The Grateful Dead - Stella Blue

Stella Blue
For the 50th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s album “Wake of the Flood.”
To honor the 50th Anniversary, I have used the separate tracks of the song “Stella Blue” from the “Wake of the flood” album from Dead.net and applied the audio to a Blender file I made consisting of similar skeleton characters I have used my in other music videos for Bluebird Bridge with animations from Mixamo.com that I have edited myself. For this music video I created a model of the “Wall of Sound” speaker system and the dual microphones the Dead used to prevent feedback.
The audio for this music video is a remix of the separate tracks into a 5.1 surround file. That 5.1 surround video can be found at this link. This mp4 file can be downloaded, copied to a thumb drive and played through a surround sound system.
archive.org/de...
Playing in the Band and Wake of the Flood separate tracks can be found here.
www.dead.net/p...
I always loved the song “Stella Blue” from the first time I heard it. It was one of my favorite songs on the “Wake of the flood” album. This song had to be heard live. I first heard it live at The Philadelphia Civic Center on August 5th, 1974. I’m sure of that date because I looked it up on Setlist.fm to confirm it. That night the Grateful Dead played through the full Wall of Sound. They played two nights at the civic center and the second night after “Space” when the Wall of Sound was mixed to perfection, they played “Stella Blue.” This sound system did not hurt your ears like other concerts at that time. The Dead could play really soft and then loud enough to shake the floor without any distortion. The audio was crystal clear and the sound generated a feeling that was so intense. When they played “Stella Blue,” it evoked the sincerest humility and awe in my being as if I were in a capsule far out in space looking back at this fragile lonely planet, we call Earth and wondering if I would get back home. Yet, I was home. I was listening to the Grateful Dead play live.
As the late Bill Graham said, “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.”
I remember after Jerry died, I heard that Owsley Stanley said, “Who will play ‘Stella Blue’ now that Jerry’s gone.”
Philadelphia Civic Center - Philadelphia, PA 08/05/1974
Soundboard
archive.org/de...
Audience
archive.org/de...
#blenderrender #gratefuldead #wallofsound #deadandcompany

[@BluebirdBridge]

I was about to publish the finished music video on the web when a network switch locked up my whole network. I took me two days to troubleshoot and reconnect to the internet. During that time I experienced what I would call synchronicity. While my network was down my wife and I discussed the fact that Donna Jean Godchaux had provided vocals to “Stella Blue” in 1973 but she was not included in my video. Had the network switch not failed I may have left her out. My wife and I saw her sing with the Zen Tricksters in 2007 in a small idyllic setting on the Potomac River just down river from where we water skied for years. We danced with her that night and shared life. I am so glad that switch failed when it did because it looks so cool in this video. Donna Jean Godchaux and the Zen Tricksters at the Potomac Pavilion in Falling Waters, WV on July 1, 2007 archive.org/details/djt2007-07-01.aud.flac16

[@zephmarie55]

I could watch and listen to this a million times and still not tire of it. You've created a beautiful piece of magic here and I thank you with all my heart and soul!

[@zephmarie55]

Forgot to say... what a cool story behind the ultimate creation! :D Synchronicity = magic.

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thank you @@zephmarie55! What a nice compliment. Your words inspire to create more of these music videos. However, it's really the song "Stella Blue" that generates the magic here isn't it. I am just an old retired and bored Dead Head trying to give back a very little bit of the incredible amount of magic they gave me in song over the years.

[@zephmarie55]

@@BluebirdBridge You're welcome! You've done what you set out to do. I think you should do another if/when you are so inspired to do so! I only get YT messages on gmail which I don't use much and just happened to check today and saw your reply. Glad I did! 💗

[@vancegilmore245]

Very deep song about what remains when all is said and done and the players have left the building.😔🌛

[@BluebirdBridge]

Yeah, the lyrics of this song takes that feeling you describe into one of deep solitude. "Stella Blue" always made me feel so alone without words to describe reality because words are just mere metaphors. And then, "when you hear that song..." I begin to feel connected again.🐦

[@rogueninja1685]

Reading the comments, just saw you did all of this in Blender. No joke, this is an incredible creation. Blender was the hardest program I ever tackled. I built a couple of Dead ringtone apps about 10 years ago for the same reasons you mentioned. I did everything in Blender. What great memories They should run this at the Sphere one night!

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thanks for your kind remarks. I am retired so I took the time needed to learn how to use some of Blender's features. I have much more to learn. For example you can use Blender to map a video so that you can insert 3D objects into it. I need to learn that from some KZbin Blender Tutorial. Bobby says they are not capable of rendering video in the Sphere that has been animated with the band's audio in real time. I am not sure that is completely true if they were to use MIDI to animate. In The Grateful Dead Jerry had a MIDI pickup on his guitar and I think Bobby used a MIDI guitar too. But I don't know. I rendered this video in 1920 x 1080 pixels. It took 14 hours to render 6.5 minutes of music at 30 frames per second. The Sphere boasts 1.2 million pixels.

[@tomzeman5964]

Jerry's favorite flavor & my mother's flavorite color God blessed

[@Zarcon2008]

As a child of the sixties, a partier, a stoner and a midnight groaner, I never knew one soul who ever listened to these guys including me. They appear to have a very select niche audience.

[@BluebirdBridge]

I was there imbibing too. I finally finished school at 50 years old and many of the teachers I had, who were my age, understood that the Grateful Dead was a great band musically but the young students not so much. Twenty years later, there seems to be more interest from the young people. But, back in the day you even had to be careful what you said about them.🐦

[@lostagain6518]

It seems like another life and it truly was much more musical and meaningful. Great job ! It means alot thank-you. I needed that feeling..

[@BluebirdBridge]

Well said, and thank you for your comments.

[@cevinwillson9113]

Bob Dylan has been playing this song at the end of the show it's pretty cool that the last words that he sings are Stella Blue a Grateful Dead song

[@BluebirdBridge]

Wow, I did not know that. Thanks, for pointing it out. I always loved Dylan's songs. Especially, when the Grateful Dead played them. We saw Dylan once or twice at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia in the 1990s or 2000s. We also saw Dylan and the Dead at RFK in the late 1980s. They all were excellent shows.🐦

[@BluebirdBridge]

I just listened to Dylan singing "Stella Blue" in Rochester, NY Oct 23, 2023. I love Dylan and he sang it well, but, he rushes the lyric for me. Jerry sang it perfectly in my mind. I had to go listen to a Jerry version from the 1970s to cleanse my palette. 🐦

[@davidkotze4140]

Lovely ! Thanks for sharing your 😊❤

[@BluebirdBridge]

You're quite welcome.

[@cythegrateful]

One of the best songs and chord progressions !!

[@BluebirdBridge]

I agree wholeheartedly! The first time I played it on the guitar myself it sounded so good. It's a song that just draws you into it's sonic beauty. But, those lyrics, they pull you in further and your left unable to do anything. You just dream.

[@roddevere2975]

Super nice. Thank you. It's a special song.

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thank you for watching. It's one of those Grateful Dead songs that is far beyond the words to praise it.

[@roddevere2975]

@@BluebirdBridge Yes.

[@draytonsawyer007]

that's 2 Cool magnificent & there's even Donna Jean>>Beautiful 💯

[@donhancock7992]

What beautiful art expression

[@lawrenceelliott2890]

Love!

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thank you. It's all love man. We just don't look at it enough.

[@BluebirdBridge]

I just found out that the image I used to create Jerry's Rig is from the 1990s. I used that image of his rig that I found on Google but I did not know when it was from. The pedals he used did look like they were from the 1990s but I was not sure. I found the images of Bobby's and Phil's rigs in the same way but I am not sure where they are from. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mYPMq6uNhJaIkNk

[@gregdahlke6997]

This is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Gorgeous! I'm still not sure the story behind how you created this video with this music, I'm looking forward to learning about more of what you guys are doing. And definitely seeing and listening to more of the videos you create. You guys made my weekend!

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thank you for your nice comment. I use the program called Blender at Blender.org that I have learned how to use over the past few years since I retired. There are thousands of Blender Tutorials on KZbin. From these tutorials I learned out how to animate the skeletons using Mixamo.com animations. I have also added some animations of my own. Blender allows an audio file to move or animate anything. You can animate the arms of the skeletons or the colors in the kaleidoscopes. Once I have the Blender file created it is rendered frame-by-frame which usually takes 12 hours to make the movie on my PC. Once these Blender files are created they can be added to and reused for other music. I also use Cakewalk Sonar for audio mixing. I learned how to use that a long time ago to make music with my wife. I really just wanted to make music videos of our music but then The Grateful Dead put out that "Separate Tracks" on Dead.net - www.dead.net/playingintheband so I used the tracks in the same way. Actually, the animations for our music are a little better because I have more detailed audio recordings and I have a MIDI track for the piano.🐦

[@Emo_zeldaxXprinceXx]

Been eating cherry garcia all day to this.

[@marttram2183]

I fkn love Ben and Jerry's

[@SanFranciscoFatboy]

very creative excellant thing :)

[@ChristopherPesqueira]

So cool! ❤🙏

[@BluebirdBridge]

Thank you so much. My wife and I also have practiced Knowledge (aka Raja Yoga) for fifty years this July. www.youtube.com/@wopgyt

[@psychobilly09]

Mellow

[@oil2281]

❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍