With Bill Kreutzmann masterfully drumming alone following the resignation of Mickey Hart, and augmented the previous fall by Keith Godchaux’s elegant piano, the Dead leaned toward the pared-down sound they’d perfected on their previous studio albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Indeed, Europe ’72 arguably completes an acid-Americana trilogy insofar as it features a handful of sepia-toned new tunes: “He’s Gone,” “Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Ramble on Rose,” and “Tennessee Jed.” It also eliminates nearly all crowd noise and contains enough post-tour overdubs (mainly in the vocals department) to suggest a live-studio hybrid, with Jerry Garcia’s joyously apocalyptic “Morning Dew” as its show-stopping closer. The Dead’s best-selling live album also marked the group’s final recording with singer-keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, who died the following year.
~Richard Gehr (rollingstone.com)
Cumberland Blues:
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