With its rare live performances, candid scenes of the two principals, and interviews with friends and family, the Grateful Dawg movie has a casual home-movie ambience. This soundtrack follows suit, mixing important studio tracks with a bevy of unreleased live recordings, making it a boon for hardcore collectors. The live tracks are taken from two very different settings: most are from San Francisco’s Warfield Theater, where David Grisman and Jerry Garcia performed together several times, but two — “Off to Sea Once More” and “Dawg’s Waltz” — were recorded at an impromptu show at the tiny Sweetwater club in Mill Valley, just north of the city. The five Warfield tracks show the duo’s mighty musical range as they move from covers of the Grateful Dead (“Friend of the Devil”) and Jimmy Cliff (“Sitting Here in Limbo”) to exotic modal jazz, old-time, and progressive bluegrass.
- 1996