Greetings, and welcome back to the Tapers’ Section. This week we’re going to check out music from 1973, 1979 and 1980, a good selection from three very good years in Grateful Dead music.

Our first stop this week is in El Paso, TX, on 11/23/73, when the Grateful Dead were about the midway point of one of the finest stretches in their performing history, October 19, 1973 to December 19, 1973. The exceptional shows around this period are many, and this one had some good music throughout, including this tasty batch o’ Dead, featuring China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, El Paso, Tennessee Jed, Big River, Row Jimmy, Weather Report Suite. This show is one of those underrated shows, mainly owing to the fact that it's surrounded by such great nights of music, specifically the Denver shows that preceded it, and the Boston shows a week later (aka Dick's Picks 14).

Next we'll jump forward six years to 11/29/79 in Cleveland, where the band was starting the second Eastern leg of their fall tour of 1979. From that show, we have the end of the first set, consisting of Easy To Love You, Brown-Eyed Women>Looks Like Rain>Don't Ease Me In. This entire stretch from late October to mid-December, 1979 had some really great shows.

From a shade under a year later, on 11/26/80 in Pembroke Pines, FL, the band was starting out a very short run of shows in Florida and Atlanta. These were the first concerts since the final night of Warfield-Radio City shows on 10/31/80, and they picked up right where they left off, with good, inspired Grateful Dead music. No acoustic sets, but they had brought in a few of the acoustic songs into the electric sets after Radio City (On The Road Again, Race Is On, Bird Song). From the first set at the Sportatorium, we have On The Road Again, Jack A Roe, Minglewood Blues, It Must Have Been The Roses, Race Is On, Althea>Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance>Deal. These shows at the end of November were mostly exceptional.

And speaking of the four shows to end the month, we have music from the final night, on 11/30/80 in Atlanta. We've played some of the second set here, but this week we're going to play you some excellent first set material, specifically Bird Song, Me and My Uncle>Big River, It Must Have Been The Roses, Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance.

Be sure to stop by next week when we end November and start December with music from 1973, 1979 and 1981. There's some good stuff coming up. The e-mail address below is always welcoming of your comments and questions, so feel free to write anytime.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net