American Beauty (album)

American Beauty is the fifth studio album (and sixth overall) by American rock band the Grateful Dead. Released in November 1970, by Warner Bros. Records, the album continued the folk rock and country music style of their previous album Workingman's Dead, released earlier in the year.

Upon release, American Beauty entered the Billboard 200 chart, ultimately peaking at number 30 during a nineteen-week stay in January 1971. On July 11, 1974, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and it later achieved Platinum and double Platinum certification in 1986 and 2001, respectively. 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.

Recording

American 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. This was the only time the band would return to the studio so quickly. 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. 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.