Of the new songs, “Jack Straw” and “Brown-Eyed Woman” are among my favorites from the band, although that list was growing longer every year.ĭead fans will definitely enjoying digging into these discs.
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“China Cat Sunflower” leaps for joy in this arrangement, and “Cumberland Blues” feels much more comfortable in its skin here than it did on Workingman’s Dead. In that sense, you could approach this as a studio/live hybrid, except that the band’s studio songs didn’t breathe so deeply as they do on stage. Donna presumably sings harmonies on some of these tracks, and while it’s difficult to hear her contributions in the final mix, the harmonies on Europe ‘72 are some of the best you’ll find on any Dead live record.Įurope ’72 is one of the cleanest-sounding live records you’ll hear from the band no crowd noise, just a few seconds of banter, very clear separation between the instruments. The piano playing of Keith Godchaux is the most notable “new” element in the music, which effectively pushes Pigpen’s organ further into the background. It’s thus an album that looks forward and looks back. Europe ‘72 was the first Grateful Dead release to feature Keith and Donna Godchaux, and the last to feature Ron “Pigpen” McKernan while he was alive ( Bear’s Choice was released after his death). While I prefer Live/Dead, there’s no denying that the recordings on Europe ’72 are remarkably clean and the playing, despite the absence of Mickey Hart and the diminished abilities of Pigpen, is classic Dead from beginning to end.Īlthough the three-album set is just a sampler of the Dead’s rotating show, it strikes a nice balance between the “hits” (“Truckin’,” “One More Saturday Night”), new material (“Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Woman”), longstanding cover songs (“I Know You Rider,” “Hurts Me Too”) and the increasingly popular side-trips (“Epilogue,” “Prologue”). In fact, Europe ’72 has since sold more copies in the US than Live/Dead and Grateful Dead combined, if the RIAA is to be believed.
It was their third multi-record live release in four years and their longest to date, but fans didn’t seem to mind. The Dead took their American songbook to Europe for two months (April and May) in 1972, pieces of which were folded into a three-record package as Europe ’72. Kronomyth 8.0: You don’t go home with all, not with all. The Dead take their revolving songbook on the road to Europe with the Godchauxes in tow for Pigpen’s last ride.
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