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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.

"It was an opportunity to experiment with a three-set format: one acoustic set followed by two electric. We had a hidden motive behind the move: We were all a bit disenfranchised with recording studio albums." - Bill Kreutzmann

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

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

Notes

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.

Venue and Date	Release
	Reckoning	Dead Set	Dead Ahead (video)	So Many Roads	Go to Heaven (bonus tracks)	Beyond Description (bonus disc)
The Warfield Theatre, San Francisco:
September 26	N
September 30	N
October 3		N
October 4		N
October 7	N	N*
October 9		N
October 10	N	N				N
October 11	N	N
October 13	N	N*
October 14	N			N
Radio City Music Hall, New York:
October 23	N*				N
October 25	N	N			N
October 26	N	N*
October 27	N	N
October 29		N
October 30	N		N
October 31	N*	N	N

N = 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

Charts

Year	Chart	Position
1981	Billboard Pop Albums	43