Grateful Dead “Terrapin Station” released 45 years ago today, July 27th, 1977. It was their ninth studio LP and hit # 28 on the US album charts. Terrapin Station is an uneven record, mostly due to its production, which the band pretty much hated: it was the disco era so there were a lot of flourishes added post-recording like orchestral strings, horns and choir overdubs. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann says of the title track: “The recorded version of “Terrapin Station” is probably my least favorite version because of that. It sounds really grandiose, like somebody’s ego is playing those strings.” Despite that, I really love a lot of the record; it brings me back to the late 80’s/early 90’s when I went through my Deadhead phase and went to several shows between ’89 and ’92. I found the setlists for the concerts I attended and confirmed that they played a couple of my top Terrapin tracks during a couple of them*: “Samson and Delilah” at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario in March of ’90; “Terrapin Station” at both the World Music Theater in Tinley Park, IL in June ’90 (Brent Mydland’s last ever show before he died) and at Soldier Field in June ’91. I could have sworn I saw a concert where they played “Estimated Prophet” (I always loved when they did “Estimated-Shakedown“), same with “Passenger” but I guess I just listened to a lot of bootleg tapes that had those jams. The not good: their cover of “Dancin’ in the Streets” is too wa-wa disco and “Sunrise,” written and sung by Donna Godchaux, is really awful.

Another likely reason for the unevenness of the record is the tension between the band and the producer during the recording process. Their new record label (Arista) really wanted a commercial album (not something the Dead have ever been particularly good at) so they brought in Keith Olsen who had success working with Fleetwood Mac. From Wiki: “Olsen had a method for reining in the Dead: ‘During the cutting of the basic tracks it was pretty hard to get every member of the band in the studio at the same time … so [Steve] Parish went out to the hardware store and got these giant nails and a great big hammer and as soon as everybody was in, he hammered the door shut from the inside … we didn’t have drifters from the other studios coming in to listen. We didn’t have people leaving to go screw around elsewhere. We started getting work done.'” “Bill Kreutzmann said ‘He’d [Olsen] have us play the same thing over and over again, and we’re not really the type of band that can put up with that. Our very identity is based on the opposite principle.'”

*I also was at Alpine Valley on July 18th, 1989 and Soldier Field in ’92.