| One from the Vault | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | April 15, 1991 | |||
| Recorded | August 13, 1975 | |||
| Venue | Great American Music Hall inSan Francisco, California | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 121:51 | |||
| Label | Grateful Dead | |||
| Producer | Dan Healy | |||
| Grateful Dead chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Rolling Stone | [2] |
One from the Vault is alive album by theGrateful Dead, recorded on August 13, 1975, at theGreat American Music Hall inSan Francisco, California, for a small audience ofradio programmers. Three weeks later, the concert was broadcast nationwide on FM radio throughMetromedia, after which the radio show was widely traded by fans on cassettes, and sold inbootleg LP versions under various titles includingMake Believe Ballroom, becoming the most widely circulated Grateful Dead bootleg.
The concert marked the first time that the albumBlues for Allah was performed live in its entirety, along with eight other songs. Retrospectively,Rolling Stone magazine lists the concert as one of 20 "essential" live concerts by the Grateful Dead.[3]
A high quality version of the concert was released on April 15, 1991, onGrateful Dead Records, presented on two CDs. It was the first complete concert recording released commercially by the band. A remastered three-LP vinyl version was released in 2013.
In 1974 and 1975, Grateful Dead lead guitaristJerry Garcia played a dozen times at Great American Music Hall (GAMH) withMerl Saunders. The venue held 400 patrons, and was much smaller than the arenas or stadia at which the Grateful Dead usually appeared. In August 1975, the Dead had just finished recording the albumBlues for Allah when they decided to perform it for a select audience in a live setting, a month before the LP was to be released. To promote the album, the band rented GAMH, and issued private invitations to radio industry people who were attending the Radio Programmers Forum, a convention hosted in San Francisco byBillboard magazine. This was only the third time the band had played in public in the previous nine months.[1][4][5]
A day ahead of the concert, the band's audio engineerDan Healy hired a powerful sound system fromMcCune Sound Services to augment the house sound. Outside of GAMH,Wally Heider parked hisremote recording truck, and prepared 16-track professional tape recorders to capture the music. As the band was setting up on stage for soundcheck on August 12, percussionistMickey Hart requested that the chirping of live crickets should be heard during the final song. The only place where such a quiet sound could be separated from the band's loud performance was in the basement, so a box of live crickets was carried down, and a microphone cable was run down to the basement, the microphone poking through a hole in the box. These crickets were not chirping in time with the song's tempo, so a light bulb was brought near to warm them. Between the soundcheck and the show, a number of crickets escaped through the hole, and their chirping was heard throughout GAMH for some time afterward.[4][6]
Rock promoterBill Graham, who was not involved in planning this event, heard about it through industry contacts, and showed up to see if he could take part. Graham made a bet with the band's managerRon Rakow over who would introduce the band, determined byflipping a coin. Rakow lost several flips in a row, and Graham told the audience he was not only introducing the band, but that he was getting paid $50 for the privilege.[4] This part of the introduction was heard on the FM radio broadcast, but it was edited out for the 1991 CD release.[6]
The 16-track tapes languished in storage for 15 years. In December 1990, they were transferred todigital audio through aPCM adaptor made bySony, with audio filters byApogee Electronics. In January 1991, the audio files were loaded into aSonic Solutionsdigital audio workstation to edit them forcompact disc release.[6] The setlist was re-arranged to accommodate the available time per disc,[1] moving the intermission from after "King Solomon's Marbles" to after "Around and Around".[6]
The album was remastered for vinyl in 2013 byJoe Gastwirt, and released as three LPs.[7][8]
Three weeks after the show, a partial recording of the concert was broadcast on FM radio over the Metromedia Radio Network, heard across the United States. This broadcast did not contain the final 21-minute suite of "Blues for Allah". ManyDeadheads, the band's fan base, recorded this broadcast to cassette, and such cassette copies were heavily traded among fans.[1] Based on the FM broadcast, a 2-discbootleg vinyl album was released in 1975 by The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label (TAKRL) and again in 1979 by Beacon Island Records, both under the titleMake Believe Ballroom. Other bootleg titles of the same concert includeHot as Hell released in Japan in 1975 by White Knight Records, andFranklin's Tower published in Europe in 1990 by Flashback World Productions on both CD and LP.Make Believe Ballroom is probably the most widely traded bootleg of any Grateful Dead concert.[9]
Note: When the album was produced, the set break was moved from after "King Solomon's Marbles" to after "Around and Around", to occur at the end of the first disc. Bob Weir is heard to say, "We're gonna take a short break, we'll be back in just a few minutes, so everybody hang loose".[10]
| Chart (1991) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| USBillboard 200[11] | 106 |
