Barncard also mused 'I had heard bad stories about engineers' interactions with the Dead but what I found were a bunch of hardworking guys'. Instead, studio staff engineer Stephen Barncard replaced Bob Matthews as producer – 'a move that irks Matthews to this day' (Matthews had co-produced the band's two previous albums ). In between near-constant touring and gigging, recording began only a few months after the release of Workingman's Dead – without their regular sound crew, who were out on the road as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour (which the Dead were originally scheduled to join). The album was produced after the discovery that the band's manager, Lenny Hart (father of drummer Mickey Hart), had renewed their contract with Warner Brothers Records without their knowledge, and then skipped town with a sizable chunk of the band's wealth. Included are Phil Lesh's ' Box of Rain' and Bob Weir's ' Sugar Magnolia', both written with Hunter, and 'Operator', Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan's only singing-songwriting effort on a Grateful Dead studio album. However, unlike the previous effort, where almost all the songs were written solely by the pair, the album saw more input from the rest of the band. This was the only time the band would return to the studio so quickly. Recording Īmerican Beauty was the result of a prolific period of the songwriting partnership of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter – one that yielded two studio albums in one year for the Grateful Dead. In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, 261 in a 2012 revised list, and 215 in a 2020 revised list. On July 11, 1974, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, and it later reached Platinum and Double Platinum certification in 19, respectively. Upon release, American Beauty entered the Billboard 200 chart, ultimately peaking at number 30 during a nineteen-week stay in January 1971. Records, the album continued the folk rock and country music style of their previous album Workingman's Dead, issued earlier in the year. Released in November 1970, by Warner Bros.

American Beauty is the fifth studio album (and sixth overall) by rock band the Grateful Dead.

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