Europe '72

To me, one of the, if not the best box set they've ever produced.

Obviously, you got the Europe 72 box set, but I'm talking about a smaller, not a huge box.

you know, 80 CD type box sets.

You know, they come out annually.

You know, those shows in Texas are incredible at the end of November.

These shows kicked off that Midwest tour and, And I'll tell you, it's just some of the best Grateful Dead you will ever hear.

Similar to the Europe 72 tour, followed by that unbelievable East Coast tour in September.

The momentum and the unbelievable creativity and their just dynamic playing continued into St. Louis.

The two of them even talked about a little trio, piano and organ and harmonica and a small club off broadway in north beach was going to hire them it never happened merle called pigpen a dear soulful musician the root of the band playing the blues the right way and he said that ron was the one responsible for him playing the organ on bertha one night that same year someone went to hear jerry play with merle at a small place in berkeley and one by one for no reason at all the rest of the grateful dead showed up too eventually they all got up on stage and played as garcia put it they just liked to hang out together but here's your tape oddity for tonight merle and pigpen had lived only four blocks apart in the haight ashbury and had never met until they crossed paths at a club with jerry merle had been busy with jazz with jimmy smith and the hammond organ sound he had heard about pigpen but did not know him and merle said laughing at himself his own father knew more about the grateful dead than he did Nobody agrees on this, and nobody ever has.

Is Merle on Europe 72? The next big live album, the one from the Dead's spring tour of Europe the following year, does not list Merle Saunders in its credits, but the band's official biographer mentions him briefly as part of the overdubs.

A respected discography listed him on the album, too.

And Merle himself, in an interview said he played on four or five tracks of Europe 72.

Then a patient listener sat down with every original album mix, the newer box set mixes of the very same performances, and the circulating tapes.

He found no new organ part anywhere.

So it wasn't a great show.

Truth be told, we actually left early, and I was off the dead for a while until much later when I listened to Europe 72 and went crazy over Brown Eyed Girl and Jack Straw and... and Tennessee jet and all that.

Whoa.

So

But – You can't give the dead enough credit for that, but I do think because of the stigma of, oh, it's the Grateful Dead.

So I dealt with that.

I know myself personally overlooked all those songs only because my dear good friend and brother-in-law, a fellow lawyer, Seve, turned me back onto the dead in the early 90s, and I started listening to Europe 72.

And hearing all these songs, basically for the first time, even though I was into Live Dead Back, that went, wow.

And, you know, you just gotta poke around, and, a- and I'm excited to dive into more of 1971 because it's not novel or groundbreaking to say it's a great year.

But it's such an interesting year with them incorporating material that would become beloved on, on the Europe '72 album that would come out next year.

And as the band is transitioning, like we talked about, this is the last show with Mickey.

Pigpen's health is starting to decline, so he's becoming less of a factor, less of a frontman for them.

And you can definitely kinda tell that with this show, too, where he's only got three tunes of the, what, 23 songs that they played that night.

And it's cool to hear them working out the kinks and finding what works and what doesn't as they move into locking these songs down and tightening them up for Europe '72 that would come the next year.

So all that to say, I, I really, really enjoyed listening to this show.

I think it was fun to hear all those debuts.