Postcards of the Hanging
Live album by The Grateful Dead
Released	March 2002
Recorded	June 10, 1973 – March 24, 1990
Genre	Rock
Length	75:39 (bonus disc 10:14)
Label	Grateful Dead / Arista / Rhino
The Grateful Dead chronology
Dick's Picks Volume 24 (2002) Postcards of the Hanging (2002) Dick's Picks Volume 25 (2002)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
The Music Box	[2]

Postcards of the Hanging is a compilation album by the Grateful Dead. It consists entirely of Bob Dylan covers, performed live in concert, along with a rehearsal performance of "Man of Peace" featuring the Grateful Dead backing Dylan himself.^[3] Bob Weir sings lead on five tracks, Jerry Garcia on three, and Phil Lesh on one ("Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"); Weir and Garcia also alternate on one ("Maggie's Farm"). Another Dylan covers collection, Garcia Plays Dylan, includes several performances by the Grateful Dead, but mostly by the Jerry Garcia Band and other Garcia side projects. An album of live performances containing Dylan and the Grateful Dead performing together was released in 1989 as "Dylan & the Dead."

The title comes from the opening stanza of Dylan's "Desolation Row": "They're selling postcards of the hanging/ They're painting the passports brown."

Content

Seven of the songs on the album originally appeared on the Dylan albums Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited; the remaining three represent Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and the Leon Russell session that produced "Watching the River Flow" for the Greatest Hits II double-LP. Aside from being from among his most critically revered rock albums, the seven songs date from 1965, the year the long strange trip of the Grateful Dead began. The songs remained in the Dead's live rotation throughout their existence.

Conspicuously absent from the compilation is "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", a song the Dead performed more than 170 times. Conversely, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" was performed a few times in the early 1990s, and only once in the 1970s – in the version included here, the Dead are accompanied by Dickey Betts and Butch Trucks, of the Allman Brothers Band. Dylan himself leads the band on the final track of the main disc, a rehearsal for the 1987 tour for which the Dead were his backing band.^[4]

Track listing

All songs written by Bob Dylan

Personnel

• Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
• Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Phil Lesh – bass guitar, vocals
• Brent Mydland – keyboards, organ, vocals (except track 6)
• Mickey Hart – drums (except track 6)
• Bill Kreutzmann – drums
• Keith Godchaux – piano (track 6)

Additional personnel

• Dickey Betts – guitar (track 6)
• Bob Dylan – acoustic guitar, vocals (track 11)
• Butch Trucks – drums (track 6)

Production

• John Cutler – engineer
• Bill Candelario – engineer
• Jeffrey Norman – mix
• David Gans – compilation producer
• David Lemieux – tape archivist
• Joe Gastwirt – mastering
• Geoff Gans – art direction
• Emily Burnham – illustration and design
• Cassidy Law – album coordination
• Ken Friedman – photography

Charts

Album – Billboard