Grateful Dead biography
Rock's longest, strangest trip, the
Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as
well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love,
and mind-expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three
decades. The object of adoration for popular music's most fervent and
celebrated fan following -- the Deadheads, their numbers and devotion legendary
in their own right -- they were the ultimate cult band, creating a self-styled
universe all their own; for the better part of their career orbiting well
outside of the mainstream, the Dead became superstars solely on their own
terms, tie-dyed pied pipers whose epic, free-form live shows were rites of
passage for an extended family of listeners who knew no cultural boundaries.
The roots of the Grateful Dead lie with
singer/songwriter Jerry Garcia, a longtime bluegrass
enthusiast who began playing the guitar at age 15. Upon relocating to
The Warlocks made their electric debut that July; Ken Kesey soon tapped them to become the house band at his
notorious Acid Tests, a series of now-legendary public LSD parties and
multimedia "happenings" mounted prior to the drug's criminalization. As
1965 drew to its close, the Warlocks rechristened themselves the Grateful Dead,
the name taken from a folk tale discovered in a dictionary by Garcia;
bankrolled by chemist/LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley, the band members soon
moved into a communal house situated at 710 Ashbury
Street in San Francisco, becoming a fixture on the local music scene and
building a large fan base on the strength of their many free concerts. Signing
to MGM, in 1966 the Dead also recorded their first demos; the sessions proved
disastrous, and the label dropped the group a short time later.
As 1967 mutated into the Summer of Love, the Dead
emerged as one of the top draws on the Bay Area music scene, honing an eclectic
repertoire influenced by folk, country, and the blues while regularly appearing
at top local venues including the Fillmore Auditorium, the Avalon Ballroom, and
the Carousel. In March of 1967 the Dead issued their self-titled Warner Bros.
debut LP, a disappointing effort which failed to recapture the cosmic sprawl of
their live appearances; after performing at the Monterey Pop Festival, the
group expanded to a six-piece with the addition of second drummer Mickey Hart. Their
follow-up, 1968's Anthem of the Sun, fared better in documenting the free-form
jam aesthetic of their concerts, but after completing 1969's Aoxomoxoa, their penchant for time-consuming studio
experimentation left them over 100,000 dollars in debt to the label.
The Dead's response to the
situation was to bow to the demands of fans and record their first live album,
1969's Live/Dead; highlighted by a rendition of Garcia's "Dark Star"
clocking in at over 23 minutes, the LP succeeded where its studio predecessors
failed in capturing the true essence of the group in all of their
improvisational, psychedelicized glory. It was
followed by a pair of classic 1970 studio efforts, Workingman's Dead and
American Beauty; recorded in homage to the group's country and folk roots, the
two albums remained the cornerstone of the Dead's
live repertoire for years to follow, with its most popular songs -- "Uncle
John's Band," "Casey Jones," "Sugar Magnolia," and
"Truckin'" among them -- becoming major favorites on FM radio.
Despite increasing radio airplay and respectable album
sales, the Dead remained first and foremost a live act, and as their popularity
grew across the world they expanded their touring schedule, taking to the road
for much of each year. As more and more of their psychedelic-era contemporaries
ceased to exist, the group continued attracting greater numbers of fans to
their shows, many of them following the Dead across the country; dubbed
"Deadheads," these fans became notorious for their adherence to
tie-dyed fashions and excessive drug use, their traveling
circus ultimately becoming as much the focal point of concert dates as the
music itself. Shows were also extensively bootlegged, and not surprisingly the
Dead closed out their Warners contract with
back-to-back concert LPs -- a 1971 eponymous effort and 1972's
The latter release was the final Dead album to feature
Pigpen McKernan, a heavy drinker who died of liver
failure on March 8, 1973; his replacement was keyboardist Keith Godchaux, who brought with him wife Donna Jean to sing
backing vocals. 1973's Wake of the Flood was the first release on the new
Grateful Dead Records imprint; around the time of its follow-up, 1974's
Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel, the group took a hiatus from the road to
allow its members the opportunity to pursue solo projects. After returning to
the live arena with a 1976 tour, the Dead signed to Arista
to release Terrapin Station, the first in a series of misguided studio efforts
that culminated in 1980's Go to Heaven, widely considered the weakest record in
the group's catalog -- so weak, in fact, that they
did not re-enter the studio for another seven years.
The early '80s was a time of considerable upheaval for
the Dead -- the Godchauxs had been dismissed from the
lineup in 1979, with Keith dying in a car crash on
July 23, 1980. (His replacement was keyboardist Brent Mydland.)
After a pair of 1981 live LPs, Reckoning and Dead Set, the group released no
new recordings until 1987, focusing instead on their touring schedule --
despite the dearth of new releases, the Dead continued selling out live dates,
now playing to audiences which spanned generations. As much a cottage industry
as a band, they traveled not only with an enormous
road crew but also dozens of friends and family members, many of them Dead
staffers complete with health insurance and other benefits.
Still, the Dead were widely regarded as little more
than an enduring cult phenomenon prior to the release of 1987's In the Dark;
their first studio LP since Go to Heaven, it became the year's most unlikely
hit when the single "Touch of Grey" became the first-ever Dead track
to reach the Top Ten on the pop charts. Suddenly their videos were in regular
rotation on MTV, and virtually overnight the ranks of the Deadheads grew
exponentially, with countless new fans flocking to the group's shows. Not only
did concert tickets become increasingly tough to come by for longtime followers, but there were also more serious
repercussions -- the influx of new fans shifted the crowd dynamic considerably,
and once-mellow audiences became infamous not only for their excessive drug
habits but also for their violent encounters with police.
Other troubles plagued the Dead as well: in July 1986,
Garcia -- a year removed from a drug treatment program -- lapsed into
near-fatal diabetic coma brought on by his continued substance abuse problems,
regaining consciousness five days later. His health remained an issue in the
years which followed, but the Dead spent more time on tour than ever, with a
series of dates with Bob Dylan yielding the live album Dylan & the Dead. Their
final studio effort, Built to Last, followed in 1989. Tragedy struck in October
of that year when a fan died after breaking his neck outside of a show at the
New Jersey Meadowlands; two months later, a 19-year-old fan on LSD also died
while in police custody at the Los Angeles Forum.
As ever, the Dead themselves were also not immune to
tragedy -- on July 26, 1990, Mydland suffered a fatal
drug overdose, the third keyboardist in group history to perish; he was
replaced not only by ex-Tubes keyboardist Vince Welnick
but also by satellite member Bruce Hornsby, a longtime
fan who frequently toured with the group. In the autumn of 1992 Garcia was
again hospitalized with diabetes and an enlarged heart, forcing the Dead to
postpone their upcoming tour until the year's end; he eventually returned to
action looking more fit than he had in years. Still,
few were surprised when it was announced on August 9, 1995, that Garcia had
been found dead in his room at a substance abuse treatment facility in Forest
Knolls, CA; the 53 year old's death was attributed to
a heart attack.
While Garcia's death spelled the end of the Dead as a
continuing creative entity, the story was far from over. As the surviving
members disbanded to plot their next move, the band's merchandising arm went
into overdrive -- in addition to Dick's Picks, a series of archival releases of
classic live material, licensed products ranging from Dead T-shirts to sporting
goods to toys flooded the market. Plans were also announced to build Terrapin
Station, an interactive museum site. In 1996, Weir and Hart mounted the first Furthur Festival, a summer tour headlined by their
respective bands RatDog and Mystery Box; in 1998,
they also reunited with Lesh and Hornsby to tour as
the Other Ones. In spirit if not in name, the Grateful Dead's
trip continued on. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide