Right now, I'm really digging Terrapin Station. How about you guys?

Workingman's Dead is my fave.

Live tapes

of course.

Perro Sessions

I second that, but mostly because I've been to so many shows and have/had so many bootlegs that I couldn't begin to tell you what's on what album.

There are 2 essential GD studio albums:
Workingman's Dead
American Beauty
both of which have just been re-released on DVD-A

So, Thunderball, have you heard 5/8/77 yet?

Favorite studio album - AMERICAN BEAUTY
Favorite live "dick's pick/from the vault" - 5/2/70-Harpur College

Dicks Picks #22 2/23-24/68 Lake Tahoe

i like that Greatest Hits one...not sure about the title...it has Casey Jones, Truckin, Sugar Magnolia etc... awesome stuff!

Mt personal fave is American Beauty.

The essential commercial releases are -

Workingman's Dead
American Beauty
Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses)

Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are essential studio albums. They don't show the Dead stretching out, but I never felt that lengthy studio jams worked well on album anyway for any jamband. Jam in concert. Write songs for your albums.

Those studio albums are the best, IMHO, and yes, the Harpur College show is awesome (I have had that on tape since the 80's, long before Dick's Picks; I "retired" in 1990 ).

However, my favorite album is sorta cheating, since it's live: Bear's Choice. It features a lot of acoustic stuff, and Pigpen is front and center (man, that band would have been so different if he had lived). He was amazing. It also has an extended Smokestack Lightnin' on side 2 that rocks!

American Beauty.

woohoo, my thread returns

Without A Net & Dozin' At The Knick are fine by me

My favourite studio albums are Terrapin Station, Blues For Allah, and i guess sort of studio Reckoning. Reckoning is nice because it is all acoustic and i absolutely love the version of Dire Wolf on that one.