“Anthem of the Sun” - Grateful Dead

When I rank the Grateful Dead’s studio albums, “Anthem” is at the top of my list. The record really isn’t a typical studio record, but more of a collage made up of both studio and live recordings. As the Dead were known for experimentation on many levels, this record was definitely and experiment. Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh knew nothing about recording or producing a record in late ‘67 and early ‘68. Their first record for Warner Brothers followed the common format of rock records at the time. That being mostly 2.5 minute songs recorded and overdubbed by a professional engineer/producer. For this album Garcia and Lesh spent months figuring out what all those little knobs and sliders on the board did. It drove the Warner producer crazy. So much so that he quit the project.

That just gave Garcia and Lesh (and soundman Dan Healy) more time to splice together live and studio segments of songs to create this collage. I read somewhere that they manually manipulated reel to reel recordings of live performances to synchronize them with studio tracks. Basically one would press their thumb against the tape reel to slow it down to the same tempo as the studio recording. This would create other problems like altering the pitch. That led to more experimentation, but somehow they got it right. They also brought in their friend Tom Constanten to provide something called “prepared piano”, which is defined as “a piano with objects placed on or between the strings, or some strings retuned, to produce an unusual tonal effect”. This created some truly astonishing sounds that probably were the birth of the Dead’s “Space” segments in future concerts.

All in all, like some other albums in this month long review, Anthem is an acquired taste. But it appealed to me and it seemed like the Dead could never reach this level again except for in live performances. There are very few good videos available from the Anthem period in ‘68 so I’ve included a YouTube of the beginning of side one. You can hear a transition from studio to live at 1:25, then to a different live performance at 1:58. Then back to studio at 4:00 for a short 14 seconds before switching to yet another live performance. At 5:50 be ready for an extended prepared piano piece that at first listen, can be a bit like chewing tin foil. The Grateful Dead at their absolute weirdest.