Vol. 1-Pickin' on the Grateful Dead

 (12 customer reviews)

As both a GD fan and a blue grass one, I was expecting so much more from this CD. It really should have been a no-brainer: take some of the more folkish GD songs (God knows there are plenty), get some top blue grass performers and let them have fun with them. Instead, what you get is a series of songs delivered in a sterile, flat, overly scripted manner with no spontaneity and no improvisation. There is only one song on the CD that really catches the spirit of blue grass and shows what this CD could have been, and that is Going Down the Road Feeling Bad. Interestingly, this is not even a GD original, but an old folk song covered by many blue grass artists (ex. Flatt and Scruggs' 'Lonesome Road Blues'). In short, the performers go wild with it, give it the full blue grass treatment, and deliver a very, very interesting version. Why they could not do the same with all of the other songs is a mystery. This could hardly qualify as a tribute album.

I listened to this CD a few times, and I tried my hardest to like it, but the more I listen, the more flat and unimaginative it sounds. It's too bad, because I love bluegrass and the Grateful Dead.

What a great idea! What a flat, boring, soulless execution! It sounds like a bunch of couldn't-care-less paid by the hour studio guys who might have just finished laying down a track for a McDonalds commercial stepped into a studio, were given the charts, played what was written, and packed up and went home. Big disappointment. Now I see they have a part II of this - unbelievable. None of the energy and joy that infuses bluegrass, nor any of the magic and beauty the is the Grateful Dead, made it on to this sorry rip-off. Save your money.