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Reckoning is a live, double album by the Grateful Dead, released April 1, 1981. It was recorded September and October 1980 at concerts in San Francisco and New York City. The albums is entirely acoustic. Dead Set, its companion album released later in 1981 from the same concert series, is electric. Reckoning was the band's first live album on Arista Records, following three studio albums on that label.

The concerts
In 1980, to celebrate the Grateful Dead's upcoming fifteenth anniversary the band's promoter, Bill Graham, envisioned a series of nine, scaled-down concerts at The Warfield in San Francisco. The musicians decided to play an opening acoustic set in addition to their usual two electric sets. The concert series was expanded when it became possible to play Radio City Music Hall. Ultimately twenty-five shows were scheduled using the format, for September and October 1980, with fifteen in San Francisco, eight in New York City, and two at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans. To document the event, a live double album would be released, with selections from both the acoustic and electric sets. East coast promoter John Scher devised a telecast for the final show, on Halloween, broadcasting to sixteen sound-reinforced theaters (the first of its type). This meant a concert video could also be produced. Fledgling premium cable channel Showtime also aired a live concert special based on the telecast ("An Evening with the Grateful Dead"). Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia remarked “It was really an experimental idea, top to bottom."

The Grateful Dead had toured with an opening acoustic set tens years prior, in 1970. The format revived songs from their days as a jug band (Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions) and as part of the early-1960s coffeehouse folk scene, such as when Garcia and his songwriting partner Robert Hunter performed as a duo. Some of the songs chosen for acoustic treatment were originals and others were covers – some new to the band's repertoire. The format was repeated once more, two months later, for New Year's Eve.

Commenting on the acoustic/electric format, Garcia said that the audience was "very receptive and responsive during that first part. So it also changed the nature of the electric sets that followed." Keyboardist Brent Mydland rented harpsichords for the concerts, playing them on "China Doll". On being new to live recording, he later said he was "holding back more than I should have... We were making a live album, and I wasn't really familiar with what was happening. At that point I just wanted to leave a lot of space and make it as Grateful Dead as possible".

For the final night of the Warfield run, Graham passed out flutes of champagne to the audience. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann recalled "Bill Graham placed a table onstage with a bucket of champagne and some glasses. We noticed it when we came back for the encore, of course, but we weren’t sure why it was there. Ever curious, Jerry went over and, almost hesitantly, picked up one of the champagne glasses. That’s when house lights revealed everyone in the audience raising a champagne glass to toast the band, while a “Thank You” banner hung from the balcony."

Release
The material recorded at the concerts was originally intended for release as a double LP set, one acoustic and one live. During production, the idea was deemed impractical and Arista Records agreed to publish two double albums. Garcia commented "We really ended up with so much good material that it was a struggle. The idea of just one acoustic and one electric record was sort of pathetic, since our electric tunes are seldom less than eight minutes long. And that meant our fat electric album would have two songs on a side. It was kind of silly." The electric album, Dead Set, was produced directly after Reckoning and released five months later, followed by the Dead Ahead concert video, also in 1981.

The cover illustration for Reckoning is by Rick Griffin, who also created artwork for several other Grateful Dead albums. The three releases culled from the 1980 concerts were titled with puns, with "dead set" referring to maintaining position, and "dead ahead" and "dead reckoning" both being navigational terms. "Dead Set" also refers to being an electric set, "Dead Reckoning" to a re-estimation of the earliest days of the band, and "Dead Ahead" to the then-current video revolution.

Reckoning was the last album released by the band on the 8-track format. It was released on CD in 1987, without the track "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie". A Japanese edition in 2000 restored the track. In 2004 it was released, with the original sixteen tracks plus a bonus disc, as part of the Beyond Description box set. This version was separately released in 2006. The bonus disc contains thirteen additional tracks from the same 1980 concert series as the original album, a studio rehearsal, and two live tracks from a 1978 appearance by Bob Weir & Friends in a university rec room (with Garcia, Hart and Lesh sitting in).

For the Faithful...
In 1984 Reckoning was licensed to Pair Records, who released the album on multiple formats under the title For the Faithful…. The album's artwork is reversed (with the cover featuring the photograph of the band from the back cover of Reckoning). The CD version of For the Faithful… omits the track "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie" and was the first Grateful Dead release on the format.

Track listing
Notes
 * 1) "Dire Wolf" (Garcia, Hunter) – 3:14
 * 2) "The Race is On" (Don Rollins) – 2:56
 * 3) "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie" (Elizabeth Cotten) – 6:24
 * 4) "It Must Have Been the Roses" (Hunter) – 6:56
 * 5) "Dark Hollow" (Bill Browning) – 3:52
 * 6) "China Doll" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:12
 * 7) "Been All Around this World" (traditional) – 4:08
 * 8) "Monkey and the Engineer" (Jesse Fuller) – 2:28
 * 9) "Jack-A-Roe" (traditional) – 4:06
 * 10) "Deep Elem Blues" (traditional) – 4:54
 * 11) "Cassidy" (Weir, Barlow) – 4:30
 * 12) "To Lay Me Down" (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:02
 * 13) "Rosalie McFall" (Charlie Monroe) – 2:50
 * 14) "On the Road Again" (traditional) – 3:02
 * 15) "Bird Song" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:32
 * 16) "Ripple" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:24

Disc two (2004/2006 reissue)

 * 1) "To Lay Me Down" (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:12
 * 2) "Iko Iko" (Crawford, Hawkins, Hawkins, Johnson) – 4:23
 * 3) "Heaven Help the Fool" (Weir, Barlow) – 6:18
 * 4) "El Paso" (Robbins) – 4:41
 * 5) "Sage & Spirit" (Weir) – 3:14
 * 6) "Little Sadie" (traditional) – 2:45
 * 7) "It Must Have Been the Roses" (Hunter) – 7:01
 * 8) "Dark Hollow" (traditional) – 4:30
 * 9) "Jack-A-Roe" (traditional) – 5:08
 * 10) "Cassidy" (Weir, Barlow) – 5:06
 * 11) "China Doll" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:52
 * 12) "Monkey and the Engineer" (Fuller) – 2:37
 * 13) "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie" (Cotten) – 7:13
 * 14) "Ripple" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:37
 * 15) "Tom Dooley" (traditional) – 3:33
 * 16) "Deep Elem Blues" (traditional) – 3:42

Recording dates
Tracks from September 26–October 14, 1980 recorded at the The Warfield, San Francisco. Tracks from October 23–31, 1980 recorded at Radio City Music Hall, New York City.


 * "Rosalie McFall" & "Ripple" recorded September 26, 1980
 * "Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie" recorded September 30, 1980
 * "Dark Hollow" recorded October 7, 1980
 * "Jack-A-Roe" recorded October 10, 1980
 * "Dire Wolf" & "Deep Elem Blues" recorded October 11, 1980
 * "The Race is On" recorded October 13, 1980
 * "China Doll", "Been All Around this World", "Cassidy" & "Bird Song" recorded October 14, 1980
 * "To Lay Me Down" recorded October 25, 1980
 * "It Must Have Been the Roses" recorded October 26, 1980
 * "Monkey and the Engineer" recorded October 27, 1980
 * "On the Road Again" recorded October 30, 1980
 * Bonus disc:


 * "Tom Dooley" & "Deep Elem Blues" recorded November 17, 1978 at Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois
 * "To Lay Me Down" (studio rehearsal) recorded September 14, 1980
 * "Iko Iko" recorded October 7, 1980
 * "El Paso" recorded October 13, 1980
 * Tracks 7–14 recorded October 23, 1980 *
 * "Heaven Help the Fool" recorded October 25, 1980
 * "Sage & Spirit" & "Little Sadie" recorded October 31, 1980
 * Represents all but one song ("On the Road Again") of the acoustic first set from this date

Other releases
Material from seventeen of the September-October 1980 dates in San Francisco and New York City has been officially released by the Grateful Dead.

❌ = contains material from this date

* = on bonus disc only

Personnel

 * Grateful Dead
 * Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals, production
 * Mickey Hart – drums
 * Bill Kreutzmann – drums
 * Phil Lesh – bass guitar
 * Brent Mydland – keyboards, vocals
 * Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

Technical personnel
 * Betty Cantor-Jackson – live recording, engineering
 * John Cutler - additional engineering
 * Greg Fulginiti – mastering
 * Dan Healy – live mixing
 * Dennis Leonard – additional engineering
 * Greg Mann – assistant engineering
 * Bob Matthews - systems maintenance
 * Don Pearson – additional engineering
 * Michael Peri – assistant engineering
 * Billy Rothschild – assistant engineering
 * Danny Rifkin – road management

Reissue personnel
 * James Austin – production
 * Jimmy Edwards – associate production
 * Sheryl Farber – editorial supervision
 * Tom Flye – additional mixing
 * John Frankenheimer - business affairs
 * Joe Gastwirt – mastering, production consultancy
 * Robert Gatley – mixing assistance
 * Herb Greene - photography
 * Robin Hurley – associate production
 * Gary Lambert – liner notes
 * Eileen Law – research
 * David Lemieux – production
 * Hale Milfgrim – associate production
 * Scott Pascucci – associate production
 * Cameron Sears – executive production

Recording
Keyboardist Keith Godchaux and vocalist Donna Godchaux left the Grateful Dead in February 1979, replaced in both positions by Brent Mydland. While in Silver, Mydland had performed on the hit pop song "Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang", also playing and writing tracks for that band's 1976 country rock album. Following that, he toured with rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's solo band, leading to a keyboard position in the Grateful Dead.

The Grateful Dead were contractually obligated to record another studio album before they could release live material. As with the previous two albums, they used an outside producer, per an agreement with Clive Davis, and in the hope of a more mainstream production with greater commercial potential (and perhaps a hit single). Davis sent British producer Gary Lyons, who was known for his success with Foreigner's debut album. With track construction stretching past a couple months, Lyons simultaneously began working with Aerosmith, taking over the production of Night in the Ruts. He commuted between California and New York, trading off with assistant producer Peter Thea.

The album was recorded at the band's own studio, however, as happened while finishing Terrapin Station, overdubs were made in New York City (at Media Sound) while the Dead toured the region. Instead of compiling different takes of a solo, as with other productions, Lyons learned to keep the sequences whole. According to recording engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson "Jerry's sitting there and Gary says, 'Well, what do you think?' And Jerry says, 'I wouldn't play it that way.' It was true, because his style had a certain logic to it and there were certain ways he put together notes, the sequence of notes, which had to do with the way he thought about music. So to cut that up it no longer sounded the way Jerry thought."

Weir had a greater influence than on previous studio albums, writing three of the songs, with his lyricist John Barlow. Both "Lost Sailor" and "Saint of Circumstance" mention sails and navigation, and reference the Dog Star. They were usually played live as a pair. Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia brought just two songs for the album. Both were composed with his writing partner Robert Hunter: the lyrically obtuse, Berry-esque rocker, "Alabama Getaway" and the meticulously arranged "Althea". Hunter said the title character of the latter was inspired by Minerva. Mydland's "Far From Me" and "Easy to Love You" were written for Weir's band but Garcia encouraged him to present them to the Dead. The second had lyric additions by Barlow (at the behest of Davis). Unlike the songs Weir and Garcia brought, Mydland wrote straightforward pop songs, usually with a lyrical focus on unrequited love. He also brought synthesizers to the Dead, playing a Minimoog solo on "Alabama Getaway" and a Prophet-5 on Weir's funk-incorporating "Feel Like a Stranger".

Folk standard "Don't Ease Me In" had been played in the band's former incarnation as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, and was the A-side of the first Grateful Dead single. It had re-entered their live set lists shortly before the addition of Mydland. As with the previous two albums, drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart contributed an instrumental, "Antwerp's Placebo (the plumber)". The subtitle was Hart's taunt at Lyons, who had worked as a plumber. To tighten the beat, Lyons had focused on one drummer, keeping mostly Kreutzmann's work in the mix. Weir also had disagreement, with the stylized, abrupt ending to "Feel Like a Stranger", however he worked with Lyons again the following year for his Bobby and the Midnites project.

Garcia had band sound man Dan Healy set up a low wattage radio transmitter so he could drive around the neighborhood and listen to how the production would sound on a car radio. Go to Heaven would be the last Grateful Dead studio album for seven years, though there was an aborted attempt four years later.

Release
Though Go to Heaven fared better on the charts than the previous two albums, ultimately sales were disappointing, due in part to the cover art. In an era when album artwork affected sales, the band, according to band chronicler Blair Jackson, looked like "hippie versions of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. The front cover of a Grateful Dead album had never had a straightforward band photo (they had appeared obliquely on the cover of Workingman's Dead, in costume and within the context of the album's theme, and on their first album as part of a collage). The turn away from highly recognizable psychedelic and illustrated artwork implied the same for the music within. Worse, to rock fans and Deadheads, was the connotation with disco, represented by the tailored white suits the band wore in the photo.

However, this was not the intention. Weir had titled the album and his original idea for the back cover was to have the white suits in rags, with the scraggly band lying among empty wine bottles, to convey the joke "Go to Heaven/Go to Hell". With the back cover illustrated instead with a somewhat nondescript phoenix, the humorous dichotomy and winking irony were lost and some buyers mistakenly assumed the Dead were committing to disco – even though much of the album returned to the rock and blues of the band's previous releases. The band had flirted with the style on singles from the last two albums. In the meantime there had been a large disco backlash. The genre was already considered in decline and radio formats had separated disco from rock music.

Two singles were released from Go to Heaven: "Alabama Getaway" and "Don't Ease Me In". Both were backed with "Far From Me". The first was a minor hit, finding airplay in some markets. To promote the upcoming album and single, the Grateful Dead again appeared on Saturday Night Live, playing "Alabama Getaway" and "Saint of Circumstance". The show's writers, Al Franken and Tom Davis, were Deadheads and Kreutzmann was friends with the show's John Belushi, who appeared onstage with the Dead earlier in the week.

Except for the interstitial instrumental, all of the new songs were played live, premiering between the start of recording and the album's release. Mydland's songs remained during his tenure, with "Easy to Love You" absent 1981-1989. The "Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance" pairing lasted until 1986, after which the first song was dropped.

Go to Heaven was released on CD in 1987. In 2004 it was expanded and remastered for the Beyond Description box set on Rhino Records. This version was released individually, April 11, 2006. One of the bonus tracks, studio outtake "Peggy-O", appeared as a bonus on Terrapin Station, in a less complete version. Ultimately, a version of the song was not released until Dick's Picks Volume 15, in 1999.

Reception
When it was released, Go to Heaven generally received average to negative responses from critics. Though it was something of a return to the band's roots and has "more-punchy rock sounds", it was still a mainstream attempt and was seen as mushy in many reviews. Mydland's vocals resembled Michael McDonald to some critics who compared his California soft rock influence to the direction taken by The Doobie Brothers.

However, the criticism has softened and Go to Heaven is now regarded as an important album in the band's catalog. As noted by a retrospective review in Allmusic, "Time has somewhat mellowed the general disdain that critics and Deadheads alike leveled at Go to Heaven". The review also notes that a number of the songs developed into strong live numbers and praises the addition of Mydland to the band's lineup. J. M. DeMatteis's review in Rolling Stone summarized the album as "more of the same uninspired fluff that's become the Grateful Dead's recorded stock in trade", though he also acclaimed Brent Mydland's contributions. DeMatteis, who is better known for his comic book work, came to regret his review of the album, ending his career as a music critic as a consequence. In contrast, Robert Christgau, while complimentary of the rendition of "Don't Ease Me In", considered Mydland an "utter wimp".

Bassist Phil Lesh said "The cover, featuring us in Saturday Night Fever disco suits against a white background, reinforced the impression that we were 'going commercial'. Regardless of the reaction from hardcore Deadheads, Go to Heaven sold fairly well after its release in April 1980, making number twenty-three on the charts and recouping its studio costs. The critics savaged it, however; the least offensive description I saw was 'cotton candy'. Personally, I thought that the music was a lot better than the album cover – the Garcia-Hunter and Weir-Barlow songs were major additions to our repertoire, and Brent’s two songs, in spite of having been written before joining the band, gave notice that a new voice had arrived." Lesh also stated his preference for releasing live albums, explaining "[It was] our last studio album for seven years, as our disenchantment with studios, producers, and record company executives was complete; and besides, we had fulfilled the current Arista contract requirements with three studio albums in three years."

Kreutzmann likewise stated "If you go back and (re)listen to it, you’ll find that time has been very kind to Go to Heaven. It plays better now than it did back then. That’s still no excuse for the cover, though – all six of us, dressed all in white disco suits against a white background."

Track listing

 * Side one
 * 1) "Alabama Getaway" (Garcia, Hunter) – 3:36 (lead singer: Jerry Garcia)
 * 2) "Far From Me" (Mydland) – 3:40 (lead singer: Brent Mydland)
 * 3) "Althea" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:51 (lead singer: Jerry Garcia)
 * 4) "Feel Like a Stranger" (Weir, Barlow) – 5:07 (lead singer: Bob Weir)


 * Side two
 * 1) "Lost Sailor" (Weir, Barlow) – 5:54 (lead singer: Bob Weir)
 * 2) "Saint of Circumstance" (Weir, Barlow) – 5:40 (lead singer: Bob Weir)
 * 3) "Antwerp's Placebo (The Plumber)" (Hart, Kreutzmann) – 0:38
 * 4) "Easy to Love You" (Mydland, Barlow) – 3:40 (lead singer: Brent Mydland)
 * 5) "Don't Ease Me In" (trad.; arr. by Grateful Dead) – 3:13 (lead singer: Jerry Garcia)

Notes
 * Bonus tracks on 2004/2006 reissue
 * 1) "Peggy-O" (trad.; arr. by Grateful Dead) – 5:51
 * 2) *outtake, recorded July 16, 1979
 * 3) "What'll You Raise" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:10
 * 4) *outtake, recorded July 16, 1979
 * 5) "Jack-A-Roe" (trad.; arr. by Grateful Dead) – 4:55
 * 6) *outtake, recorded July 14, 1979
 * 7) "Althea" (Garcia, Hunter)  – 8:17
 * 8) *live at Radio City Music Hall, New York City, October 23, 1980
 * 9) "Lost Sailor" > (Weir, Barlow)  – 6:41
 * 10) *live at Radio City, October 25, 1980
 * 11) "Saint of Circumstance" (Weir, Barlow) – 6:35
 * 12) *live at Radio City, October 25, 1980

Personnel

 * Grateful Dead
 * Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals
 * Mickey Hart – drums
 * Bill Kreutzmann – drums
 * Phil Lesh – bass guitar
 * Brent Mydland – keyboards, vocals
 * Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

Technical personnel
 * Betty Cantor-Jackson – engineering
 * John Cutler - additional engineering
 * Bob Matthews - additional engineering
 * Peter Thea - additional engineering

Reissue personnel
 * James Austin – production
 * Hugh Brown – art coordination
 * Andrew Clarke – liner notes
 * Reggie Collins – annotations
 * Jimmy Edwards – associate production
 * Sheryl Farber – editorial supervision
 * Tom Flye – additional mixing
 * John Frankenheimer - business affairs
 * Joe Gastwirt – mastering, production consultancy
 * Robert Gatley – mixing assistance
 * Herb Greene - photography
 * Robin Hurley – associate production
 * Eileen Law – research
 * David Lemieux – production
 * Hale Milfgrim – associate production
 * Scott Pascucci – associate production
 * Cameron Sears – executive production
 * Bob Seidemann - photography
 * Steve Vance – design