Grateful Dead Albums for the Non-Dead Head

The Grateful Dead fans are some of the loyalist fans in the world. There are many fans (me included) that can tell you set lists from concerts 20 years ago. They can tell you when the last time members got together to play "Dark Star." Fans can tell you what song led into "Going down the Road Felling Bad" in a Boston concert in 1977.

This article is not for them. This article is for the people who are not that familiar with the Grateful Dead. People that might view them as spaced out hippies that play music that is not coherent. For the people that believe their music is not main stream and does not appeal to the normal listener. This article is for you. This article will hopefully expose you to some of the different genres that the Grateful Dead fall into and hopefully turn you onto them.

In The Dark. This album is a popular main stream album. It contains the only top 10 hit the Grateful Dead had; "Touch of Gray" is a lively upbeat song with a simple catchy feel. This album also contain the great Eco-warrior song "Throwing Stones" (one of my favorite from the Bob Weir/ John Barlow song writing team). The last song on this album is the slow emotionally filled "Black Muddy River" song by Jerry Garcia and now has become a favorite at Bruce Hornsby concerts.

Reckoning. A great acoustic live album with a country feel to it. When I was first becoming exposed to the Dead, I did not like this album. It was "too country" for me. However, after a while this album really grew on me. There are some great songs on here. "Dire Wolf," "Bird Song" and "Ripple" are classics. This a good album for a country music fan to start their exposure to the Dead with.

Shakedown Street: This album has a classic 1970's feel to it. It has the funky almost Disco sounding title song "Shakedown Street". It also has the cover of "Good Lovin" and the Jerry Garcia favorite "Stagger Lee." A very good album for someone who prefers the 1970's funky sound.