Search - Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders :: Well-Matched Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia

Keystone Redux: a nice alternative

Unicorn2 | California, USA | 07/10/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"FOr those of you who'd rather not invest in all four or five, or however many releases and rereleases Fantasy Records has pumped out from the Garcia Saunders sessions at Keystone Berkeley in the early 70's, this one cd covers most of the bases without sticking too much in spaceland. One missing ingredient, that would have been

an excellent inclusion, but isn't, so it gets only 4 stars, would have been "Like A Road"- easily the very best thing in the original 2 record set. But that's really the only gripe. You get The Harder They Come, Positively 4th Street, and the (prior unreleased) Second That Emotion. There IS a good deal of filler taken from Merl's "Keepers" album, but for those of you who aren't familiar with THAT, this will suffice to replace that in your collection UNLESS you are the fanatical completist.

I like this record & can leave it on while doing lots of puttering round the house..."

Tremendous

Kenneth M. Goodman | Cleveland, Ohio United States | 06/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On many (if not most) Jerry/Grateful Dead CDs...you tend to program for the songs you like. On "Well Matched" there is no need to program. Each and every track is tremendous. I was especially impressed by the deep, deep blues sound of the track called Lonley Avenue. That be the blues! I don't normally comment on packaging, but it is kinda cool the way the whole CD is packaged exactly like a book of matches...so fire up! It's all good."