Wake of the Flood

Grateful Dead | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 10, 1995)
• Original Release Date: 1973
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Arista
• ASIN: B000002VJJ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,142 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo

2. Let Me Sing Your Blues Away

3. Row Jimmy

4. Stella Blue

5. Here Comes Sunshine

6. Eyes of the World

7. Weather Report Suite

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Studio Dead Album, March 27, 2000

By 

C. Marshall (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wake of the Flood (Audio CD)

Wake of The Flood (WOTF) is, IMHO, the single best studio Dead
recording. ... If you
don't like the Dead (...), you won't like WOTF. If you like
the Dead, you must own this disk. First of all, it contains Weather
Report Suite -- one of the Dead's very finest pieces ever. Secondly,
everything else on the album is great too. Check out Stella Blue:
slow? yes -- and soul shakingly sublime. Check out Eyes of the World
-- A classic Dead jam piece. You should also check out other Dead
albums Blues For Allah, Terrapin Station, and From The Mars Hotel.
These are not "pop" records. You will have to listen to
them carefully and learn them. But your efforts will be repaid 1000
times over. Enjoy!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have for Collectors, May 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wake of the Flood (Audio CD)

Containing some of their most well-loved songs, Wake of the Flood is a necessary selection for a Dead collection.

Some of the songs on this album continued to be played live by the band even twenty years after it was released. "Mississippi Half-Step" oftened opened shows while the beautiful "Eyes of the World" was often blended into other songs and drums/space solos in concert.

While the review published by Amazon above may reflect the views of some mainstream music listeners, songs on this album have been loved by thousands of Deadheads for years. Referring to any of their music as "country rock," even those songs which were spawned from Jerry Garcia's bluegrass background, illustrates a very shallow understanding of the band's history and the wide variety of musical styles and influences to be found in this album as well as others. These guys were never taking cues from Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels, or any of that particular genre.

While some may decry the influence during the 70's of Keith and Donna Godchaux, to many their era was another interesting and diversifying stop on this "long, strange trip" which helps to separate the Dead from so many "classic rock" bands that continue to play the same songs with the same group of band members endlessly with very little innovation.

Try it for yourself and you be the judge! It's a classic!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impossible to write the review that this album deserves, May 1, 2004

By 

J.H. "Jon" "When in the company of ot... (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wake of the Flood (Audio CD)

If I had enough time, and was a halfway decent writer, I'd sit down and write the review that this album deserves. It would be about five pages long, and it would precisely describe the wonderful, amazing moods and melodies of Wake of the Flood.

Where to begin? To summarize the whole of the album: nature-revering, land, water, all growing things loving, unpretentious, feeling good like you just did a good deed, were nice to someone, feeling like maybe the mad world has some good points to it after all, feeling like you could almost sort of dance even though you hate dancing, but instead, you just sort of nod your head lazily, in affirmation of the good grooves, the vibrating strings, the folky singing, as long as you can listen to music like this, you'll be able to get through the day, or a few more hours at least, like lying back on the ideal, the bare earth, or the grass, not much to do in the world but observe it from your vantage, marvel at a few marvelous things, leaves rustling, a bug maneuvering the forest of grass, you feeling like being in love with someone, desiring, yearning, and that's just one song, Eyes of the World, each other song an ideal world sensed, probed, translated into rhythm and melody, next thing you know you're almost bebopping doing a little halfstep toodleoo, gliding down towards the Rio Grande, sun at your back smiling of course, gently upon you, easing you along -- quite hot did I mention? til you meet the surface, and then, cool water of the river round your body, and there's Jerry, with some crazy-legged mariachi guys walking on the banks, and a guy with a ten gallon hat -- is that Bob? --they don't see you, they're just playing some tune, some sort of thing to scare the blues away, only thing is, you don't have any -- why, blues wouldn't come within a hundred miles of this tune, you return to your swimming, dive under, break through the surface again, rays greet you greedily, you climb out, dry yourself off by basking in the sun awhile, like an iguana, like, if you're young, you're a little older and wiser and calmer, or if you're older, now you're a little younger, more naieve, less disenchanted, you eventually stroll into town, go to the tavern, where your friends are, naturally, at this hour even, no doubt playing a game of pool, or maybe just sitting around a table, good tunes coming from the jukebox -- geez, normally they don't have music like this at jukeboxes, sort of sad, sort of hopeful, sort of Stella Blue, sort of Row Jimmy Row -- you say your bit, laugh, regain your strength, and head back out into nature, it's all a little greener now, sky a bit bluer, trees vibrant, full of life and vitality, flowers nodding at you, when the acoustic guitar starts, you pause, startled, and then enrapt, the song begins, moves, flows around you, back on the river, slow currents, you drift, you comprehend the seasons, summer to autumn, autumn to winter, and then...spring, the song cuts loose, thunderclouds burst and batter the ground with big raindrops the size of plums, the earth drinks it up, thank you sister, says the earth, no problem brother, says the sky, then plow breaking earth, spring festivals, you the fool, wandering through the buoyant and gay spectacle, and then Weather Report Suite ends, and dooowwwwwnnnn you go, back to earth, back to dullness and drearitude...it's not fair, why can't every album be like this you bemoan?