Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 is a live album by the Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, consisting of two CDs and one DVD. It was recorded at the Gizah Sound and Light Theater in Giza, near Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 on September 15 and 16, 1978.

Most of the tracks on the DVD also appear on the two CDs. Besides the concert material, the DVD includes a 15 minute feature called The Vacation Tapes, containing footage, shot on 8 mm film

8 mm film

8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or Double 8 mm, and Super 8...

, of the band and crew visiting tourist attractions in Egypt.

A bonus disc of additional tracks recorded at these dates was included with early shipments of the album.

The Egypt tapes

The Grateful Dead only played three concerts in Egypt in their thirty-year history — September 14, 15, and 16, 1978. The shows were performed very close to the Sphinx

Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza , commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt....

 and the Great Pyramid

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...

. A total lunar eclipse

Lunar eclipse

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes behind the Earth so that the Earth blocks the Sun's rays from striking the Moon. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, a lunar eclipse can only occur the night of a...

 occurred during the third concert.

A live album was planned to be made of these shows, but on listening to the recordings, the producers found that the first night and most of the second night were unusable due to technical problems. Then the recording of the their 1978 album Shakedown Street

Shakedown Street

Shakedown Street is the tenth studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was released on November 15, 1978 by Arista.The album was released for the first time on CD in 1990 by Arista Records before being re-released in 2000 by BMG International. It was then remastered, expanded, and released as part of...

took most of their energy, and the idea of the live album was quickly abandoned. Thirty years later, the album was finally released, consisting of the tracks that were usable.

The track "Ollin Arageed" is a song by Nubian

Nubians

The Nubians are an ethnic group originally from northern Sudan, and southern Egypt now inhabiting North Africa and some parts of East Africa....

 oud

Oud

The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...

 player Hamza El Din

Hamza El Din

Hamza Alaa El Din was a Nubian composer, oud player, tar player, and vocalist.-Early life:Born in the village of Toshka, near Wadi Halfa in southern Egypt, he was originally trained to be an electrical engineer...

. This version of the song was previously released (along with "Fire on the Mountain

Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead song)

"Fire on the Mountain" is a song by the Grateful Dead. It was written by lyricist Robert Hunter and composed by drummer Mickey Hart. It was commercially released on the album Shakedown Street in November 1978. An earlier instrumental version of this song titled "Happiness is Drumming" appeared in...

" and "Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee (song)

"Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee", "Stackerlee", "Stack O'Lee", "Stack-a-Lee" and several other variants, is a popular folk song based on the murder of William "Billy" Lyons by Stagger Lee Shelton...

") on the remastered issue of Shakedown Street. There is only one other officially released version, on the album Road Trips Volume 1 Number 4

Road Trips Volume 1 Number 4

Road Trips Volume 1 Number 4 is two-CD live album by the American rock band the Grateful Dead. The fourth in their "Road Trips" series of albums, it was released on September 30, 2008. It was recorded at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, California, on October 21 and 22, 1978.A third,...

.

Disc one

1. "Jack Straw
   Jack Straw (song)
   Jack Straw is a rock song written by Bob Weir and Robert Hunter in the Troubadour tradition. The track appeared on the Grateful Dead album, Europe '72, and was frequently performed live by the band....
   
   " (Robert Hunter
   Robert Hunter (lyricist)
   Robert C. Hunter is an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his association with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.-Biography:He was born Robert Burns in San Luis Obispo, California...
   
   , Bob Weir
   Bob Weir
   Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead...
   
   ) – 6:44
2. "Row Jimmy" (Hunter, Jerry Garcia
   Jerry Garcia
   Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
   
   ) – 11:46
3. "New Minglewood Blues" (Noah Lewis
   Noah Lewis
   Noah Lewis was an American jug band and country blues musician, generally known for playing the harmonica.-Life and career:...
   
   ) – 6:26
4. "Candyman" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:29
5. "Looks Like Rain" (John Barlow
   John Perry Barlow
   John Perry Barlow is an American poet and essayist, a retired Wyoming cattle rancher, and a cyberlibertarian political activist who has been associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties. He is also a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic...
   
   , Weir) – 8:52
6. "Stagger Lee
   Stagger Lee (song)
   "Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee", "Stackerlee", "Stack O'Lee", "Stack-a-Lee" and several other variants, is a popular folk song based on the murder of William "Billy" Lyons by Stagger Lee Shelton...
   
   " (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:30
7. "I Need a Miracle" (Barlow, Weir) – 5:45 >
8. "It's All Over Now
   It's All Over Now
   "It's All Over Now" was written by Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack. It was first released by The Valentinos featuring Bobby Womack. The Valentinos version entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 27, 1964, where it stayed on the chart for two weeks, peaking at No. 94...
   
   " (Bobby Womack
   Bobby Womack
   Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...
   
   , Shirley Womack) – 7:40
9. "Deal" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:04

Disc two

1. "Ollin Arageed" (Hamza El Din
   Hamza El Din
   Hamza Alaa El Din was a Nubian composer, oud player, tar player, and vocalist.-Early life:Born in the village of Toshka, near Wadi Halfa in southern Egypt, he was originally trained to be an electrical engineer...
   
   ) – 6:56 >
2. "Fire on the Mountain
   Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead song)
   "Fire on the Mountain" is a song by the Grateful Dead. It was written by lyricist Robert Hunter and composed by drummer Mickey Hart. It was commercially released on the album Shakedown Street in November 1978. An earlier instrumental version of this song titled "Happiness is Drumming" appeared in...
   
   " (Hunter, Mickey Hart
   Mickey Hart
   Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
   
   ) – 14:06 >
3. "Iko Iko
   Iko Iko
   "Iko Iko" is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two "tribes" of Mardi Gras Indians. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written in 1953 by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford in New Orleans. The story tells of a "spy boy" or "spy dog" "Iko Iko" is a...
   
   " (James "Sugar Boy" Crawford
   James "Sugar Boy" Crawford
   James "Sugar Boy" Crawford is a New Orleans R&B artist. He is the author of the classic "Jock-A-Mo" in 1954, a hit that was later recreated as "Iko Iko", by The Dixie Cups and redone by many artists including Dr...
   
   ) – 7:03
4. "Shakedown Street
   Shakedown Street (song)
   "Shakedown Street" is a song by the Grateful Dead. It was written by lyricist Robert Hunter and composed by guitarist Jerry Garcia. It was released as the title track on the album Shakedown Street in November of 1978.The song was first performed live on August 31, 1978 at the Red Rocks...
   
   " (Hunter, Garcia) – 15:31 >
5. "Drums" (Hart, Bill Kreutzman) – 3:31 >
6. "Space" (Garcia, Keith Godchaux
   Keith Godchaux
   Keith Richard Godchaux was a musician best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead.-Biography:Keith Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up in Concord, California...
   
   , Phil Lesh
   Phil Lesh
   Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career....
   
   , Weir) – 2:26 >
7. "Truckin'
   Truckin'
   "Truckin'" is a song by the Grateful Dead, which first appeared on their 1970 album American Beauty. It was recognized by the United States Library of Congress in 1997 as a national treasure....
   
   " (Hunter, Garcia, Lesh, Weir) – 10:14 >
8. "Stella Blue" (Hunter, Garcia) – 8:19 >
9. "Around and Around
   Around and Around
   "Around and Around" is a 1958 rock song written and first recorded by Chuck Berry. It originally appeared under the name "Around & Around" as the B-side to the single "Johnny B. Goode".- The Rolling Stones :...
   
   " (Chuck Berry
   Chuck Berry
   Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
   
   ) – 8:21

Disc three (DVD)

1. "Bertha" (Hunter, Garcia) – 5:30 >
2. "Good Lovin'" (Arthur Resnick, Rudy Clark
   Rudy Clark
   Rudy Clark is an American songwriter about whom little biographical information seems to be known. Supposedly a former mail carrier hailing from New York City, he was most active from the early 1960s through the early 1970s...
   
   ) – 7:52
3. "Row Jimmy" (Hunter, Garcia) – 11:20
4. "New Minglewood Blues" (Lewis) – 6:07
5. "Candyman" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:08
6. "Looks Like Rain" (Barlow, Weir) – 8:33
7. "Deal" (Hunter, Garcia) – 6:52
8. "Ollin Arageed" (El Din) – 7:49 >
9. "Fire on the Mountain" (Hunter, Hart) – 9:12 >
10. "Iko Iko" (Crawford) – 6:04
11. "I Need a Miracle" (Barlow, Weir) – 5:54 >
12. "It's All Over Now" (B. Womack, S. Womack) – 3:30
13. "Truckin'" (Hunter, Garcia, Lesh, Weir) – 9:23

Bonus Disc

1. "Bertha" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:03 >
2. "Good Lovin'" (Resnick, Clark
   Rudy Clark
   Rudy Clark is an American songwriter about whom little biographical information seems to be known. Supposedly a former mail carrier hailing from New York City, he was most active from the early 1960s through the early 1970s...
   
   ) – 7:55
3. "El Paso
   El Paso (song)
   "El Paso" is a country and western ballad written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and first released on Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in September 1959. It was released as a single the following month, and became a major hit on both the country and pop music charts, reaching number...
   
   " (Marty Robbins
   Marty Robbins
   Martin David Robinson , known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist...
   
   ) – 4:58
4. "Ramble on Rose" (Hunter, Garcia) – 7:51
5. "Estimated Prophet" (Barlow, Weir) – 12:00 >
6. "Eyes of the World" (Hunter, Garcia) – 13:26 >
7. "Lady With a Fan" / "Terrapin Station" (Hunter, Garcia) – 11:35 >
8. "Sugar Magnolia
   Sugar Magnolia
   "Sugar Magnolia" is a song by the Grateful Dead. Written by Robert Hunter and Bob Weir, it is one of the most well-known songs by the band, alongside such hits as "Truckin'," "Casey Jones," "Uncle John's Band," and "Touch of Grey."...
   
   " / "Sunshine Daydream" (Hunter, Weir) – 10:42

Grateful Dead

• Jerry Garcia
  Jerry Garcia
  Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
  
   – lead guitar
  Lead guitar
  Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
  
  , vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Donna Jean Godchaux – vocals
• Keith Godchaux
  Keith Godchaux
  Keith Richard Godchaux was a musician best known for his tenure in the rock group the Grateful Dead.-Biography:Keith Godchaux was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up in Concord, California...
  
   – keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  
• Mickey Hart
  Mickey Hart
  Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
  
   - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Bill Kreutzmann
  Bill Kreutzmann
  Bill Kreutzmann is an American drummer who played with the rock band the Grateful Dead for their entire thirty-year career...
  
   – drums
• Phil Lesh
  Phil Lesh
  Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career....
  
   – electric bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Bob Weir
  Bob Weir
  Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead...
  
   – rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
  , vocals

Guest musicians

• Hamza El Din
  Hamza El Din
  Hamza Alaa El Din was a Nubian composer, oud player, tar player, and vocalist.-Early life:Born in the village of Toshka, near Wadi Halfa in southern Egypt, he was originally trained to be an electrical engineer...
  
   - vocals, oud
  Oud
  The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
  
  , tar
  Tar (drum)
  A tar is a single-headed frame drum. The tar comes from North Africa and the Middle East. Depictions of these frame drums date back thousands of years....
  
  , hand clapping on "Ollin Arageed"
• The Nubian Youth Choir - vocals, hand clapping, tar on "Ollin Arageed"

Production

• Concert executive producer – Richard Loren
• Concert sound – Dan Healy
  Dan Healy (soundman)
  Dan Healy is an audio engineer most famous for his work with the American rock band the Grateful Dead. He succeeded Owsley "Bear" Stanley as the group's chief sound man...
  
  
• Concert video – Gary Biddle
• Sound recording – John Kahn
  John Kahn
  John Kahn was an American rock bass player. For a period of about twenty five years Kahn was Jerry Garcia's principal collaborator outside of the Grateful Dead.-Biography:...
  
  , Betty Cantor-Jackson, Bob Matthews
• PA system and recording equipment provided by The Who
  The Who
  The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
  
  
• Lighting director – Candace Brightman
• Video documentary – Richard Loren
• Compilation produced by – David Lemieux
• Stereo and 5.1 mix – Jeffrey Norman at Garage Audio, Petaluma, CA
• Concert video post-production at Video Arts, San Francisco
• Concert video mastering – David Glasser at Airshow Mastering
• CD mastering – Jeffrey Norman
• Audio restoration – Jamie Howarth / Plangent Processes
• Audiovisual research – Mike Johnson
• Archival research – Eileen Law / Grateful Dead Archives
• Cover art – Kelley
• Art direction – Steve Vance, Scott Webber
• Package design – Steve Vance
• Pop-up art – Scott McDougall
• Liner notes essay "A Venue for Recollection" – Alan Trist
• Dedicated to the memory of Jerry Garcia, Keith Godchaux, John Kahn, Hamza El Din, Lawrence "Ramrod" Shurtliff
  Laurence Shurtliff
  Laurence Shurtliff , also spelled Lawrence Shurtliff and a.k.a., Ram Rod, was President of Grateful Dead Productions, Inc., from 1976, the year that the Grateful Dead incorporated, until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995...
  
  , Goldie Rush, Ken Kesey
  Ken Kesey
  Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
  
  , Alton Kelly, Bill Graham
  Bill Graham (promoter)
  Bill Graham was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.-Early life:...
  
  , Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin
  Menachem Begin
  ' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
  
  

Recording dates

• Disc 1 tracks 1 & 6, bonus disc tracks 5–8: September 15, 1978
• Disc 1 tracks 2–5,7-9 discs 2 & 3, bonus disc tracks 1–4: September 16, 1978

Charts

Album - Billboard

Year	Chart	Position
2008	The Billboard 200	35