“What a long, strange trip it’s been” is the iconic line from “Truckin”, a no less iconic Grateful Dead song. The legendary band is no more but it still seems to her truckin’ and conning that long strange trip.
As Live For Live Music site reports, Grateful Dead have just landed their 100th different album on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States. This is an achievement that’s never been done before.
Most of these albums belong to the Dave’s Picks series of live recordings curated by the band’s archivist David Lemieux. The record 100th charting album is Dave’s Picks Vol. 33: Evans Field House, N. Illinois University, Dekalb. It landed at No. 45 in January 2020. Actually, of the 100 Grateful Dead albums that reached the charts, 43 managed to enter Top 40.
This achievement is even more of note, as it took Grateful Dead 22 years to enter the Top 10 hit singles charts with “Touch of Grey.” It reached No. 6 and is one of their six charting singles.
As the site notes, the newest release is pulled from 1977—a year which many believe was the band’s strongest in terms of their live performances. It is currently limited to 22,000 copies. “The three-disc archive release from the Dead’s 10/29/77 performance includes songs like ‘Bertha’, ‘Friend of the Devil’, ‘Estimated Prophet’, and more.”
