Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead: England '72

GRATEFUL DEAD
Jerry Garcia: Lead guitar, vocals
Donna Jean Godchaux: Vocals
Keith Godchaux: Piano
Bill Kreutzmann: Drums
Phil Lesh: Electric bass, vocals
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan: Vocals, organ, percussion, harmonica
Bob Weir: Rhythm guitar, vocals

Disc One:
1 Cold Rain and Snow (6:02)(Grateful Dead) - Lyceum Theatre
2 Greatest Story Ever Told (6:00)(Weir, Hart, Hunter) Bickershaw Festival
3 Mr. Charlie (3:52)(McKernan, Hunter) Bickershaw Festival
4 Sugaree (7:34)(Garcia, Hunter) Newcastle City Hall
5 Mexicali Blues (3:31)(Weir, Barlow)Lyceum Theatre
6 Big Boss Man (6:28)(Dixon, Smith) Bickershaw Festival
7 Deal (5:52)(Garcia, Hunter) Newcastle City Hall
8 Jack Straw (5:19)(Weir, Hunter) Lyceum Theatre
9 Big Railroad Blues (4:27)(Lewis, Arr. By Grateful Dead) Wembley Empire Pool
10 Hurts Me Too (6:07)(James, Sehorn) Wembley Empire Pool
11 China Cat Sunflower (5:06)(Garcia, Hunter) Lyceum Theatre
12 I Know You Rider (6:02)(Trad. Arr. By Grateful Dead) Lyceum Theatre Happy Birthday To You (Hill) Bickershaw Festival
13 Playing In The Band (10:10)(Weir, Hart, Hunter) Bickershaw Festival

Disc Two:
1 Good Lovin’ (20:00)(Clark, Resnick) Bickershaw Festival
2 Ramble On Rose (6:42)(Garcia, Hunter) Bickershaw Festival
3 Black-Throated Wind (6:07)(Weir, Barlow) Wembley Empire Pool
4 Sitting On Top Of The World (3:30)(Carter, Jacobs) Lyceum Theatre
5 Comes A Time (6:38)(Garcia, Hunter) Lyceum Theatre
6 Turn On Your Lovelight (13:02)(Malone, Scott) Bickershaw Festival
7 Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad (8:23)(Trad. Arr. By Grateful Dead)Bickershaw Festival
8 Not Fade Away (4:54)(Petty, Hardin) Lyceum Theatre
9 Hey Bo Diddley (4:30)(McDaniel) Lyceum Theatre
10 Not Fade Away (3:06)(Petty, Hardin) Lyceum Theatre

Disc Three:
1 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (5:15)(Smith) Lyceum Theatre
2 Black Peter (8:53)(Garcia, Hunter) Lyceum Theatre
3 Chinatown Shuffle (2:49)(McKernan) Lyceum Theatre
4 Truckin’ (10:14)(Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) Wembley Empire Pool
5 Drums (2:44)(Kreutzmann) Wembley Empire Pool
6 The Other One (19:31)(Weir, Kreutzmann) Wembley Empire Pool
7 El Paso (4:48)(Robbins) Wembley Empire Pool
8 The Other One (8:20)(Weir, Kreutzmann) Wembley Empire Pool
9 Wharf Rat (10:49)(Garcia, Hunter) Wembley Empire Pool
10 One More Saturday Night (4:57)(Weir) Wembley Empire Pool

Disc Four:
1 Uncle John's Band (7:21)(Garcia, Hunter) Lyceum Theatre
2 The Stranger (Two Souls In Communion)(7:35)(McKernan) Lyceum Theatre
3 Dark Star (31:28)(Garcia, Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir, Hunter) Wembley Empire Pool
4 Sugar Magnolia (7:16)(Weir, Hunter) Wembley Empire Pool
5 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) (17:16)(Grateful Dead) Wembley Empire Pool
6 Brokedown Palace (7:02)(Garcia, Hunter) Newcastle City Hall

The Grateful Dead’s 1972 tour of Europe has long been thought of one of the great jewels in the crown of the band’s three-decade performing career. The Dead had given a few isolated performances in England and France in previous years, but this lengthy and ambitious sojourn was their first full-fledged European tour, and they took the UK and the Continent by storm. The trip was immortalized on one of the Dead’s best-loved live albums, a three-LP set that had briefly carried the working title Steppin’ Out (to go with Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse’s famous cover image of a foot, emerging from under a rainbow and striding across the globe). But in the end, the band and their record label settled for the more plainly descriptive title Europe ’72.

Now, thirty years after the completion of that memorable excursion, Grateful Dead and Arista Records are proud to present a spectacular new four-CD collection of previously unreleased recordings from the 1972 Europe Tour. The title? What else? Steppin’ Out with the Grateful Dead.

The selections on Steppin’ Out are drawn exclusively from the Dead’s stops in England, which accounted for more than a third (and some of the very best) of the tour’s 22 shows. As you can tell from their enthusiastic response here, British audiences had been clamoring for a visit from the Dead for some time, and the band rewarded the UK fans’ patience with terrific performances, characterized by tight, purposeful playing and adventurous jamming. Heard in this set are fine renditions of some of the staples of the Dead’s early-70s repertoire, standbys from their earlier years and a few real rarities, including a couple of songs never released on any Grateful Dead album until now: a rollicking version of Huey “Piano” Smith’s “Rockin’ Pneumonia”; and a short but sweet take on the former Ellas McDaniels’ famous ode to himself, “Hey Bo Diddley.”

All of it — five hours of never-before-released live Dead — has been mixed and digitally mastered from the original multitrack master tapes, resulting in a recording of stunning clarity and presence. It’s the closest you can get to Europe in ’72 without a passport and a time machine.