GRATEFUL DEAD
AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE
NEVER BEFORE HEARD DEMO RECORDINGS
AVAILABLE TODAY
LISTEN NOW
Digital Exclusive Celebrates The Album’s 50th Anniversary
With More Than Two Hours Of Unreleased Demos And Session Recordings
“The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast,” The Official Grateful Dead Podcast, Launches Season Two Today With Focus On American Beauty
First Episode “American Beauty 50: Box Of Rain” Available Today
LOS ANGELES – The musical distillers that recently uncorked Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share have finished another batch of unreleased session recordings by the Grateful Dead. This time, the heavenly sonic elixir will toast the 50th anniversary of American Beauty with over two hours of unreleased studio outtakes, demos, and alternate mixes.
AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE brings together never-before-heard studio recordings compiled from dozens of recently discovered 16-track reels. It includes multiple outtakes for several album tracks along with demos for every song on the album (except “Box Of Rain”) plus one for “To Lay Me Down,” which was later included on Jerry Garcia’s first solo album, Garcia. All 10 demos are available today for streaming and digital download with the full 56-track AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE to be released as a digital exclusive on October 15, shortly before the 50th anniversary of the album’s original release date: November 1, 1970.
Like its predecessor, the latest incarnation of The Angel’s Share was made possible by the tireless work of engineer Brian Kehew and archivist Mike Johnson who – operating under the supervision of Grateful Dead legacy manager David Lemieux – spent countless hours compiling and piecing the reels together to create this revelatory experience.
AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE opens with 10 demos that were recorded in August 1970 at Pacific High Recording Studio, the same place the band recorded Workingman’s Dead just a few months earlier. While fans are accustomed to hearing songs evolve through the band’s live recordings, this installment of The Angel’s Share offers them a rare opportunity to hear songs like “Ripple” (then titled “Hand Me Down”) grow from its first demo into the final version.
The vast remainder of The Angel’s Share features a mix of partial and complete takes from these sessions including multiple takes of “Friend Of The Devil,” “Ripple” and Pigpen’s “Operator,” an alternate mix of “Truckin’” and a different version of “Candyman.” These intimate in-studio performances are interspersed with conversations that make it feel like you’re in the studio with the band (Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bob Weir) along with producer Stephen Barncard and engineer Phil Sawyer.
The Angel’s Share is rounded out with an acoustic mix of “Box Of Rain” and a version of “Attics Of My Life” that spotlights Garcia alone on electric guitar, both newly mixed from the band’s recording sessions for the album later that summer at Wally Heider Recording.
As a reminder, the collection takes its name from a term used by whiskey distillers. The “angel’s share” is the percentage of whiskey that’s lost to evaporation each year as the liquid is aged in oak barrels. Much like the whiskey distillation process, there were also ingredients that were vital to the creation of American Beauty that were lost and did not end up on the final album, the band’s own version of the “angel’s share”. If not for good fortune, these recordings would have been lost to the angels as well, just like those gallons of whiskey. In this case, everyone gets a taste of the “angel’s share.”
To coincide with the latest Angel’s Share release, “The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast,” the official Grateful Dead podcast, has launched the first episode from its second season today. Produced and hosted by singer-songwriter and producer Rich Mahan and author and WFMU DJ Jesse Jarnow, the Deadcast’s sophomore season will focus exclusively on American Beauty with each weekly episode concentrating on one of the album’s 10 songs, kicking off today with “Box Of Rain,” which features a special appearance by director/writer Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters), who prominently featured American Beauty in the legendary final episode of Freaks & Geeks.
Season two of “The Good Ol' Grateful Deadcast” will welcome American Beauty producer Barncard along with David Grisman, David Nelson, and many of the other musicians who contributed to the album, along with appearances by road manager Sam Cutler, writer Steve Silberman, Dead Head sociologist Rebecca Adams, New Yorker staff writer Nick Paumgarten, and many more.
“The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast” launched this summer and quickly became one of the most popular music podcasts, with multiple episodes from season one topping Apple Music’s Music Podcast Chart.
AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE is a special gift to Dead fans and a fitting companion to the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of American Beauty, which will be released on October 30 as a 3-CD set and digitally. The collection is part of the band’s ongoing series of deluxe editions and features a newly remastered version of the album plus an unreleased show recorded on February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theatre.
AMERICAN BEAUTY: THE ANGEL’S SHARE
Track Listing
1. “Friend Of The Devil” – Demo
2. “Sugar Magnolia” – Demo
3. “Candyman” – Demo
4. “To Lay Me Down” – Demo
5. “Truckin’” – Demo
6. “Hand Me Down” (“Ripple”) – Demo
7. “Brokedown Palace” – Demo
8. “Till The Morning Comes” – Demo
9. “Attics Of My Life” – Demo
10. “Operator” - Demo
11. “Box Of Rain” – Acoustic Mix
12. “Candyman” – Alternate Take
13. “Truckin’” – Alternate Mix
14. “Operator” (Take 1) [Slated]
15. “Operator” (Take 2 Breakdown) [Slated]
16. “Operator” (Take 3) [Slated]
17. “Operator” (Take 4 Breakdown) [Slated]
18. “Operator” (Take 5) [Misnamed As Take 6] [Slated]
19. “Operator” (Take 6 Breakdown) [Slated]
20. “Operator” (Take 7 Breakdown) [Slated]
21. “Operator” (Take 8) [Slated]
22. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 1 Breakdown) [Slated]
23. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 2 Breakdown) [Slated]
24. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 3 Breakdown) [Slated]
25. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 4 Breakdown) [Slated]
26. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 5) [Slated]
27. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 6) [Slated]
28. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 7) [Slated]
29. “Friend Of The Devil” (Arranging Take 1) [Not Slated]
30. “Friend Of The Devil” (Arranging Take 2) [Not Slated]
31. “Friend Of The Devil” (Arranging Take 3) [Not Slated]
32. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 9 Breakdown) [Slated]
33. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 10 Breakdown) [Slated]
34. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 11) [Slated]
35. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 12 Breakdown) [Slated]
36. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 13) [Not Slated]
37. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 14 Breakdown) [Slated]
38. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 15) [Slated]
39. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 16) [Slated]
40. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 17) [Slated]
41. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 18) [Slated]
42. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 19) [Not Slated]
43. “Friend Of The Devil” (Take 20) [Slated]
44. “Attics Of My Life” (Take 1) [Slated]
45. “Attics Of My Life” (Take 2 Breakdown) [Slated]
46. “Attics Of My Life” (Take 3 Breakdown) [Slated]
47. “Attics Of My Life” (Take 4 Breakdown) [Slated]
48. “Attics Of My Life” (Take 5) [Slated]
49. “Attics Of My Life” (Solo Version)
50. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 1 Breakdown] [Slated]
51. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 2 With Vocals] [Slated]
52. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 3] [Slated]
53. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 4] [Slated]
54. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 5 Breakdown] [Slated]
55. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 6 Breakdown] [Slated]
56. “Hand Me Down” (aka “Ripple”) [Take 7] [Slated]
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