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Stealie

The album cover


About The Album

Steal Your Face is a live double album by the Grateful Dead, released in June 1976. The album was recorded live in concert between October 16 and October 20, 1974 at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom as part of the band's then-"farewell run".

The title of the album derives from the lyrics of "He's Gone" (Like I told ya, what I said, steal your face right off your head), a song that does not appear on the album.

The album is generally considered by Deadheads to be the Grateful Dead's least representative live album, both due to the poor sound (some songs had to be fixed in the studio) and song selection (it focused on the band's songs rather than jams). Indeed the record was dubbed Steal Your Money by fans at the time (also by the band), as many questioned the band's motives for releasing it. The phrase "Steal Your Money" is widely believed to be have been coined by Lester Bangs in his review of the original release: "Steal Your Face? Steal your money more like!"

In an interview, Jerry Garcia said: "None of us liked it. I'm sure even Phil and Owsley didn't like it that much... I think part of it was that we were not working, and we didn't have anything else to deliver."

Although the album was released during the band's working life (and with its full consent), it was omitted from the 2004 Rhino Records Beyond Description (1973-1989) boxed set that otherwise collected all of the Dead's other studio and live works from this era. Instead, a 5-CD album called The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack, which documents the same run of shows as Steal Your Face, was released concurrently with the boxed set.

When Steal Your Face was first issued on CD in 1989, the sound quality was greatly improved from the original vinyl release. In 2004 the album was finally re-released in HDCD sound by Rhino Records. Atypical of the Grateful Dead CDs released by Rhino, this release does not contain any bonus tracks.


Track[]

Disc 1:

  • Promised Land
  • Cold Rain & Snow
  • Around And Around
  • Stella Blue
  • Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
  • Ship Of Fools
  • Beat It On Down the Line

Disc 2:

  • Big River
  • Black-Throated Wind
  • U.S. Blues
  • El Paso
  • Sugaree
  • It Must Have Been The Roses
  • Casey Jones

Recording dates[]

  • "Casey Jones" - recorded live on October 17, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Ship of Fools", "Beat It On Down the Line" and "Sugaree" - recorded live on October 18, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Mississippi Half Step Toodeloo", "Black Throated Wind", "U.S. Blues", "Big River" and "El Paso" - recorded live on October 19, 1974 at the Winterland.
  • "Promised Land", "Cold Rain and Snow", "Around and Around", "Stella Blue" and "It Must Have Been the Roses" - recorded live on October 20, 1974 at the Winterland.

Musical personnel[]

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