On 2010-05-02 Chris Luallen, Nashville, Tennessee wrote: ´American Beauty´ finds the band at the height of their creative powers, writing songs that ended up being among their greatest. Here, as on ´Working Man´s Dead´, Garcia and company delve into the folksy side of their musical heritage to deliver cuts beyond anything they would be able achieve in the studio either before or after.
Garcia was heavily involved in the production and used extra musicians, such as David Nelson and John Dawson of New Riders Of The Purple Sage, to great effect. A particularly beloved example of this is David Grisman´s mandolin playing on ´Ripple´. Jerry also adds some pedal steel on ´Candyman´ and ´Sugar Magnolia´, while Howards Wales plays the piano on ´Brokedown Palace´.
Spurred on by co-producer Steve Barncard´s love of acoustic music, this record has more beautiful melodies than any other album I can think of. It also contains my all time favorite song, ´Box Of Rain´, with the lyric ´Such a long, long time to be gone, And a short time to be there´, that perhaps best catches what the Grateful Dead experience was all about. Certainly the band was better known for it´s live performances than it´s studio material. But this is one Dead record that will no doubt stand the test of time and be considered among the finest releases in rock music history.
. And summed up by saying The Masterpiece. Currently American Beauty has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
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Grateful Dead claimed Expanded & remastered (HDCD) version of the band´s 1970 classic featuring many of the Dead´s best-known songs plus 6 bonus tracks ´Truckin´ (single version) & 5 live tracks ´Friend of the Devil´, ´Candyman´, ´Till The Morning Comes´, ´Attics of My Life´ & ´Truckin´. Digipak. Warner/Rhino. 2003.
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