenings" mounted prior to the drug's criminalization. As 1965 drew to its close, the Warlocks rechristened themselves the Grateful Dead, the name taken from a folk tale discovered in a dictionary by Garcia; bankrolled by chemist/LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley, the band members soon moved into a communal house situated at 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco, becoming a fixture on the local music scene and building a large fan base on the strength of their many free concerts. Signing to MGM, in 1966 the Dead also recorded their first demos; the sessions proved disastrous, and the label dropped the group a short time later.

As 1967 mutated into the Summer of Love, the Dead emerged as one of the top draws on the Bay Area music scene, honing an eclectic repertoire influenced by folk, country, and the blues while regularly appearing at top local venues including the Fillmore Auditorium, the Avalon Ballroom, and the Carousel. In March of 1967 the Dead issued their self-titled Warner Bros. debut LP, a disappointing effort which failed to recapture the cosmic sprawl of their live appearances; after performing at the Monterey Pop Festival, the group expanded to a six-piece with the addition of second drummer Mickey Hart. 

Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia took up guitar at 15, spent nine months in the Army in 1959, then moved to Palo Alto, where he began his long-standing friendship with Robert Hunter, who late became the Dead's lyricist. In 1962 he bought a banjo and began playing in folk and bluegrass bands, and by 1964 he was a member of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, along with Bob Weir, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and longtime associates Bob Matthews (who engineered Dead albums and formed the Alembic Electronics equipment company) and John Dawson (later of New Riders of the Purple Sage).

In 1965 the band became the Warlocks: Garcia, Weir, Pigpen, Bill Kreutzmann, and Phil Lesh, a former electronic-music composer. With electric instruments, the Warlocks debuted in July 1965 and soon became the house band at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, a series of public LSD parties and multimedia events held before the drug had been outlawed. LSD chemist Owsley Stanley bankrolled the Grateful Dead — a name from an Egyptian prayer that Garcia spotted in a dictionary — and later supervised construction of the band's massive, state-of-the-art sound system. 

The Dead lived communally at 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco in 1966–67 and played numerous free concerts; by 1967's Summer of Love, they were regulars at the Avalon and Carousel ballrooms and the Fillmore West. MGM signed the band in 1966, and it made some mediocre recordings. The Dead's legitimate recording career began when Warner Bros. signed the band. While its self-titled 1967 debut album featured zippy three-minute songs, Anthem of the Sun (Number 87, 1968) and Aoxomoxoa (Number 73, 1969) featured extended suites and studio experiments that left the band $100,000 in debt to Warner Bros., mostly for studio time, by the end of the 1960s. Meanwhile, the Dead's reputation had spread, and they appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. 

Garcia, Jerry (1 Aug. 1942-9 Aug. 1995), rock band leader, guitarist, and singer, was born Jerome John Garcia in San Francisco, California, the son of Joe Garcia, a ballroom jazz musician and bartender, and Ruth (maiden name unknown), a nurse. Garcia was raised in a home filled with Spanish relatives and music. An active boy, he lost the third finger of his right hand in a childhood accident. Although he sang at an early age, he first aspired to become a painter.

At the age of five Garcia saw his father drown. After his mother remarried, the family moved to Menlo Park, California. At age thirteen, after being influenced by George Orwell's novel 1984, Garcia rebelled, left school and his family, and went back to San Francisco, where he learned to play the piano. He idolized the rocking sound of Chuck Berry and in 1957 bought a Danelectro guitar and a small Fender amplifier upon which he learned to play rhythm and blues. Inducted into the U.S. Army in 1958, Garcia practiced acoustic guitar in his San Francisco barracks. He was dishonorably discharged in 1959.

In 1960, after he survived a car accident that took one life, Garcia concluded he was put on earth for a specific purpose. He quickly formed a bay-area bohemian band named the Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers. He learned to play a five-string banjo proficiently, and with Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, a harmonica player, keyboardist, and vocalist; Phil Lesh, a trumpeter, bassist, and composer; and Bill Kreutzmann, a drummer, Garcia concentrated on bluegrass, blues, and northern California folk music. In 1963 he was briefly married to Sarah Katz, with whom he had one daughter. Garcia then married Carolyn Adams, with whom he had two daughters. They divorced in 1987.

In December 1964 Garcia joined guitarist and songwriter Robert Hunter and guitarist Bob Weir in Palo Alto, California, and formed the cover band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. Playing Rolling Stones hits and the blues, the band rejected acoustic instruments for electric and combined rock music with rhythm and blues. They added Dan Morgan on bass and renamed the group the Warlocks.

In 1965 the Warlocks joined Ken Kesey (author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) and his band of Merry Pranksters to live communally in La Honda, California, and experiment with the hallucinogenic drug LSD during parties called "acid tests." Garcia's drug problems escalated during these parties, and the music of his band changed from jug-folk-blues to psychedelic rock.

Renamed the Grateful Dead in 1965, the band's long performances were free-form events with improvisory, intense, highly amplified sound. While fans flocked from the new drug culture to hear the Grateful Dead, chemist Stanley Owsley (a manufacturer of LSD) became the band's financial benefactor.

The Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane performed at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1965. That same year the group moved to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, where a distinct counterculture was thriving. Playing hybrid music of rhythm and blues, jazz, and rock, Garcia performed on a pedal-steel guitar, dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and always wore sunglasses. He expressed his feelings through music without inhibition. He and the Grateful Dead rejected advertising, promotional videos, and media attention, and they performed without elaborate light or stage shows to a growing crowd of fanatical fans.

Garcia's nonconformist, utopian vision of total independence and freedom (in mind and body) appealed to "hippies" and other young people who denounced the Vietnam war, monogamy, parental or authoritarian guidance, formal education, and conformist jobs. Because fans believed the band's music brought listeners to a psychedelic state of mind, John Tobler observed in Guitar Heroes (1978) that the Grateful Dead originated "a soundtrack for the drug experiments of a generation."

Giving long, free concerts at a local bar called the Family Dog, the band refused numerous record deals until Warner Bros. guaranteed it artistic control in 1967. The first album, The Grateful Dead, was released in March, and the group rose to national attention as the sovereigns of psychedelic groupies (named "Deadheads") when they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival (Aug. 1968); the North California Rock Festival, with the Doors (May 1968); and at Woodstock (summer 1969).

The band refused to cut single records to increase their popularity or earn more money. Warners released the LP Aoxomoxoa in 1969 and their first nonstudio album, Live/Dead, in 1970, but by that time the band was deeply in debt. While Lenny Hart managed the group, his son Mickey joined it as a second drummer, and Tom Constanten played keyboards for a season.

The band was near financial ruin because of drug addictions, police arrests, poor management, and unorganized concert tours. Workingman's Dead and American Beauty (with "Sugar Magnolia" and "Truckin' ") were also released in 1970 to help pay bills, but the band and Garcia were still close to bankruptcy. When McKernan became ill in 1971 (and died of a liver ailment in March 1973), he was replaced by Keith Godchaux, whose wife Donna became a vocalist for the Grateful Dead. Garcia cut the solo album Hooteroll in 1971 on the Douglas label and the LP Garcia in 1972. After touring Europe in 1972, the band released a triple album, Europe '72, and members of the group dispersed to do individual projects. 

Tapes: 
Like several other bands during this time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could. The eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the official sound crew. Eventually this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of tapes of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of their show tapes. Sometimes the sound crew would allow the tapers to connect directly to the soundboard, which created exceptional concert recordings. Recently, there have been some disputes over which recordings archive.org could host on their site. Currently, all recordings are hosted, though soundboard recordings are not available for download, but rather in a streaming format.[56] Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial idea in increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
[Different Sources]

Grateful Dead Lineup June 1965 – September 1967:
♦ Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
♦ Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
♦ Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – keyboards, harmonica, percussion, vocals
♦ Phil Lesh – bass, vocals
♦ Bill Kreutzmann – drums

SoundQuality: A to A- (Excellent all over)

The Warlocks
Golden Gate Studios, San Francisco, California 11/03/65
Autumn Records Demos
01. Can't Come Down
02. Mindbender
03. The Only Time Is Now
04. Caution
05. I Know You Rider
06. Early Morning Rain

The Warlocks - Unknown Early Material 1965
07. Tastebud
08. Mason’s Children
09. Uncle John’s Band
10. Ripple
11. Cold Rain & Snow
12. You Don’t Have To Ask
13. Stealin’
14. I Know You Rider
15. Don’t Ease Me In
16. Cardboard Cowboy
17. Mason’s Children
18. Turn On Your Lovelight

Grateful Dead - Ivar Theathre 
Los Angeles 1966-02-25
01. She's On The Road Again 
02. Next Time You See Me 
03. I Know You Rider 
04. Hey Little One 
05. Cold Rain & Snow 
06. King Bee  
07. Caution 
08. Stealin'  
09. Stealin' (Late 1966)
10. Good Morning, Lil' School Girl  
11. You Don't Love Me  
12. Good Morning, Lil' School Girl (Late 1966)

Grateful Dead - Fillmore Auditorium
San Francisco, CA 1966-07-03
01. Dancin' In The Street 
02. I Know You Rider 
03. He Was A  Friend Of Mine 
04. Next Time You See Me 
05. Viola Lee Blues  
06. Big Boss Man 
07. Sittin' On Top Of The World

Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
or
Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
.