Grateful Dead: Terrapin Station [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This reissue was newly mastered by David Glasser and produced for reissue by David Lemieux. The album reached No. 28 on the Billboard 200 and went gold, and its title suite became a cornerstone of the band's live shows.

This edition

• Remastered by David Glasser
• Pressed in the Czech Republic

About the album

Clive Davis signed the Grateful Dead to Arista on one condition: they'd work with an outside producer. Keith Olsen, fresh from Fleetwood Mac's 1975 album, took the job and moved the band down to Sound City in Los Angeles, where crew member Steve Parish nailed the studio door shut once everyone was inside, purely so the work got done.

The "Terrapin" suite is the big one, a multi-part piece running from Jerry Garcia's "Lady with a Fan" through "At a Siding" and "Terrapin Flyer," dressed in orchestral arrangements by Paul Buckmaster. Bob Weir's reggae-tinged "Estimated Prophet" opens the record, the band turns "Dancin' in the Streets" into a disco strut, and the traditional "Samson & Delilah" stomps along, with Donna Godchaux's "Sunrise" and the driving "Passenger" in between. Olsen also managed to mic both drummers without the usual tangle.

Heinrich Kley's drawing of two dancing terrapins on the cover became some of the band's most enduring imagery, and Rolling Stone later named 1977 the Grateful Dead's greatest year, thanks in part to the tour behind this album. They've been dancing on T-shirts ever since, which is more cardio than most of us manage.

Also at Kops: more Grateful Dead on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Arista / Rhino (cat# R1 516251), a reissue of the 1977 album.