I by no means consider myself a "DeadHead," but I absolutely loved the history in this book. Wow what an amazing time.

Ultimate Deadhead fan book. I'm not, but enjoy there music when I hear it. I am guessing this is the concert to end all concerts, according to fans.. Anyway, the book was entertaining. The Dead were the Dead and they did what they wanted to do and their fans loved them for it. Great read for them!

Book received from NetGalley.

The biography of what many Deadheads consider the best Grateful Dead concert ever, though to the band it was just another concert. The book discusses everything from the venue, to the fans, to the weather that all likely had contributing factors to the music that night. I admit I'm a Deadhead, and I've heard the concert and while I enjoy listening to it, I'm not completely sure it the "best" of any of their shows. After reading the book and seeing the reminisces of those who were there that night, I can understand a bit better why so many feel the way they do about the show. If you're a fan of The Dead, I highly suggest reading this book.

I received an advance electronic copy of this book in order to provide a review.

The concert played by the Grateful Dead at Barton Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, on May 8, 1977 is perhaps one of the most infamous shows, whether you love it or hate it. Is it the show itself? Was it the amazing pristine soundboard tapes made by the near-perfect ears of Betty Cantor-Jackson which were leaked out when it was difficult to get anything other than a third-generation audience recording? We may never know, but what we do know is that everyone has their opinion about this performance.

Since Mr. Conners has written this book, presumably to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the show, the tapes have been obtained by Grateful Dead, Inc., and are being released as a boxed set with the other early shows in May 1977. Destpite the price of the box at $139, it sold out in less than three days, so that should be an indicator of how important this run of shows is to the "deadicated" fan.

Although I have read many other books about the Grateful Dead, I did find much of the information in this book to be informative, insightful, and entertaining. One of the highlights for me were the song-by-song followthrough of the show, touching on a bit of the history of the song as well as notes about the performance on May 8 in particular. I learned a few new nuggets of information I hadn't before, and this section of the book makes an excellent read-along while you're listening to the show.

I also really enjoyed the section discussing Betty Cantor-Jackson, some of the processes she used, as well as some of the behind-the-scene stuff, like the fact that she often purchased her own tapes, and how she performed the mixing "on the fly" to her own ear, disregarding the PA mix as too biased toward the performance hall.

There was also an excellent "further reading" section, which was more friendly than an annotated bibliography for those who wished to explore further, and I definitely found some resources to check out there.

If you are even a casual listener of the Grateful Dead, you've heard of May 8, 1977. Learn a bit more about this infamous show and why it matters forty years later. I recommend this book highly.

I am not much of a Grateful Dead fan but I was intrigued by the fact that one of their shows could be so amazing that it warranted having an entire book written about it. This book goes into depth about the May 8, 1977 show performed by the Grateful Dead at Barton Hall at Cornell University. Grateful Dead eventually was wore down by their fans to allow them to tape their shows. Due to the circulation of the tape of this show, it made it to the top of everyone's lists of greatest Dead shows ever. This book breaks down everything you could want to know about how the tape trading works and how they made shows more popular. I was also proud to see that one of their New Haven shows was in the Top 10! Go Connecticut! The book also has a breakdown of the setlist and what songs were performed, some photos and of course, fan interviews. Definitely an interesting read if you are a music fan and probably even moreso if you are a "DeadHead".

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

Have you ever seen a book that looks interesting, but at the same time wondered why someone bothered to write it? I’m not saying you go into the pages with low or no expectations. Things just don’t add up, and you’ve got a ton of questions from the outset. You might want to try it. Still, you can’t understand the purpose behind the book. I like the Grateful Dead. When I saw Peter Connor’s Cornell ’77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead’s Concert at Barton Hall (an obnoxiously long title might I add), it had my attention. I couldn’t understand why anyone would write a book about one random Grateful Dead concert. They played thousands. Perhaps a book about their final concert before Jerry Garcia died, the final Winterland show on New Year’s Eve 1978, or a legendary tour like Europe in 1972. It didn’t take long to see Cornell ‘77 is a vanity project on someone’s part.
The concert the Grateful Dead played at Cornell University’s Barton Hall on May 8, 1977 isn’t a historic show. This isn’t The Band’s Last Waltz, or a famous occurrence in rock history. The show is “known and revered” for the bootleg recording circulating throughout the tape trading community. To the band members, this was another show on the road. Not a one commented for the book. Instead, the voices come from people there, and quotes from other sources. Connor’s wasn’t there. He begins the book by telling us he followed the Grateful Dead in the 80s and early 90s, and they changed his life. This doesn’t set the stage for one to expect a biased piece of journalism.
It didn’t take long before I saw the extra padding. The first chapter is about the music scene in 1977, and talks more about the Sex Pistols and disco. Like I said, I like the Grateful Dead, but I don’t like this book. It’s a stupid concept to write about a random concert because of how it sounded on a bootleg recording, and even more so for a company to actually publish it. The publisher is Cornell University Press, so that should tell us all something about what’s going on here. It smacks as a money grab to collect on the band’s name and fame. Hey, it got my interest, but I didn’t read much. I saw what was going on and wasn’t going to waste my time. It’s a book written by a fan who wasn’t there, without any input from the surviving band members, published by the university press where the concert took place. Cornell ’77 goes on the “so bad I couldn’t finish” shelf. Read and write about actual historic performances, not random concerts with a fabled reputation about the way it sounds on a bootleg. You can go to archives.org and find a plethora of versions of this concert. Listen instead.
*I received this as an uncorrected ebook galley from netgalley.com in exchange for this honest review.

Copyright © Drew Martin 2017

Well, what can I say? This is an amazing book that will send some people into raptures and will be incomprehensible to the rest of us.

Anyone above a certain age knows the cultural and musical significance of the Grateful Dead, and anyone who knows much about the Dead know (revere, are in awe of?) the 1977 concert at Barton Hall, Cornell University. The concert is so important that in 2011 is was added to the National Registry by the US Library of Congress. You can hear it in its entirety online.

In the classic description, a single piece of a hologram, no matter how small, contains the lossless entirety of the hologram. What Peter Conners has tried to do, with some success, is to present Barton Hall 77 as the lossless entirety of the Dead experience. That is, in this one concert of thousands, and this one book, also of thousands, Mr. Conners hopes to present the entirety of Dead reality. It almost works.

The main reason it doesn't quite work is that no matter how lucidly Mr. Connors writes, the reader without at least some background and experience with the Grateful Dead, is plunged in the deep end of the pool. If you are new to the Grateful Dead, you might find some background reading helpful before you start.

I received a review copy of "Cornell '77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall" by Peter Conners (Cornell University Press) through NetGalley.com.