July 1, 2007

In 1991, the Grateful Dead began a series of live, archival releases called "From the Vault." The first fruits were titled, naturally enough, "One From the Vault" (a 1975 show from San Francisco) and "Two From the Vault" (a Los Angeles concert from 1968). Since then, there have been more than 50 officially sanctioned live albums from the band -- none of them a follow-up to this series.

	Hear "Three From the Vault"
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Sixteen years later, the Dead are finally issuing "Three From the Vault," a 1971 concert from Port Chester, N.Y. Even the official press release offers no particular explanation for the decision to revive this line, stating that it simply represents "the band's longstanding policy of gleefully monkey-wrenching the space-time continuum whenever and wherever possible."

Whatever. What is most interesting about "Three From the Vault" is not the backstory but the sound. It documents the band at an especially intriguing moment: fresh off the releases of "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead," their two strongest studio efforts, and stripped down to a five-piece lineup: just guitarist Jerry Garcia, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, bassist Phil Lesh, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan on keyboards and harmonica, and rhythm guitarist Bob Weir. It was the most conventional rock 'n' roll setup in the Dead's long history (usually they had a second drummer, Mickey Hart, and often a second keyboard player as well), and coincided with the period in which they were most focused on fully realized, well-structured songs.

The set features the world premieres of "Bird Song" and "Deal," and the second ever performances of five other songs, including such staples as "Playing in the Band" and "Wharf Rat." Only a few songs stretch out beyond the 10-minute mark. In some ways, this release could be considered the Grateful Dead for non-Deadheads.

"Three From the Vault" is one of the first results of a comprehensive licensing agreement that the Dead signed last year with Rhino Entertainment to manage exclusively the band's intellectual property. Rhino now oversees everything from the band's live archive and its Web site to its merchandise. (Grateful Dead Productions retains creative control, and the deal does not include the band's music publishing.) But whether the Rhino deal inspired the resurgence of the "Vault" series or whether it was coming anyway ... well, who knows?

From his Bay Area home, Bob Weir discussed the reopening of the Vault, the vagaries of the archiving process, and what he refers to as the Dead's "rock 'n' roll Dixieland" approach to collective improvisation. "The music happens somewhere between what the band does and what the audience captures," says Weir. "So if you're going over their heads, it doesn't amount to much."

MSN Music: So this album is part of the "Vault" series, as opposed to the "Dick's Picks" series, or the other one-off live releases from the Dead's archive. Can you explain the distinctions between all of these, or is it vague to you, too?

Bob Weir: It's pretty vague from my end. It makes sense to the archivist, though, and that's what matters. There has to be some sort of system, and the guy who set it all up for us is a classically trained archivist, so I trust his sensibility.

But do you know why one album is part of one series and another album is part of another series?

No, I don't, but he does, and the people who follow this stuff closely do -- or at least I hope they do! I don't pay that much attention to our old stuff, really. I have bigger fish to fry.

How involved are you in the archival releases? Do you actually participate in the process, or do you just sign off at the end?

The guys in the band really aren't all that involved. We all have different, ongoing projects that take up our time: I have my band Ratdog; Mickey and Phil have their own things going. So I think I can speak for everybody that we look at our archives as our past accomplishments -- we're happy with them, proud of them, but not really all that concerned about them. There's only so much I'm going to be able to enjoy going back to that stuff.

Read more of this exclusive interview on page 2 >>>

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