Skeletons From The Closet
	previously released material
	Released on March 1974
	US CHART POSITION #75 . . . GOLD RECORD (3/14/80), 3x PLATINUM (1/31/95)
	Find it at GEMM
2764-2 cover [high resolution scan]

A lthough it didn’t chart particularly well -- Deadheads had little use for a greatest “hits” compilation -- Skeletons From The Closet does a good job of putting the band’s more popular work on a single record. Not surprisingly, the best tracks come from the band’s best albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Two tracks from Aoxomoxoa are also featured, “St. Stephen” and the delicate “Rosemary” (the latter seems an odd choice). The disc splits the songs pretty evenly between Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir; Weir’s “One More Saturday Night” from Europe ’72 and “Mexicali Blues” from his first solo album, Ace, are good representatives of his style (“Sugar Magnolia” is even better). The decision to start with “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)” from their first record is questionable, since there were better live tracks to choose from, but ending things with “Friend of the Devil” draws no complaint from me. The most obscure selection is a live version of “Turn On Your Love Light” from the promotional elpee, The Big Ball. Skeletons is recommended to listeners who like the handful of Grateful Dead songs they’ve heard on the radio -- “Truckin’,” “Casey Jones,” etc. -- and don’t mind hearing them interspersed with other tracks from that same period (the early ‘70s).

2764-2 back booklet cover

TRACK LISTING

1. THE GOLDEN ROAD (TO UNLIMITED DEVOTION)    (Jerry Garcia/Phil Lesh/Bob Weir/Bill Kreutzmann/Ron McKernan)    2:07
2. TRUCKIN'    (Jerry Garcia/Phil Lesh/Bob Weir/Robert Hunter)    5:09
3. ROSEMARY    (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)    1:58
4. SUGAR MAGNOLIA    (Bob Weir/Robert Hunter)    3:15
5. ST. STEPHEN    (Jerry Garcia/Phil Lesh/Robert Hunter)    4:26
6. UNCLE JOHN'S BAND    (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)    4:42
7. CASEY JONES    (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter)    4:24
8. MEXICALI BLUES    (Bob Weir/John Barlow)    3:24
9. TURN ON YOUR LOVE LIGHT    (D. Malone/J. Scott)    4:45
10. ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT    (Bob Weir)    4:45
11. FRIEND OF THE DEVIL    (Jerry Garcia/John Dawson/Robert Hunter)    3:20

CREDITS

Betty Cantor -- editing
Bill Wolf -- editing
John Van Hamersveld -- artwork
Bob Siedeman -- art direction

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