I am one of the mudstickers who think Jerry did his absolute best work on that guitar. I do think the primitive prototype Alembic preamp had something to do with the tone, but he was personally just on fire from 1972 to '74. I have about 15 "Dark Stars" from that era I copped off of sugarmegs.org and loaded onto an iPod, golly. IMO the Mahavishnu Orchestra were instrumental in waking the boys up, they opened for the JGB on one tour (kinda a mismatch) and the Dead were stone cold freaks for the band, they'd fly in to see them on the rare occasions when they weren't touring. The early "Dark Stars" used to get weird with feedback and wahwah'd pick scrapes, but after the Mahavishnu light came on they started using music to go weird and deep - you can hear it in Jerry's note choices and odd timed note groupings. Of course you can't steal McLaughlin licks exactly, even the mighty Jeff Beck only approximates that fire.
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/gd1973-11-11WinterlandArenaSanFranciscoCA.asx
(let it load and skip to 1:51:05, if need be)
I like Wolf and 1977 too, Dick's Pick's 10 is the one I play for people who don't "get" the Dead (cause then they do) but by then the deepest weirdness was already starting to mutate into mere,,, professionalism. :sad1: And the heroin sure didn't help anything, after that. :sad1: :sad1: :sad1: