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| American Beauty | 
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| Artist: Grateful Dead
Label: Rhino / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $7.53
You Save: $4.45 (37%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $4.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  (179 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2653
Format: Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.9 x 0.3
MPN: 74397
UPC: 081227439729
EAN: 0081227439729
ASIN: B00007LTIL
Release Date: February 25, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Rose by Any Other Scent Would Smell Like Patchouli: American Beauty is Definitive Dead. April 17, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Named after a French perpetual rose (depicted on the album's classic cover), the Grateful Dead's fifth album American Beauty (1970) is Definitive Dead, and essential to any serious rock collection. (If you could only own one Dead album, this is The One to own.) It is a landmark fusion of rock, folk, blues, bluegrass, country, and improvisational jam. If this Rose had a scent, it would smell more like patchouli. The album includes the impossible-to-escape-in-the-70's radio single, "Truckin'" (the song that first introduced me to the Dead). The album features Garcia on vocals, guitar and pedal steel guitar, Weir on vocals and guitar, Lesh on bass and vocals, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan on harmonica and vocals, and Kreutzmann and Hart on percussion. I first experienced this album on vinyl. The remastered CD is worth the upgrade from vinyl, featuring the following setlist:
1. Box Of Rain
2. Friend Of the Devil
3. Sugar Magnolia
4. Operator
5. Candyman
6. Ripple
7. Brokedown Palace
8. Till the Morning Comes
9. Attics Of My Life
10. Truckin'
11. Truckin' (single edit)
12. Friend Of the Devil (recorded live at the Filmore East on 5/15/1970)
13. Candyman (recorded live at Winterland on 4/15/1970)
14. Till the Morning Comes (recorded live at Winterland on 10/4/1970)
15. Attics Of My Life (recorded live at the Filmore West on 6/6/1970)
16. Truckin' (recorded live at Legion Stadium on 12/26/1970)
17. Ripple (Single Version) (Unlisted Bonus Track)
18. American Beauty Promo (Unlisted Bonus Track)
G. Merritt
Love it March 24, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
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. Lots of nice lazy campfire tracks on this one.
 There best was 1965 to 1969 February 22, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am a big fan of Psychedelic Music of the late 60s. So that being said you know where I am coming from. I am also not a country / folk fan. I'm a Rock & Roll Fan. So that being said I love the Dead from 1965 to 1969 and after that its hit and or miss.
I like some of there later songs and some of there live jams.
This is an Awesome !!! CD if you are into 60s Psych music.
I consider this the Deads best Album right with Aoxomoxoa then Anthem of the Sun then Live Dead in that order there best four Albums.
My reaction to Workingman's Dead and American Beauty (Both great Albums if you like that type of music) is this a Rock band? Where are the electric Guitars?
Sorry I love the Deads early Rock Music.
this cd is like good wine January 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
the more you listen to this the better it gets the same way wine gets better as it ages. if you havent listened to this album yet i suggest you do very soon. if you havent heard of the grateful dead yet you should be ashamed of yourself. and no i am not 60 year old deadhead. i am 21 years old and this is amazing timeless music.
One of their most essential January 12, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Three months after Workingman's Dead reached the shops, the Dead were in the studios for the second time that year, at Wally Heider's in San Francisco, to record its sequel, American Beauty, making 1970 probably the high water mark as far as their studio work is concerned. It was a time when a number of American-based musicians such as Dylan and the Band, the Byrds, the Flying Burritos, Ry Cooder, Van Morrison and others had been rediscovering their country's musical roots, unplugging their guitars and adding fiddles and button accordions to forge a new Americana. It was natural that the Dead should be associated with this movement since they had been long term students of folk, blues, jug band and bluegrass music even before they had begun their psychedelic explorations in the mid-sixties.
In Workingman's Dead they had shown themselves to be highly adept at mastering the demands of these structured and mostly acoustic musical forms with a collection of brilliant new songs, and the self-produced American Beauty, which came out in November 1970, proved that this was no fluke. If anything, the songs on American Beauty are even stronger and equally timeless.
Furthermore, the music is beautifully recorded by engineer Steve Barncard, with deep clarity and resonance, in a way that would expose any flaws or weaknesses in the singing and playing, should there have been any. The performances were live in the studio, with restrained overdubs added to the basic tracks by Jerry Garcia and guest musicians, and is a testament to their proficiency. The songs, with Robert Hunter's exquisite lyrics, are allowed to speak for themselves, with very little soloing, and Jerry Garcia mostly using his pedal steel guitar in place of his normal electric 6-string.
Songs such as Friend Of The Devil and Bob Weir's Sugar Magnolia became staples of the band's live repertoire, while Truckin' and the very beautiful Ripple were released on a single in January 1971 to become their biggest selling single to date. This is one of the most essential of all Grateful Dead albums.
This edition was re-mastered for the box set The Golden Road and became available separately in 2003. It benefits considerably from the improved mastering (especially if your CD or universal player supports HDCD). The album is also available elsewhere on DVD-Audio with a 5.1 surround mix prepared by Mickey Hart.
Additionally, this CD has been filled to the brim with 37 minutes worth of bonus tracks. In between the mono shortened single edits of Truckin' and Ripple (the latter a "hidden" track) are live versions of five of the songs from the album, three recorded in the summer of 1970, before the album's recording, and two shortly after in October and December. These are Till The Morning Comes and a rough and ready Truckin' (unfortunately from an original tape which is missing the opening chorus but which has some lovely guitar halfway through). Although there are live versions from the period of all these songs on other Grateful Dead records, none of these tracks has been previously released. They demonstrate how these songs change in a live setting and add a valuable coda to this most studio of albums.
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