Bob Weir looked back on his Ace 50th-anniversary concerts at Radio City Music Hall with live audio of “Greatest Story Ever Told” featuring Tyler Childers. The track comes ahead of the expanded reissue of Ace, set to arrive on January 13th, which includes one of the concerts in full.
Back in April, the Grateful Dead singer/guitarist celebrated the anniversary of his 1972 solo album, Ace, with a pair of decadent shows at Radio City in New York. The concerts on April 2nd and 3rd featured full-album tellings as well as guest appearances from Childers, John Mayer, and Brittney Spencer, who joined Weir, his Wolf Bros, and the string and horn section The Wolf Pack with Barry Sless on pedal steel.
April was an exciting time for fans of Childers and Weir alike. The country singer-songwriter was just beginning to re-enter the public eye after going dormant following the release of his 2020 bluegrass album Long Violent History and the COVID pandemic. The months that would follow saw Childers release a three-part gospel album, Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven?, announce an accompanying tour, and continue his flirtation with the jam world by adding “Greatest Story Ever Told” to his live repertoire and participating in Warren Haynes‘ Christmas Jam in Asheville, NC.
For the elder statesman of the jam community, 2022 was one long celebration. From commemorating 50 years of Ace to hosting his own three-night 75th birthday party at The Warfield in San Francisco, Weir had plenty of cause to celebrate. Along the way, he also staged a historic four-night residency with the National Symphony Orchestra at The John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Ace: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will arrive on double CD and digital streaming services on January 13th. The album includes one of the complete Radio City performances alongside a remastered mix of Ace. The remastered album will also be available on custom “high roller” pearl white vinyl exclusively from Dead.net. A black vinyl version will follow on February 3rd.
“By the time they played a pair of nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in April 2022 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ace, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack had found their flow at the thrilling, porous border of improvisation and arrangement,” The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast co-host Jesse Jarnow writes in the album’s liner notes. “In the eternal present-tense of the Grateful Dead’s music, none of the songs had stopped evolving in the previous 50 years… At Radio City, everything was heard in its newest (and perhaps already outdated) incarnations, the evolutions acting as a progress report on the ensuing half-century of Weir’s life, musical and otherwise.”
Listen to Bob Weir & Wolf Bros perform “Greatest Story Ever Told” with Tyler Childers at Radio City Music Hall. Revisit Live For Live Music‘s coverage of nights one and two of the run.
Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, Tyler Childer – “The Greatest Story Ever Told” – 4/3/22