Listen To Two Jerry Garcia Bluegrass Recordings From ‘Before The Dead’

On May 11th, Round Records will release a brand-new Jerry Garcia box set titled Jerry Garcia Before The Dead. As its name suggests, the new box set compiles rare—including a number of unreleased—recordings of Garcia performing live before the 1965 inception of the Grateful Dead.

Round Records has already given us a taste of four tracks from the forthcoming release, and now they’ve given us two more. The latest treats come via Garden & Gun, which premiered the tracks earlier today. One is a 1962 rendition of Irish ballad “Legend of the Johnson Boys” by the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, a group hat featured Garcia, Dick Arnold, and Marshall Leicester. The other is a 1963 take on “Salt Creek”—a traditional that was popularized by Bill Monroe—from the Black Mountain Boys, which also Garcia’s longtime friend and writing partner, Robert Hunter.

You can give both of these rare tracks a listen below, and Jerry Garcia Before The Dead can be preordered here. The compilation will be released as a four-CD set and as a five-LP vinyl set.

Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers – “Legend of the Johnson Boys”

The Black Mountain Boys – “Salt Creek”