Editing Live/Dead (section)

==Recording==
To assuage debt accrued with their record label from their recent album ''[[Aoxomoxoa]]'', as well as fulfill their record contract, the band decided to record a live album. They were also interested in releasing an album more representative of their live performances and actual musicianship, as opposed to the in-studio experimentation of previous albums.  The band's soundman, [[Owsley Stanley|Owsley "Bear" Stanley]], asked electronics designer [[Alembic Inc|Ron Wickersham]] to invent a microphone splitter that fed both into the [[Public address system|PA]] and the record inputs, with no loss in quality.<ref name="multiple2">''Phil Lesh: Searching for the Sound'' by Phil Lesh, Little, Brown and Company, 2005, pg. 142.</ref> The songs were recorded with an Ampex 16-track machine.<ref name="multiple">''Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip''. Jake Woodward, et al. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2003, pg. 104.</ref>

Kreutzmann later explained, "We got our hands on the latest in recording technology — a sixteen-track recorder (which, of course, is antiquated these days) — and we hauled it up the steps of the Avalon, and later the Fillmore West, and we became the first band ever to make a live sixteen-track recording. We weren’t trying to make history; we were just trying to record a live album. ... Studio versions could never do those songs justice, but advances in live recording (some of which were at our own hands) meant that we could bring the live Dead experience to vinyl".<ref name="Deal7"/>
{{Quote box|width=25em|bgcolor=#bfbcf1|quote="We're not performers, strictly speaking, and we can't manufacture intensity in a recording studio… we're musicians more than anything else"|source=Jerry Garcia<ref>{{cite AV media|title=Classic Albums - The Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty|date=1999|medium=DVD|publisher=Rhino/Wea}}</ref>}}

Unlike in later years, in early 1969 the contents of the Dead's [[set list]]s varied little. They improvised the medley of "Dark Star"/"St. Stephen"/"The Eleven" several times a week, which enabled them to explore widely within the songs' simple frameworks. The "[[Dark Star (song)|Dark Star]] / [[St. Stephen (song)|St. Stephen]]" pairing was taken from the February 27, 1969 show at the [[The Fillmore|Fillmore West]]; "The Eleven" and "Turn On Your Love Light" were from the January 26, 1969 show at the [[Avalon Ballroom]]; "[[Death Don't Have No Mercy]]", "Feedback", and "And We Bid You Goodnight" were recorded March 2, 1969, at the [[The Fillmore|Fillmore West]].

Two songs had seen previous release. "St. Stephen" had appeared in a studio version on ''[[Aoxomoxoa]]'' and "Dark Star" as a single. "The Eleven" was named for its unusual, [[Time signature#Complex time signatures|complex time signature]] ({{music|time|11|8}} time).