In Rolling Stone, David Browne wrote, "... Garcia spent several years immersed in bluegrass and folk, playing in a succession of Palo Alto-area bands with oddball names like the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers.

To date, only a small portion of the recordings he made with those combos has been released, making the multi-disc Before the Dead the deepest – and most educational – dive yet into Garcia's pre-Dead musical life.

"[6] In DownBeat, Jesse Jarnow said, "An illuminating new box set, Before the Dead... shines light on Garcia's earliest music – recordings between 1961 and 1964 – most often remembered as his "bluegrass period" for his virtuosic banjo playing.

That, too, became a progression, from the ghostly frailings of the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, recorded in June 1962 ("Little Birdie"), to the shredding Bill Keith style he'd accentuated by his time with the Black Mountain Boys in 1964 ("Salt Creek").

"[7] In Glide Magazine, Doug Collette wrote, "In roughly three and half hours of live and studio recordings, captured in various ways at a variety of locales between 1961 and 1964, Before the Dead documents the late Jerry Garcia's formative years as a musician.

Overflowing with meticulous attention to detail in sound, text and graphics, this 4-CD/5-LP box set reveals how this iconic musician nurtured those attributes that eventually stood him in such good stead as titular leader of the Grateful Dead...