This double-disc anthology works well as a thematic companion to [wimpLink albumId="2476903"]Postcards of the Hanging: The Grateful Dead Perform the Songs of Bob Dylan[/wimpLink] (2002). Similarly, [wimpLink albumId="238133319"]Ladder to the Stars: Garcia Plays Dylan[/wimpLink] (2005) examines the unique relationship between the pair, featuring [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Jerry Garcia[/wimpLink] (guitar/vocals) in a variety of musical settings spanning nearly a quarter century. While the occasional exception exists, the contents are primarily presented in a chronological fashion. Rather than going all the way back to the pre-psychedelic [wimpLink artistId="222"]Grateful Dead[/wimpLink] -- when the band included covers of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "She Belongs to Me" in its repertoire -- the earliest inclusion finds [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink] fronting a quartet alongside [wimpLink artistId="3557218"]Merl Saunders[/wimpLink] (organ) through a blues-infused treatment of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." [wimpLink artistId="80"]Dylan[/wimpLink] provided [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink] with perhaps his most intimately interpreted material. As the liner notes point out, [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink] felt "...right in those songs." Adding, "When I sing them I feel like I could have written them. I relate to them that well." Nowhere can that symbiotically beneficial relationship be heard better than the profound and practically spiritual "Positively 4th Street" circa the mid-'70s [wimpLink artistId="4564187"]Jerry Garcia Band[/wimpLink] with [wimpLink artistId="3534550"]Nicky Hopkins[/wimpLink] (piano) and [wimpLink artistId="7290776"]Ron Tutt[/wimpLink] (drums). [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink] also chose obscure, deeper album tracks, making them very much his own. Examples abound, ranging from the brooding and methodical "Wicked Messenger" -- courtesy of the short-lived [wimpLink artistId="33269068"]Legion of Mary[/wimpLink] -- to the exploratory funk driving "Tough Mama." On the opposite side of the backbeat are the lamenting "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and a humbling, if not reverential reading of "I Shall Be Released." By the mid-'80s the quality of [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink]'s solo endeavors equalled -- if not surpassed -- that of [wimpLink artistId="222"]the Grateful Dead[/wimpLink]. One constant was an ever-expanding stable of [wimpLink artistId="80"]Dylan[/wimpLink] tunes. One of the songs that [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink] shared with both was the rollicking "When I Paint My Masterpiece." When it turned up -- usually in the first set of [wimpLink artistId="222"]Dead[/wimpLink] shows -- [wimpLink artistId="3592149"]Bob Weir[/wimpLink] (guitar/vocals) took the lead. Here, listeners are treated to a [wimpLink artistId="4564187"]Garcia Band[/wimpLink] run through guided by some simply smouldering solos from the guitarist. Presumably in an effort to offer unreleased nuggets, the unplugged early-'90s take of "She Belongs to Me," with just [wimpLink artistId="29194901"]Garcia[/wimpLink], [wimpLink artistId="3592149"]Weir[/wimpLink], and [wimpLink artistId="3502452"]Phil Lesh[/wimpLink] (bass), was passed over for a rendering by the 1990-era [wimpLink artistId="222"]Grateful Dead[/wimpLink]. The band sounds spent and probably was as this particular performance happened to be the second of a rare double encore. An emotive and gripping "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)" by [wimpLink artistId="4564187"]the Jerry Garcia Band[/wimpLink] and the poignant "Visions of Johanna" taken from [wimpLink artistId="222"]the Grateful Dead[/wimpLink]'s penultimate live show on August 8, 1995, are among the remaining highlights. ~ Lindsay Planer