Both of these live albums were recorded on Jerry Garcia’s 1987 tour. The music is Dead style Bluegrass that Jerry loved. The band features amazing players including Jerry on vocals and guitar, David Nelson on guitar, “Sandy Rothman on mandolin, dobro and banjo, Kenny Kosek on fiddle and bass and David Kemper on snare drum.

The best disc of the two is the classic Almost Acoustic released back in 1987. The disc features music that ranges from 1862’s “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” to the Dead classic “Ripple.” The track listing is pure American acoustic, backwoods encyclopedia featuring the songs “I’ve Been All Around This World,” “Deep Elem Blues,” “Casey Jones” (not the Dead song but rather a song written by an employee of the real Casey Jones) and “Diamond Joe.”

On this album the band were truly on their game. As the Grateful Dead were enjoying the biggest pop success of their career Jerry was out playing music that no one was listening to at the time.

Packed with the classic Almost Acoustic is the newly released Ragged But Right, which features 28 songs (only “Deep Elem Blues” is repeated from the other disc) recorded during the band’s 1987 New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco shows. This album is not as good. Many times the band are not as in the groove as they are on the other disc. However, this is surely going to be a sought after concert by Jerry’s biggest fans. The sound is great and will be much preferred to the bootlegs that are our there. That said, it does feature the band playing American classics “Trouble in Mind,” “Rosa Lee Mcfall,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “Drifting Too Far From The Shore” and “Two Soldiers.”