Walk Me Out To My Old Kentucky Home

Available in full on the archive and partially commemorated on the Dead's short-lived Road Trips installments (Vol. 2, No. 3), the Freedom Hall stop of the band's 1974 tour is a somewhat overlooked gem of a gig. 

Touring behind the full-freight Wall of Sound, the band sounds light and mostly buoyant here, opposed to heavy and road-worn as they would quickly be later in the year, though this is primarily interpreted through several superlative song performances, versus reporting from first-hand sources.

In fact, there is little documentation to be found on the group's Louisville stop. More is made of their eventual landings in Providence and Boston a week later (Dick's Picks 12) and Fall trips across the Atlantic (Dick's 7).

Most of what we can glean from the context of this show exists on tape. Fortunately, never-before-published photos from their Des Moines stop surfaced while this set was being put together courtesy of Brian A. Anderson and family friend Richard Currier. These snaps provide a glimpse of the band and the Wall, the looming center cluster, speakers piled high above the band members, two days prior to this gig.

The legend of Freedom Hall, a basketball shed by any other description, is told by the tapes. And what tapes they are! The Archive has several SBD versions, most with superlative sound. The Charlie Miller version provides the cleanest levels with only the faintest audience audible between songs. A speed corrected version is nearly indistinguishable, so listener's preference is the guide on which copy to play. 

Officially, only portions of the show have been issued. 10 songs are available on Road Trips Vol. 2, No. 3 with an additional 3 (including the incendiary "Morning Dew" encore) dotting the bonus disc from the release and no longer widely accessible. 

The first set is composed of several sturdy warm-ups that nod to the geographic overlap of gambling (Loser), horse racing (two Rose-themed tunes), and most interestingly, a "Beat It On Down the Line" with a rare solo embellishment of "My Old Kentucky Home," almost certainly a nod to the 100th running of the Derby earlier that Spring.

The set closes with a superlative "Eyes of the World" > "China Doll" that stands among their best and augers a deeply connected jam suite to top it in the second stanza, which stretches out a 25+ minute "Weather Report Suite" into "The Other One" tagged with an instrumental "I Know It's a Sin" jam before melting into "Stella Blue." A palate-cleansing "Big River" and rare second-set "Tennessee Jed" precede the closing, "Sugar Magnolia," before the epic, stand-alone "Dew" sends Louisvillians home with a cathartic nightcap. 

This Mirrorball set was developed with card write-ups from Chicago journalist Josh Terry, who circled this as a personal '74 highlight. Josh's writing can be found weekly via his Substack newsletter, No Expectations, which features a weekly essay, new album recommendations and an often revelatory playlist, and his "day job" as newsletter producer for WTTW's Daily Chicagoan, which offers a just exactly perfect dose of Chicago news in your inbox.  

Artwork designed in-house by Mirrorball features two new wrinkles in this collection -- two variants for the "Loser," featuring a 'winner' (spot the Queen of Diamonds) and 'loser' by luck of the draw (the 10 of Diamonds for discerning 'Heads is the card featured on the cover of Jerry's solo record). There are also two versions of the Weather Report, featuring two Bobs -- a rarer technicolor Bobby (only 50 to be released in this print), and the more common black and white.