I actually bought this album on vinyl on the day it came out. This after physically breaking my new copy of Mars Hotel over my knee in front of my high school friend. It sat many a year unplayed until sometime in 1981-82 when I dumped the vinyl.

The Grateful Dead were on hiatus when the all conviened in Bob Weir's studio to cobble this album together. Picture Jon Anderson and Co. trying to make Tales Of Topographic Oceans. I own both versions of this CD: Grateful Dead Records/Rhino remaster/reissue.

My musical horizons have exponentially expanded since I consigned this album to non-play status in the late seventies. Hey, I didn't like Deep Purple's Machine Head at first. It took a Gov't Mule album to re-appraise that album.

Admittedly it took a while for me to fully appreciate this album. Bookended between two rather lengthy suites: the concise "Help On The Way/Slipknot!/Franklin's Tower" trilogy and the dense audio-verte' 'Music Concrete' "Blues For Allah." is "King Soloman's Marbles." A natural growth out of "Eyes Of The World" jams. See Dick's Picks. A little "pop" confection by Bob Weir called: "The Music Stopped" and the rather oblique Garcia/Hunter composition: "Crazy Fingers." "Sage & Spirit is a simple Bob Weir instrumental. Effective.

I'm rather perplexed that I still have the Grateful Dead Records 1990s version around. Other then it's a nice 40 min play in a pinch. But the scholarly version is the Rhino remaster/reissue. And the strange outtakes make this CD all the more fun.

I did eventually learn to appreciate this CD for what it is: A closer live Dead attempt to convert their sound in the studio. "Blues For Allah" waxes and wanes by turns. A naseant "Dark Star" replacement? Wake Of The Flood started a whole new re-definition of Grateful Dead improvisation. Blues For Allah takes Wake Of The Flood's enuciations and converts them. And this is stated Grateful Dead dogma. Nothing new here.

The reissue explores some new territory that most of the Grateful Dead afflicted can easily pick out. Hints of "Fire On The Mountain?" After all isn't "Scarlet Begonias" and "Fire On The Mountain" the same song with different changes, time signatures, and lyrics? Just like the relationship between "Uncle John's Band" and "Playing In The Band".

Yeah. Buy this CD if you dare!?!

p.s.: Gets three Stars because the live versions of most of this material are far superior to the studio versions presented here. But what does three stars really mean? What is the definition of is?

Music. It is music. It is great music. Need I say more?

Blues for Allah (1975) is Definitive Dead, and essential to any serious rock collection. The Dead's eighth studio album is a fusion of rock, blues, reggae, jazz, psychedelia, and improvisational jam. Blues for Allah marked the return of drummer Mickey Hart to the band after a four-year hiatus. The album features Garcia and Weir on guitars and vocals, Lesh on bass, Keith Godchaux on keyboards and vocals, Donna Jean Godchaux on vocals, and Kreutzmann and Hart on dual percussion. I first experienced this album on vinyl. Side one opened with the 7:18-minute jam, "Help on the Way/Slipknot!" and ended with Weir's 4:35-minute concert favorite, "The Music Never Stopped." On side two of the album, Garcia's "Crazy Fingers" then took me places I'd never been before. I experienced "Sand Castles and Glass Camels" and "Unusual Occurrences in the Desert" along the way. The remastered CD is worth the upgrade from vinyl, featuring the following setlist:

1. Help On The Way/Slipknot
2. Franklin's Tower
3. King Solomon's Marbles: Part I: Stronger Than Dirt/Part II: Milkin' The Turkey
4. The Music Never Stopped
5. Crazy Fingers
6. Sage & Spirit
7. Blues For Allah: Sand Castles & Glass Camels/Unusual Occurrences In The Desert
8. Groove #1 (Instrumental Studio Outtake)
9. Groove #2 (Instrumental Studio Outtake)
10. Distorto (Instrumental Studio Outtake)
11. A To E Flat Jam (Instrumental Studio Outtake)
12. Proto 18 Proper (Instrumental Studio Outtake)
13. Hollywood Cantata (Studio Outtake)

G. Merritt

This purchase was to replace an old, long-lost copy. I've always liked their studio-produced stuff, much to the chagrin of some more serious aficionados. Every once in a while it's nice to hear a nice crisp rendition than to have to pore over tons of bootlegs to find just the one.

Go on, I bet you thought I made that up. Not so.
The Grateful Dead are an interesting idea(l) of a band much given to `groovin' as is their wont, and gettin-on-down at EVERY ROCK FESTIVAL OF THE SEVENTIES, looking every inch like a live advert for `Head and Shoulders'. Aah.. That`s much too easy. Let's take a closer look at what we're dealing with.
To start with, `Blues for Allah' is a VERY good title. Let's us know that despite all the hair and denim, we're not dealing with mugs here. The temptation to scoff derisorily is over-whelming, these trippy types are usually good for some shallow, simple-minded fun, at the expense of their lifestyles and ideals, but if we're talking music (and I will be in a minute!) it just isn't possible to poke too much fun at `BFA' because it's an album which is well capable of wiping the smirk off even the most determined cynics face.
The prog-tastic symbolism is as rampant as my fevered imagination. A rubbishy, diarrhea colored sleeve, with pictures of our heroes, splendidly replete with DEEP centre-partings, giving it plenty at some lost hippy outpost, with far too many people on stage.
However strangely seductive the album is (and it is!), these lads know well the sheer innate insanity of the devil's own rock music, and just to prove it, the only flash of colour on the sniffy sleeve is the red-flash of the robe of Satan himself in his `Dead' guise. Obvious to all, but re-assuring because of it.
Groups like this survive in the world of gangs, jean-jacketed `clubs' who wander the vast plains and deserts of the US, kicking up dust, and worrying about whether the Deads' third album is better than their fifth, as they trudge loyally and dutifully to the next festival. Eagerly anticipating a three hour set, (that's two numbers in a Dead show!) and some free sandwiches. They instill a genuine sense of belonging in pre-Morrissey, bed-sit types. In particular, wet behind the ears teenagers with nothing but wetness to think about, who get up at three in the afternoon, smoke dope and whinge how bad the world is.
Of course, if they were really subversive they would support Nixon (and Bush), and rather than trendy hippy veggie-ness, eat hearty meals of beef and tripe. Instead they tread the tired and (even in the 70's) redundant boards of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and POINTLESS GIGGING. A coming together of like-minds (and hairstyles!) is a staple and prime ingredient of that marinating rock `n` roll soup, in fact in some cases it's become MORE important than the music itself. No worries on that score here though, there's no way `BFA' is going to be eclipsed by even the most dusty and leathery of the Dead's fervent acolytes.
They remind me of the cavemen in `One Million Years BC' who emerge from the volcanic turmoil, bleary-eyed and shaky, but with a will and determination to carry on, to finish that third 15 minute encore!
In a sane world, this couldn't exist but again there's that madness. That post-Vietnam thing, (the Grateful Dead are VERY Oliver Stone) that slight shifting in the hearts and minds of the youth of America. Realization had crept in, the Government manipulated Cold War insecurities had dissolved into genuine feelings of mistrust and disillusionment. They tell lies, guys.
The disaffected did what they always do, looked for salvation in the form of the similarly dissolute. The Dead bravely stepped into the breach. The harsh flat-tops of the draft became the unsightly locks of the drag (maaan!), and bands like the Dead struck for home.
As an entity, `Blues for Allah' reflects the era a big solid treat, and as base philosophy I can see it's attractions. You wont see any of these guys dying from stress (pretty much everything else sadly, but that's another story).
All of the connotations and stand-points combined means that `Blues for Allah' cannot be regarded as anything less than a major work. It stands proud as a kind of 70's picaresque, haunted and hunted by it's dreams and responsibilities.
It represents a kind of caving-in, an after-thought in musical terms, but we sleep sounder because of it. Friendly fire if you like.
It frequently turns in on itself, like a fulcrum, then twists away. Back to the point at hand - the `Great, Grateful Dead album' - fact.
I duck the issue, `Blues for Allah' is probably more than we deserve, even though culturally, some of us live light years away.
And yes, it really is true, one of the GD (Shock! Horror!!) DOESN'T have a centre parting, obviously the end of the world is upon us....