Grateful Dead releases ‘Viola Lee Blues’ performance from ‘Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (7/3/66)’
Grateful Dead is offering up another preview of their upcoming live album, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (7/3/66).
The band has just released a performance of the track “Viola Lee Blues,” from The Dead’s 1967 self-titled debut album. This is the second song they’ve released from the Fillmore concert, following “Cold Rain and Snow.”
“The Grateful Dead’s first big jamming vehicle, ‘Viola Lee Blues’ is heard here in one of its first live performances,” says Dead archivist David Lemieux. “The song only stuck around from 1966 to 1970, but it always hit several intensely psychedelic peaks, as you’ll hear here.”
Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (7/3/66) will be released digitally and as a two-CD set on July 3, on the 60th anniversary of the concert, which took place seven months after the band changed their name from the Warlocks. It will also be released as a three-LP set, its first time ever on vinyl, limited to 6,600 copies. The vinyl release is available exclusively at Dead.net.
The Fillmore performance was part of legendary promoter Bill Graham’s Independence Ball, with the band at the time made up of Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bob Weir.
The concert was previously available in 2015 as part of the 50th anniversary boxed set, 30 Trips Around the Sun.
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