The Grateful Dead's American Beauty, released on Warner Bros. Records (WS 1893) in November 1970, is the band's most explicit engagement with bluegrass and folk. Jerry Garcia plays guitar, pedal steel, and piano; Bob Weir, guitar; Phil Lesh, bass; Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, harmonica; Bill Kreutzmann, drums; Mickey Hart, percussion. David Grisman—before co-founding the Garcia-led Old & In the Way bluegrass quartet in 1973—plays mandolin on "Friend of the Devil" and "Ripple," both of which have since become bluegrass standards. Produced at Wally Heider Studios, San Francisco, the album stripped the Dead's psychedelic arrangements back to country-folk harmonies modeled on the Carter Family—yielding one of rock music's most direct and sustained engagements with the bluegrass and old-time tradition.
Tracklist
- 1 Box of Rain - 2001 Remaster 5:17
- 2 Friend of the Devil Source Recording 3:21
- 3 Sugar Magnolia - 2001 Remaster 3:17
- 4 Operator - 2001 Remaster 2:22
- 5 Candyman - 2001 Remaster 6:11
- 6 Ripple - 2001 Remaster 4:11
- 7 Brokedown Palace - 2001 Remaster 4:06
- 8 Till the Morning Comes - 2001 Remaster 3:07
- 9 Attics of My Life - 2001 Remaster 5:11
- 10 Truckin' - 2001 Remaster 5:02