THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Fifty years ago, the Grateful Dead were cooking with gas. It was spring 1974, the band had successfully emerged from a series of hectic, harrowing times, and would soon follow their transformative Wake Of The Flood with the second acclaimed album release on their very own Grateful Dead Records: From The Mars Hotel.
During the eight months that had passed between those two beloved LPs, the group also played some of their most exploratory music and largest venues to date, famously amplified by the homemade, 75-ton Wall of Sound that they debuted on March 23, 1974, at their hometown Cow Palace in Daly City, CA. Eternal staples such as Scarlet Begonias, Ship Of Fools and U.S. Blues would first be introduced into setlists along that season’s tour, before the Grateful Dead spent two months recording and honing them in the studio for From The Mars Hotel. Not to mention classics like China Doll and Loose Lucy, or Pride Of Cucamonga and Unbroken Chain — the final two tracks Phil Lesh would sing on a Grateful Dead studio album. Now, as Grateful Dead members and tributaries continue to celebrate and bring so many of these formative songs to the masses, From The Mars Hotel has been remastered and expanded with newly unearthed material and rarities, in honor of its 50th anniversary.
Released exactly five decades — minus six days — after the album’s original release on June 27, 1974, From The Mars Hotel: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition features remastered audio by Grammy-winning engineer David Glaser, with Plangent Processes tape restoration and speed correction. Produced for release by Grateful Dead Legacy Manager and Audio Archivist David Lemieux, the deluxe edition also includes demos of China Doll and Wave That Flag — the song that became U.S. Blues — as well as a previously unreleased live performance of the Grateful Dead at University of Nevada-Reno on 5/12/1974.
As the band filled an outdoor football stadium with epic highs like a huge China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Mars Hotel cuts including U.S. Blues and classics such as Brown-Eyed Women, Tennessee Jed, Mississippi Half-Step, Truckin’ and Sugar Magnolia, a massive wind storm was no match for the Wall of Sound. Designed to improve the listening and performance experience at what were becoming larger gigs and longer, more dynamic and varied sets, the rig required 21 stage hands, and underlined the resounding effect the Grateful Dead were having on American audiences and culture at the time, even as the entire operation remained homespun and humble.
Recorded in San Francisco’s Coast Recorders studio, From The Mars Hotel finds Keith Godchaux particularly shining across a variety of keys, from the China Doll harpsichord to the pounding piano on Bob Weir’s Money Money to the churchy organ that elevates Ship Of Fools. Lyricist Robert Hunter packs U.S. Blues with a barrage of imagery, pop-culture references and sardonic asides — as Canadian author Ray Robertson writes in the 50th Anniversary Edition’s liner notes, it “carries an undeniable whiff of late-capitalism ennui…it’s the most fun you’ll ever have dancing to the end of the American Empire.” Jerry Garcia’s jaunty lead guitar drives bouncing melodies across the LP, while guests include Ned Lagin’s unnerving synth effects on Unbroken Chain, Clover member John McFee’s country-rock pedal steel on Pride Of Cucamonga and more.
From The Mars Hotel peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1974, contributing to the Grateful Dead’s historic achievement last month, when they broke the all-time record for most Top 40 albums on the Billboard 200.”
