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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the garcia/hunter vision before the fall..., January 20, 2001
This album contains several classics of underground radio ("The Wheel," "Sugaree," "Deal") but I wonder how many people have ever heard the whole thing? It belongs right next to the Grateful Dead's turn to folk/blues on "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty," as well as "Europe '72," which contains several great Garcia/Hunter songs from the same period never recorded in the studio (much to Robert Hunter's regret). In addition to the 3 mentioned already, "Garcia" contains "Bird Song," "Loser," and "To Lay Me Down," 6 of the best songs Garcia and Hunter ever wrote! But the album is more than just a collection of great songs, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. After the first side's conventional bluesy songs (with the exception of "Bird Song," which is haunting and bittersweet), the second side gets DEEP. "Late for Supper" is the ominous opening of some sort of bad trip. "Spidergawd" features the recorded voices of newscasters talking about real-life apocalyptic events related to the potential for nuclear war... "EEP Hour" is a strange and beautiful instrumental number, which leads into the sad and nearly terminal "To Lay Me Down," a memory of lost love. I believe this song offers as clear a glimpse into Garcia's troubled soul as any he ever recorded, though the feelings are universal. Finally, "An Odd Little Place" represents a turnabout, back toward the light. And then, with a bang, comes "The Wheel," redemption through grace! (The lyric reads "Big wheel turn by the grace of God," which of course is from Isaiah.) The song is powerful and euphoric enough on its own, but only by listening to it at the end of this album do you realize its full implication. 1972 was the last year of the 1960s. Garcia and the Dead, of course kept on truckin' for many years, but they could not totally defy the shift in the times. This album is one of the last transmissions from that utopian moment, the counterculture dream, filled with the recognition that it was passing...
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jerry's first solo work is fantastic, January 21, 2000
Like Aoxomoxa, Jerry spent a great deal of time on this album as well. And like that work, this is equally psychedelic. Jerry played all instruments on this album (excluding drums), and I find his singing to be inspired, as well as the entire production (eg. guitars and piano). Excluding an early studio version of "space" (essentially) which is wonderfully psychedelic if in an errie sort of way, I find Birdsong and To Lay Me Down to be the true highlights. The enigmatic lyrics for these two songs in particular, it seems, are what attract so many to the Dead. Finally, if you're familiar with Jerry's other solo work, don't expect this to resemble them. Although released in 1972, this album recalls the work that Jerry produced with the Dead in the late '60s and early '70s, before the 'turn' announced by Compliments and Mars Hotel (yet it does resemble Wake of the Flood ('73) in tone). Enjoy.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still In Print, February 20, 2004
Contrary to Amazon's inaccurate posted information, this album is still in print and can be found at the Grateful Dead store at gdstore.com.
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by Jerry Garcia 
