Grateful Dead is an album by rock band the Grateful Dead. Released in October 1971 on Warner Bros. Records, it is their second livedouble album. Although published without a title, it is generally known by the names Skull and Roses and Skull Fuck. It was the group's first album to be certified gold by the RIAA and remained their best seller until surpassed by .
Recording and release
Unlike Live/Dead, the album contained several lead and background vocal overdubs. For the three new original compositions, the band invited Jerry Garcia associate Merl Saunders to overdub organ parts. This made the organ playing of Saunders more prominent than that of Pigpen, whose contributions tend to be buried in the mix. "Playing in the Band" received a good amount of airplay, and became one of the Dead's most played songs in concert. The closing segue of "Not Fade Away" into "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" also received airplay and became a fan favorite. The album's cover art, composed by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse, is based on an illustration by Edmund Joseph Sullivan for an old edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Though the album has been known by the sobriquet "Skull & Roses", the original vertical gatefold cover unfolds to reveal the entire skeleton. The graphic became one of the images most associated with the band. Opening track "Bertha" fades in on the original version of the album, in semblance of entering the performance space. A longer, full opening is used on CD/digital copies. More tracks from the same source concerts were later released on Ladies and Gentlemen... the Grateful Dead. The 7" single release of "Johnny B. Goode" was actually the version from the album . However, the version from this album was later used as a B-side on the re-release of the "Truckin'" single. The album was remastered and expanded for the 2001 box setThe Golden Road. This version, with three bonus tracks and the extended "Bertha", was released separately, in 2003.
Title and message
When the band submitted "Skull Fuck" as the album title, it was rejected by the record label. Ultimately the agreement was made that the album would be published without the title appearing anywhere on the record labels or cover artwork. Though the band refers to the album by this title, and it has long been known to fans, the alternate, descriptive title "Skull & Roses" developed among distributors, music buyers and reviewers as a graphic incipit from the cover artwork. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann explained the lack of a title on the artwork and labels, "...the original name was going to be "Skull Fuck". This was a time long before rap artists like Eminem numbed concerned citizens to the idea of offensive language in music. Warner Brothersfreaked out on us. They said stores would boycott it and we wouldn't be able to get it on shelves." Inside the gatefold of the original LP, the band reached out directly to its burgeoning fan base, which had begun to attend multiple concerts in a row and collect live audio tapes of each concert, with a message reading: The mailing address is no longer extant.
Track listing
The four sides of the vinyl album were combined as tracks 1–11 on CD reissues.
