Grateful Dead Music Forum

I think it goes chronologically. Pigpen and TC are the best because they are the roots of the dead. And the dead in the sixties is definitely the best. Second is keith in the 70's which i love. And third is brent who i think is sick, but sometimes i don't like his electric keyboard sounds. Love his organ playing though. I also like keith on piano and pigpen on organ in the eraly 70's era.

I think it goes chronologically. Pigpen and TC are the best because they are the roots of the dead. And the dead in the sixties is definitely the best. Second is keith in the 70's which i love. And third is brent who i think is sick, but sometimes i don't like his electric keyboard sounds. Love his organ playing though. I also like keith on piano and pigpen on organ in the eraly 70's era.

warrenMFKNhaynes wrote:I personally think Keith was not that great at all. he was hardly noticeable. He almost blended in as part of the percussion.

This is actually what I love about Keith the most! His playing was very subtle (most of the time) and complimentary to the style of other players. Sometimes you can't tell when its Bobby doing single note fills or Keith filling in. Keeps my ears alert!
Also love when he plays the fender rhodes(esp Row Jimmy). And the grand piano on songs like Big River. He really pounds out the rhythm.

Its funny, I like Brent because of how different he was from Keith in terms of comping and SOLOING as well as how he brought back the organ! He was huge in that raunchy 80's rock they were doing.

I think I will have to vote for TC/Pigpen because of the originality shown by these guys in the time period they played in. Pigpen was so key to the early sound, especailly love his playing in New Potato Caboose where he is really egging the whole band on with those really fast swooshing chords - always imagined that early organ like a bellows blowing oxygen at the fire. Plus that dude could sing.

gotta agree, Keith wasn't about the up front, in your face style which Brent had more of. Keith was creating space, a sound, creating layers for which the other members could intertwine their sound around. I really think Keith and Jerry, at times, were perfect with each other, not in the back and forth ripping solo sort of way, but in the textured, creating a sound bigger then themselves sort of way, which is what the dead really comes down to, especially in the 70's. Sure, Keith didn't really rip it up on the keys but he did and could, that's just not what he was about most of the time, but I think he fit in perfectly for what the dead were creating in that time and place. On the other hand, I love Brent for what he was, but sometimes I didn't like the synth piano sound, and his song writing could be lacking, but the energy was amazing and he truly was a great player, I love him, I just love the 70's dead as a whole more, makes me biased I guess.

got to go for Brent.

Saw the Dead twice in 1981 which is when I really got into them so always go back to that sound.

Favorite? I voted for Vince, mostly because I thought his voice really brought something to the band at a time when they really needed something (and he didn't have a single vote yet, didn't want the man to get skunked!). I could have just as easily voted for Pig for the same reason.

brent for sure....i have a version of Wharf Rat where Brent backs Jer on the vocals and its very eery and far out...its a show from the spring of 90...i remember sitting in my car listen to it and it scared the crap out of me. i back tracked it about 10 times cause i thought i was hearing things, well you know how that is listening to live shows....

Being a big Hammond organ enthusiast I have to go for Brent. His playing was really far out, he had those ideas that nobody else had. So much incredible stuff, can't get enough of listening to Brent, the only real B3 burner the Dead ever had. But his electric piano playing was also pretty amazing. Not so sure about his own songs, though, they were good but at times it seems to me they didn't blend in too well with the general context of the Dead.
I'm personally not that crazy about Keith. '73-'74 was overall too jazzy for my taste. He had his good moments for sure, but many times, especially in later years, had that way of playing non-stop, comping rhythmically all the way through which for me gets a bit annoying to listen to after a while. It made the overall sound too fat. It's almost as if he approached things like a solo piano player, forgetting that he was with a full band which, incidentally, had a very good rhythm guitarist as well! And then it was nothing but acoustic piano all the time, except for some Rhodes now and then... for us organ freaks this can get a bit boring. Well this is just my opinion, I know that many folks here like him.
I haven't listened to a lot of TC, on the shows I've heard I think his organ playing was real nice, maybe not spectacular but solid.
Pigpen may not have been that technically advanced on organ, but what he did fit the music well at the time. And then his showmanship and whole personality was truly one of a kind.
Can't say much about Vince since I know very little of '90s Dead... but for sure he was no real replacement for Brent.

I think the results of this post i did kind of says that the 80's was there prime decade.

agree/disagree?

warrenMFKNhaynes wrote:I think the results of this post i did kind of says that the 80's was there prime decade.

agree/disagree?

i'd have do disagree there. id defintely say 70s were better. im not that keen on 78, i don't know why but it seems to lack something, but 72-74 blew all other years out of the water. that stuff blows my mind.


tho id have to say that brent was amazing from 79-90, while keith was amazing in 72-74, 76-78 he got progressivly worse IMO.


on a side note....i love vince. maybe not that technically amazing, and maybe his keyboard patches sucked, but i see thru that and he is a great player, very creative, played withe them very well.

flame if you want but 60s is my least favorite dead era.

id have to say keith just based on those being my fav years

warrenMFKNhaynes wrote:I think the results of this post i did kind of says that the 80's was there prime decade.

agree/disagree?

the keys do not make the dead

to me I see 70's dead and 80s almost like different bandw, jerry had a different style and would bend his strings more often in the 70's, not to mention a different guitar. but I think that Brent was a big step up from not only kieth, but also Donna.

Not saying at all that 70s Dead Isnt great

Out of em all I liked Brent's backing vocals the best.

that i agree, brents voice was sick