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List Price: $11.98 | | Label: Eagle Rock Entertainment
Salesrank: 38397
Released: February 22, 2005 |
| Our Price: $7.65 |
| Used Price: $6.98 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This program looks at the span of the Grateful Dead's music from 1968's "ANTHEM OF THE SUN", which was a hybrid of a live and studio album, and the 1970 country-styled album "AMERICAN BEAUTY". The story is told through new and vintage interviews with band members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, and Mickey Hart, guest musicians, and lyricist Robert Hunter, along with home movies from the Grateful Dead's own archive. Features many classic Dead tunes including: "Truckin'", Mountains Of The Moon", "Sugar Magnolia", and "Box Of Rain".
Description of Classic Albums: Grateful Dead - Anthem to Beauty:
This installment of the Classic Albums series follows the making of two Grateful Dead albums, the fiercely experimental Anthem of the Sun and the understated masterwork American Beauty, which spawned melodic gems like "Sugar Magnolia" and "Ripple." Between the archival scenes and contemporary interviews with band members, the DVD shows a band making seismic inroads in pop music--and five young guys coming to terms with artistry, mortality, and, yes, the pursuit of happiness. There is priceless footage of Neal Cassady driving Ken Kesey's bus and of the Dead, surrounded by martini-sipping hipsters, on Playboy After Dark. The best scenes involve band members talking about specific songs (you will never hear Phil Lesh's "Box of Rain" again without thinking of it as a gift to his dying father) or deconstructing a tune by playing each track separately. Intimate and surprisingly cohesive, Anthem to Beauty is a rare glimpse into how the Dead's magic was made. --Anne Hurley
Classic Albums: Grateful Dead - Anthem to Beauty Reviews:
Top notch Dead video 
2009-07-31 - One of my favorite Dead videos ever. Great old footage, great insight into their inner workings, great interviews and music. What's not to like? I hardly ever give 5 stars but this gets it.
Short and sweet
2008-02-17 - This is a 75-minute documentary about the band in its heyday w/ lots of Haight-Ashbury footage. Interviews with bandmembers (Lesh, Weir, Garcia, Hart, & others) plus Hunter, their lyricist. I thought it did a great job of capturing what was special about the Dead: how they came up with their music and what their experiences were while making it.
Great DVD for any Dead fan!
2005-12-23 - I was spellbound by this when I got it. Great archvial footage, interviews with the band, and just a great look at their transformation from Anthem of the Sun to American Beauty (hence the title). Includes live footage, studio footage, and them talking about track layers, and how a lot of the songs came together (including Robert Hunter talking about his inspiration with a lot of classic songs). I especially loved when Robert Hunter talked about going to London for the first time and the songs that came from his first few hours there (hint: Ripple is one of them!) Pick this up, light up and kick back. Heartwarming.
New to Grateful Dead 
2005-11-27 - This DVD gives a good idea of what the band was about from 1968-1970, The DVD format is strange and is hard to play on my DVD players.
good but not great
2005-09-02 - great classic footage with some cool interviews.
didnt like the liberal use of "the grateful dead movie"
footage mixed with music that was not from that era of the dead.
