Yeah, I recently heard me some NRPS on Sirius/XM Deep Tracks from the first album, and it sounded really sweet. It's a well-recorded album, with some of Garcia's best pedal steel work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Riders_of_the_Purple_Sage_(album)
I also think Panama Red is not as good as the stuff off the first album, or most of the second album either.
I thought for certain that Panama Red was the kind of song that would catch Fogheads' fancy
and predicted it would take BOS when I requested it. But when it aired, it sounded kind of "flat,"
although I still enjoy the lyrical wordplay. More puzzling than their general omission from 10@10
is that I've
never heard them during regular programming, even when the playlist skewed
more toward older material.