There are lots of superfan communities, think Trekkies, Swifties, Packers fans, Elvis fans, and The BeyHive, to name a few. Among them is a generation-spanning group that began with folks now sporting more than a touch of grey 鈥� The DeadHeads, the tie-dyed, die-hard fans of the Grateful Dead. I count myself as a DeadHead, hopping on the bus in the mid 鈥�80s after The Dead released the album In The Dark, which gave them their first chart-topper, 20-some years into a successful career.
Now, roughly 30 years after the death of singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia, legacy acts featuring members of the original line-up and a lengthy list of tribute bands still sell out large venues with fans from every generation since the 鈥�60s. What is it about this band, their music and the DeadHead community that has kept it going for so long?
As a kid, I missed the cultural phenomenon of the Grateful Dead. They were a band I was never exposed to. In 1987, at age 19, I was into 鈥�80s metal and classic rock, especially Rush and Pink Floyd. Someone suggested I go to a Grateful Dead concert. They were touring with Bob Dylan. Other than 罢谤耻肠办颈苍鈥� and the new album, I was unfamiliar with their music and completely unaware of the way they put on a live show and the community that followed them from show to show setting up mini-cities outside the venues they played.
My concert-going experience, only a few years old at the time, had been run-of-the-mill rock and roll from the 鈥�80s where band members would shout 鈥淎re You Ready to Rock!?鈥� amid lights and flash pots to excite the crowd. With a name like Grateful Dead, I was expecting theatrics. On my way to the show, I distinctly remember playing the self-titled Whitesnake album on the high-dollar stereo system in my $500 Corolla. I don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e listened to that album since that day.
We stayed in the parking lot outside Autzen Stadium in Eugene the night before the show and took in the sights and sounds of the all-night party. It was a sea of tie-dye with music everywhere, food, merchandise, and, yes, drugs of all sorts. This wasn鈥檛 always welcomed in a lot of cities that hosted Dead shows. The community, however, banded together to keep the peace. This included volunteer medics to help with emergencies and talk people down from bad trips. They even adopted something like a code of ethics that reminded people to keep it to the parking lot and not adjacent neighborhoods. Attendees looked after each other.
The next day, as the show began, there was no big announcement. The band casually walked on stage and began fiddling with their instruments. Minutes later the noodling turned into the song Iko Iko. Still unsure what was going on, I began dancing with 20,000 other strangers. Throughout the show, there were only a few songs I recognized and I was a little put off by some of the endless improvisation that didn鈥檛 make much sense to a hard core Rush fan. I was intrigued however by the scene, and noted that when they were playing the structured parts of their songs, the grooves were tight and complex and the soloing, especially by Jerry Garcia and keyboardist Brent Mydland, was deep and creative. The second set staple, an improv, Drums, caught my attention as Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman created infectious rhythms and quadraphonic thunder in the stadium. Without realizing it, I became a fan that day.
Initially my attraction was to the scene. It was fun, a little crazy, but felt generally safe and positive. With college and work and the Army Reserve, I never had the time to follow the band from show to show. A little part of me wishes I had been a little less responsible and done so anyway.
From their mid-鈥�60s beginnings in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Grateful Dead became key figures in the counterculture movement. They played free concerts. They experimented with psychedelic drugs, especially LSD. They were the house band for many of Ken Kesey鈥檚 acid tests, all the while developing the long-form experimental improvisations that became key parts of their live shows.
Owsley Stanley, aka 鈥淏ear鈥� was their sound engineer, and clandestine chemist who was known for making the LSD that helped fuel the movement. Additionally, he developed a sound system the band used only for about a year due to its size and weight. The Wall of Sound as it was known, revolutionized stadium sound by piping each instrument and each vocal, as well as each string on the bass and individual drum to its own monitor to create a distortion-free sound.
Bucking the system, the Grateful Dead chose to do all their own merchandising and ticket sales for much of their career. In what turned out to be a genius marketing idea, they let fans record their shows, relying on an honor system that these tapes could be shared and traded but not sold. This gave them free advertising which led to ticket and merchandise sales. You can find a recording, some better than others, of almost all of their shows. One of the missing shows was from February of 1968 at what was then called Southern Oregon College (now Southern Oregon University which is home to JPR).
Tradition and groovy scene aside, eventually my love for The Dead became about the songs. The band worked with two lyricists. Robert Hunter whose love of literature and prose found its way into a lot of their songs often taking on the work of classic writers intertwined with his own interpretations. John Perry Barlow was a childhood friend of singer/guitarist Bob Weir. In addition to writing for the band, he was a novelist, poet and activist. This resulted in songs that didn鈥檛 lend themselves to pop radio airplay, but gave them more depth and meaning. Their catalog includes cowboy poetry, mystical journeys, and some songs whose meanings remain mysterious.
The lyrics provided a canvas for the experimental nature of the music behind them. Their songs were structured around blues, country and rock and roll, but the way they went about composing (or more to the point, playing with the sound until they found a groove) made it different. A music journalist whose name escapes me once panned a live show saying that it sounded like six people soloing at the same time. The DeadHeads, practically in unison responded with 鈥渢hat鈥檚 the point." Unlike a traditional rock sound where the kick drum and bass tend to play the same beat and the rhythm guitar follows the snare drum, each member of the band played their own line. When they met in the middle is where the magic occurred. Several distinct parts, like a jigsaw puzzle, revealed a complete picture. Rhythm guitarist Bob Weir is well known for intricate chord voicings. Bassist Phil Lesh, originally a jazz trumpet player, played bass lines that kept rhythm but also added creative low end melodies to counter the keyboard and guitar lines. Two drummers, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart provided the beat with enough room for Hart to add innovative percussion to the sound. This all created a great platform for solos, primarily from the keyboardist (which was sadly, a rotating position due to a couple of deaths along the way) and Jerry Garcia鈥檚 masterful, outside-the-box guitar work.
It鈥檚 taken quite a while, but judging from the respect now given to The Dead by other musicians, their influence is wide. The list extends beyond obvious bands like Phish and String Cheese Incident, to bands like The National who spearheaded a 2016 multi-artist tribute, Day of the Dead, to benefit HIV/AIDs research. Day of the Dead had contributions from War on Drugs, Courtney Barnett, Phosphorescent, and Mumford and Sons to name a few.
Other artists that have called The Dead influential include Vampire Weekend and Sturgill Simpson, who recently called Jerry Garcia his favorite guitar player after learning some Grateful Dead songs for a legacy act he joined at the invitation of Bob Weir. Simpson credits learning these songs with helping him stay interested in making music.
Grateful Dead songs have been covered in jazz, bluegrass and country. The band Dark Star Orchestra is a major touring act who have now played more shows than the Grateful Dead themselves. They continue to play entire Grateful Dead concerts, song for song, mirroring shows the band played at different points in their career 鈥� even matching the instrumentation, technology and vibe from the original material.
Legacy acts like Dead & Co, which featured original members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman alongside John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, are wildly popular. They played a 30-night residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024 and are getting back together for another run in 2025.
Phil Lesh and Friends began as a side project and has included a rotating line-up of accomplished musicians. More so than other legacy acts, they stayed true to the original free-form format of the Grateful Dead. Lesh instructed his guests specifically not to try to capture the original sound, but to do their own experimentation and make the songs their own.
Phil Lesh passed away this fall, leaving only three original band members. The family of musicians that have spent time with this music, however, seem poised to pass on its soul and spirit to their musical comrades, keeping this important song catalog and vibe alive for future generations.
For a band outside the mainstream, even feared by some, The Grateful Dead managed to be at the forefront of a lot of late 20th century culture. They pioneered how to manage the business end of music and were innovators of live sound technology. And they continue to create lasting memories for new fans 60 years after they were founded.
Though I鈥檝e tried to describe them, I鈥檓 reminded of a line in their song The 老夫子传媒 Never Stopped. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e a band beyond description.鈥�
