Grateful Dead (*)
1970-05-03  Middletown, Connecticut  Wesleyan University  Foss Hill  (M?-AUD *remastered*)
Free all day open-air concert with multiple bands

~*~ (*)Garcia & Weir ACOUSTIC SET with guest harmonica player & Pipen on one song ~*~

A "not-for-purists" NEWLY remastered version of shnid 130667 & shnid 9770.

01. --introduction & tuning-up--
02. Deep Elem Blues
03. Friend Of The Devil
04. Silver Threads & Golden Needles ->
05. Black Peter
06. --announcement--


Total Time ::: 22:30

::: Pretty good, much better, now a lot of fun. Check samples for transformation acceptibility levels or trajectory tribulations.
::: Warts: Some brief spots of distortion in loud passages. Fixed dullspots & dropouts but surely missed a few.
::: Many Connecticut bands also billed, as noted in a college newspaper article 2 days before the show (but unclear who actually appeared): Randy Burns & The Morning After, Bone, Joy, Nighthawks, Trod Tiger & The Tunafish & (tentatively) Charisma. Swamp Gas, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, & the "Intergalactic Kazoo Band" (1 song only?) also played (photos&some video exist).
::: Excellent & extensively researched article on the day & era at http://deadessays.blogspot.de/2013/02/may-3-1970-wesleyan-university.html
::: Online comment, â€œThe format was â€˜Evening with the Grateful Dead,â€™ which started with an acoustic set by Jerry & Bob, followed by a New Riders set, followed by the Dead."
::: This acoustic set (around 7pm?) is Jerry & Bob accompanied by an unknown guest harmonica player, & Pigpen on organ for the last minute of #5. Phil, Bill & Mickey were late in arriving from Binghamton, NY. The Harpur College show was the previous night.
::: A much inferior AUD tape circulates of the Dead's electric set. Apparently video also exists of some songs & some of the day's events.
::: COMPARISON NOTES: Original shnid 9770 had date, location & source errors which were corrected in shnid 130667. This is an audio remaster of shnid 130667.
::: After downloading this recently, I listened & remembered the issues I'd had with it in the past. A very difficult listen with 1 channel almost inaudible, some panning between channels, distortion, extraneous noises, etc. Sounds as tho' it was miked almost directly in a PA speaker, so I decided to try a version with only the (MUCH) better right channel & remaster it to fix dropouts, dullspots & erratic level issues, as well as lower the distorted, overloaded vocal bits. It immediately became a far more enjoyable recording for me. Purists may not appreciate the tinkering, but I think some folks who love this era of acoustic Dead should be quite pleased. Informal Dead set? Bring it on.

Recording Information ::: unknown stereo(?) recording equipment -> master AUD cassette (NOT a SBD as noted in shnid 9770) -> ? -> unknown generation tape used for shnid 9770 -> CDr > EAC > Soundforge (normalize & pitch correction -> shn -> aiff (xACT) -> flacs. (Theory is that this was an auto level record deck. I think it was stereo, otherwise I've no idea how the left channel got so screwed up & the information became so radically different from the right - not just offset or bad head problems).

Playback 2014-07-22 ::: flacs -> TLH -> wavs -> Audacity using right channel for mono signal [fades, manual one-at-a-time glitch, bump, pop, click, dropout & dullspot repairs, volume adjustments, NO equalisation] -> CD Wave (track splits) -> flacs (Trader's Little Helper) -> yr ears. First uploaded week of 2014-08-03.

Line-up ::: Jerry Garcia - acoustic guitar, vocals // Bob Weir - acoustic guitar, vocals // Pigpen - organ (end of "Black Peter" only) // ? (guest musician) - harmonica. ((There is some speculation that the harmonica player might be Will Scarlett or John Hammond)).

Nothing here ever commercially released to my knowledge. If I'm wrong, please advise & I'll take the offending trax offline.

DimeTravel 039 ::: Thanks to the original taper & traders! Many thanks to Matt Vernon, Raoul Duke, J. Cotsman & N. Hoey ::: Corrections welcome ::: Original shnid 9770 was as part of the Music Never Stopped Project 2002 which thanked Matt Vernon & Raoul Duke & had edits & encoding by J. Cotsman
. Conversion to flac, tagging and corrected info by N. Hoey 2014-07-16 in shnid 130667. shnid 130667 was used to remaster the audio in this version.



