in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California on March 23, 1975. The set, which also featured Merl Saunders (organ) and Ned Lagin (electric piano), was subsequently released on the bonus disc of Beyond Description). Consideration was given to naming the album after King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who was assassinated after recording began. The band had been told that he was a fan of the Grateful Dead. Ultimately, Hunter considered his lyrics for the title track a requiem for the ruler. The song also references One Thousand and One Nights. Release and cover art The front cover artwork features an iconic image of a frizzy-haired, fiddling skeleton, wearing a crimson thawb and sunglasses, sitting in the window of an ancient rock wall. The work, titled "The Fiddler", was painted in the summer of 1974 by Phillip Garris, and was awarded both the gold medal and the Award of Merit, from the Society of Illustrators. For the cover of the contemporaneous debut album by Kingfish, Garris painted an image with similar elements. (During the Dead's hiatus, Kingfish featured Bob Weir). The back cover art features a similar background with a group portrait of band members, illustrated in relief. Original pressings had a single-sheet insert with lyrics in both English and Arabic. Unusual for a Grateful Dead album are the number of instrumentals: "Slipknot!", both parts of "King Solomon's Marbles", Weir's "Sage & Spirit" and the "Sand Castles and Glass Camels" section of "Blues for Allah". The nearly structureless title suite that closes the album was performed three times in 1975 and then retired, while several other songs written for the album were performed regularly for the rest of the Dead's career; specifically "Crazy Fingers", "The Music Never Stopped" and the "Help on the Way->Slipknot!->Franklin's Tower" sequence (the last section of which was often played separately). Drummer Bill Kreutzmann recalled, "Once we started performing them live … we turned a corner and it was a whole other ball game. Those songs are among our very best and they lived up to their potential. We had to play them live in front of an audience in order for that to happen. Once we let them outside and started taking them for walks, they each had a growth spurt during which they really discovered themselves. The album also contained a group of really experimental songs ("Stronger than Dirt", "Unusual Occurrences in the Desert") that