Q. Was May 8, 1977, the Grateful Dead's best show? A. It depends on who you ask

Ben Ratliff has a cover story on Grateful Dead recordings in The New York Times Magazine this week that attempts to answer this burning question. It's also a very good story on the Dead, Deadheads and the whole taping phenomenon.

Content advisory: You have to be awfully interested in the Grateful Dead to follow some of this. To want to follow it, in fact.

But Ratliff has been the jazz and pop critic for The New York Times since 1996, and he knows how to write about the arts. He also knows how to interview artists and fans ... who to talk to ... what to ask ... how to work the quotes into the story. Also: How to write about music without putting people to sleep.

Barton weighs the evidence for a concert May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, Cornell University. Rather he lets an expert weigh it:

DAVID LEMIEUX has been the tape archivist and CD producer for the Grateful Dead’s official archival releases since 1999. Mr. Lemieux said he has listened to the Cornell concert “virtually weekly” since the late ’80s.

What’s so great about that show? I asked him.

The group had just finished making the studio album “Terrapin Station,” which included a long and intricate suite sharing the album’s title; it was well practiced. Garcia had just completed editing of “The Grateful Dead Movie,” a concert documentary of sorts, and a long and costly ordeal. Perhaps the members felt unburdened and retrospective: the set list made an even sweep of the band’s career up to that point, from the early-repertory “Morning Dew,” with its cathartic but carefully paced five-minute solo by Garcia, to the up-to-date “Estimated Prophet.” (Much has also been made, by those who were there, about the Fátima-esque appearance of snow on that May evening.)

But Barton also asked surviving members of the Dead (as the off-again on-again band calls itself since Jerry Garcia's death). Their answers:

Since Mr. Hart obviously sees his time with the Dead as a journey, what does he say when someone starts asking him about the specifics of a single night, brandishing dates and concert-hall names?

“I say ‘Yes,’ ” he said. “I always say ‘Yes.’ ”

Mr. Lesh said he thinks along remarkably similar lines. He remembers the free shows, the early years, ’75 to ’77, parts of the late ’80s. He doesn’t remember Cornell ’77. “I haven’t listened to Cornell for a long time,” he said in a telephone interview. Was there any sense of immediate recognition, I asked, right after the band finished a great show?

“We may have walked off and looked at each other and said, ‘Whoa,’ ” he said. “But generally there wasn’t a lot of that. Performing takes a lot out of you. Physical and mental energy. When it’s been a good show, you’re kind of drained. ”

And what does he say to the pinpointers, the best-show-ever-ists?

“I appreciate it, and honor it, and, you know, wail on,” he said. “But it’s an individual thing. Maybe they were there. A lot of people gravitate to the shows that they had seen. Since Jerry’s death I get the feeling that a lot of the Heads need to confirm for themselves that it was as good as they thought it was.”

Which is where I think I should leave it.