Steal Your Face

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Steal Your Face
Live album by Grateful Dead
Released June 1976
Recorded October 16–20, 1974
Genre Folk rock, jazz fusion, rock
Length 84:13
Label Grateful Dead Records
Producer Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead chronology
Blues for Allah
(1975)		 Steal Your Face
(1976)		 Terrapin Station
(1977)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars [1]
Rolling Stone 2/5 stars [2][3]

Steal Your Face is a live double album by the Grateful Dead, released in June 1976. The album was recorded live in concert between October 16 and October 20, 1974 at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom as part of the band's then-"farewell run".

The title of the album derives from the lyrics of "He's Gone" (Like I told ya, what I said, steal your face right off your head), a song that does not appear on the album.

The album is generally considered by Deadheads to be the Grateful Dead's least representative live album, both due to the poor sound (some songs had to be overdubbed in the studio[4]) and song selection (it focused on the band's songs rather than jams). Indeed the record was dubbed Steal Your Money by fans at the time (also by the band), as many questioned the band's motives for releasing it. The phrase "Steal Your Money" is widely believed to be have been coined by Lester Bangs in his review of the original release: "Steal Your Face? Steal your money more like!"

In an interview, Jerry Garcia said: "None of us liked it. I'm sure even Phil and Owsley didn't like it that much... I think part of it was that we were not working, and we didn't have anything else to deliver."[5]

Despite the discontent of the band, the album was issued under duress in order to fulfill a contractual obligation to United Artists. The album's cover art featured a logo (a grinning skull with a lightening bolt on the frontal bone) designed by Owsley Stanley and rendered by Bob Thomas. The logo has since been identified as the "steal your face," or "stealie" logo, perhaps incorrectly. [6]

Although the album was released during the band's working life (and with its full consent), it was omitted from the 2004 Rhino Records Beyond Description (1973-1989) boxed set that otherwise collected all of the Dead's other studio and live works from this era. Instead, a 5-CD album called The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack, which documents the same ru,n of shows as Steal Your Face, was released concurrently with the boxed set.

When Steal Your Face was first issued on CD in 1989, the sound quality was greatly improved from the original vinyl release. In 2004 the album was finally re-released in HDCD sound by Rhino Records. Atypical of the Grateful Dead CDs released by Rhino, this release does not contain any bonus tracks.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Disc one

  1. "Promised Land" (Chuck Berry) – 3:17
  2. "Cold Rain and Snow" (trad., arr. Grateful Dead) – 5:38
  3. "Around and Around" (Berry) – 5:07
  4. "Stella Blue" (Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia) – 8:48
  5. "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo" (Hunter, Garcia) – 8:04
  6. "Ship of Fools" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:01
  7. "Beat It On Down the Line" (Jesse Fuller) – 3:24

[edit] Disc two

  1. "Big River" (Johnny Cash) – 4:55
  2. "Black-Throated Wind" (John Barlow, Bob Weir) – 6:07
  3. "U.S. Blues" (Hunter, Garcia) – 5:42
  4. "El Paso" (Marty Robbins) – 4:17
  5. "Sugaree" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:37
  6. "It Must Have Been the Roses" (Hunter) – 6:00
  7. "Casey Jones" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:04

[edit] Recording dates

According to the Grateful Dead Family Discography, the recording dates for the performances included on Steal Your Face are thought to be as follows:[5]

  • "Casey Jones" - recorded live on October 17, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Ship of Fools", "Beat It On Down the Line" and "Sugaree" - recorded live on October 18, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Mississippi Half Step Toodeloo", "Black Throated Wind", "U.S. Blues", "Big River" and "El Paso" - recorded live on October 19, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Promised Land", "Cold Rain and Snow", "Around and Around", "Stella Blue" and "It Must Have Been the Roses" - recorded live on October 20, 1974 at the Winterland.

[edit] Musical personnel

[edit] References

  1. ^ Planer, Lindsay. Steal Your Face at Allmusic
  2. ^ Walters, Charley (August 26, 1976). Steal Your Face, Rolling Stone
  3. ^ The Grateful Dead Album Guide, Rolling Stone
  4. ^ The Compleat Grateful Dead Discography
  5. ^ a b Steal Your Face at the Grateful Dead Family Discography
  6. ^ Dodd, David (2005). The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics. New York, NY 10020: Free Press: Simon & Schuster. pp. 192. 
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