Grateful Dead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Grateful Dead were an band formed in in . The band was known for its unique and eclectic songwriting style—which fused elements of , , , , , , , and —and for live performances of long . "Their music," wrote, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists.
"
The Grateful Dead's fans, some of whom followed the band from concert to concert for years, were known as and were renowned for their dedication to the band's . Many followers referred to the band simply as The Dead.
The Grateful Dead became the de facto resident band of , with the early sound heavily influenced by -soaked , as well as —some of which is described in their song "The Other One".
[ ] Their musical influences varied widely with input from the of the era, combined with , , , and . These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the world."
A concert poster for the Grateful Dead.
was often seen both by the public and the media as the leader or primary spokesperson for the Grateful Dead, but was reluctant to be seen that way, especially since Garcia and the other group members saw themselves as equal participants and contributors to their collective musical and creative output.
[ ] Garcia, a native of San Francisco, grew up in the . One of his main influences was bluegrass music, and Garcia also performed—on , one of his other great instrumental loves, along with the —in the bluegrass band with .
Classically trained trumpeter played . , the youngest original member of the group, played . played , and was also a group until shortly before his death in at the age of 27.
All of the previously mentioned Grateful Dead members shared in vocal performance of songs. played , and in was joined by a second drummer, native , who also played a wide variety of other instruments. Hart quit the Grateful Dead in , embarrassed by the financial misdealings of his father, Dead money manager , and leaving Kreutzmann once again as the sole percussionist.
One of the Dead's concert staples, "He's Gone" was written about Lenny Hart, and his dishonesty with money. Hart rejoined the Dead for good in . was added as a second keyboardist from to , while Pigpen also played various percussion instruments and sang.
After Constanten's departure, Pigpen reclaimed his position as sole organist. Less than two years later, in late 1971, Pigpen was joined by another keyboardist, , who played alongside Pigpen's . In early , Keith's wife, , joined the Dead as a backing vocalist.
Following the Grateful Dead's "Europe '72" tour, Pigpen's health had degenerated to the point that he could no longer tour with the Dead. His final concert appearance was June 17, 1972 at the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles, California. Keith and Donna left the band in , and joined as keyboardist and vocalist.
Keith Godchaux died in a car accident in . Mydland was the keyboardist for the Dead for 11 years until his in . He became the third Dead keyboardist to pass away.
Almost immediately, former keyboardist joined on keyboards and vocals. From , to , , Welnick was joined by on piano; Hornsby had previously appeared as an irregular sit-in player beginning in and continued as such from 1992 until . Welnick died on , , reportedly a .
and were the band's primary . was the Grateful Dead's for many years; he was also one of the largest suppliers of . [ ].
All eleven members of The Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
They began as The Warlocks, a group formed from the remnants of a Palo Alto jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions.[ ] But as another band was already recording under the "Warlocks" name, the band had to change its name in order to get a recording contract.
[ ] The Warlocks were originally managed by , but Harrison went back to graduate school. After meeting their new manager , they moved to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco. Many bands from this area, such as , , and , went on to national fame, giving San Francisco an image as a center for the of the era.
(Also see entry for the .) Of these bands, the Grateful Dead had members with arguably the highest level of musicianship, including banjo and guitar player Jerry Garcia, bluesman Pigpen, the classically trained Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann. The Grateful Dead most embodied "all the elements of the San Francisco scene and came, therefore, to represent the counterculture to the rest of the country".
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. Some claim it was a , others, the (Tibetan Book Of the Dead), but according to Phil Lesh, in his biography (pp. 62), ".
..Jer (Garcia) picked up an old World Language Dictionary.
..(and).
..In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?
'" The definition there was "A song meant to show a lost soul to the other side." According to the Garcia biography, Captain Trips by Sandy Troy, the band was smoking the psychedelic at the time.
The Grateful Dead’s early music (in the mid 1960s) was part of the process of establishing what "psychedelic music" was, but theirs was essentially a "street party" form of it.
This was natural, because they played psychedelic dances, open-air park events, and closed-street Haight-Ashbury block parties. The Dead were not inclined to fit their music to an established category such as pop rock, blues, folk rock, or country/western. Individual tunes within their repertoire could be identified under one of these stylistic labels, but overall their music drew on all of these genres and more, frequently melding several of them.
Often (both in performance and on recording) the Dead left room for exploratory, spacey soundscapes. Most connoisseurs believe that the Grateful Dead's true spirit was rarely well captured in studio performance. [ ]
The early records reflected the Dead's live repertoire — lengthy instrumental jams with group improvisation, best exemplified by " " — but, lacking the energy of the shows, did not sell well.
The 1969 live album did capture more of their essence, but commercial success did not come until and , both released in 1970. These records largely featured the band's laid-back acoustic musicianship and more traditional song structures.
As the band, and its sound, matured over thirty years of touring, playing, and recording, each member's stylistic contribution became more defined, consistent, and identifiable.
Lesh, who was originally a classically-trained trumpet player with an extensive background in music theory, did not tend to play traditional blues-based bass forms, but opted for more melodic, symphonic and complex lines, often sounding like a second lead guitar. Weir, too, was not a traditional rhythm guitarist, but tended to play jazz-influenced, unique inversions at the upper end of the Dead's sound. The two drummers, Hart and Kreutzman, developed a unique, complex interplay, balancing Hart's cleaner, more structured drumming with Kreutzman's interest in jazz and swing percussion.
Garcia's lead lines were fluid, supple and spare, owing a great deal of their character to his training in fingerpicking and banjo. The overall effect was of an extraordinarily complex, interlocked group of individual instruments, which, at its best, had three or four simultaneous melodies rather than one.
Although he intensely disliked the appellation, Jerry Garcia was the band's de facto musical leader and the source of its identity.
Garcia was a charismatic, complex figure, simultaneously writing and playing music of enormous emotional resonance and insight while leading a personal life that often consisted of various forms of self-destructive excess, including well-known drug addictions, obesity, tremendous financial recklessness, and three complex, volatile, often unhappy marriages. [ ]
Garcia's early life was profoundly affected by a series of tragedies. As a small boy, he witnessed his father's death by drowning in a freak accident while fishing in the Russian River.
Later, in another accident, the middle finger on his right hand was accidentally amputated by his brother while the two boys were splitting kindling. Finally, as a young man, he was involved in a horrendous car accident which resulted in the death of a close and talented friend. Garcia narrowly escaped being killed himself.
This series of losses, coupled with the impact of psychedelic drugs and tremendous fame, gave Garcia's personality a unique, double-edged kind of rootlessness. At its best, this perspective resulted in a willingness to experiment musically that led to an improvisational style and an emotional perspective that made his music both wildly inventive melodically and brutally insightful lyrically. At its worst, particularly later in Garcia's life, the emotional pain of these early experiences propelled him into cathartic, self-destructive behavior that ultimately contributed to his untimely death.
Following 's death in August of 1995, the remaining members formally decided to disband. The main focus of the members was to pursue various solo projects, most notably 's , and 's music for the .
In June (with ) and (with 's Mystery Box), along with and his band, joined five other bands and toured as the .
In 's Furthur Festival, the two were joined by the remaining members of the Grateful Dead, including collaborator , to form . is a live recording of during the 1998 . The lineup of would shift, notably involving the addition, then departure, then readdition of on bass, and the departure of to pursue his solo work; however, the band settled on a steady lineup by 2002.
The tour of in 2002 began with two huge shows at celebrated and continued with a late October return to and an ensuing full Autumn and Winter tour culminating in a show in where the band played Dark Star among other fan favorites. The tour that included Bob, Bill, Phil and Mickey, was so successful and satisfying that the band decided the name was no longer appropriate. On , , (as they said) "reflecting the reality that [was]," they renamed themselves , reflecting the abbreviated form of the band name that fans had long used and keeping "Grateful" retired out of respect for Garcia.
[ ] The members would continue to tour on and off through the end of their 2004 Summer Tour - the "Wave That Flag" tour, named after the original 1973 uptempo version of the song "U.S. Blues.
" The band accepted on keyboards, on guitar, and on guitar and vocals as part of the band for the tour.
In 2004, ranked the Grateful Dead #55 on their list of the .
On , , the Grateful Dead family (sans , who declined the invitation and instead opted to attend his son's orientation at Stanford) held the "Comes A Time" tribute to at the .
's absence led to fan speculation about a schism in the band, which was exacerbated by the highly publicized music downloading PR debacle, which set tensions high within the community. Although differences of opinion were exhibited publicly by various band members, helped clear the air about the "state of the band" by saying "A lot of our business disagreements are the result of poor communication from advisors. Bobby is my brother and I love him unconditionally; he is a very generous man, and was unfairly judged regarding the Archive issue.
" As for the future of the band, Lesh also said "The Dead is a big rusty machine that takes awhile to crank up. I am completely open to doing a Terrapin Station weekend and hopefully we will get it together for this summer." Unknown at present is whether such a "Dead" gathering will occur in 2006.
In early May 2006 announced plans for a 24 date summer tour with a band billed again as . The tour began with Tennessee's festival on June 18.
On February 10, 2007, the Grateful Dead received a .
The award was accepted on behalf of the band by and .
Early photo of the band at their communal home in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, late 60's.
The Grateful Dead are well-known for constantly touring throughout their long career.
They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as , many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music and health care to all comers; they were the "first among equals in giving unselfishly of themselves to hippie culture, performing 'more free concerts than any band in the history of music'.
The Grateful Dead lineup in 1971.
The Dead also toured with as the house band for the Acid Tests, where of " " fame, served as the "Furthur" bus driver.
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts together, the Grateful Dead toured regularly around the USA from the winter of 1965 until , 1995—with a few detours to , and three nights at the in in . They also appeared at the legendary in 1967 and the even more famous in ; their largest concert audience came in when they played, along with and , before an estimated 600,000 people at the .
[ ]
Their numerous albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended jams, which featured both individual improvisation as well as a distinctive "group-mind" improvisations during which each of the band members improvised individually, while still blending together as a musical unit. Musically this may be illustrated in that not only did the band improvise within the form of a song, but also improvised with the form.
The cohesive listening abilities of each band member made for a very elevated level of what might be called "free form". Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next (a ). The Grateful Dead pioneered this technique several years before and introduced it to a broader audience.
[ ]
The was an enormous sound system designed specifically for the Grateful Dead. The band was never satisfied with the house system anywhere they played, so in their early days, soundman Owsley "Bear" Stanley designed a public-address (PA) and monitor system for them. Stanley's sound systems were delicate and finicky, and frequently brought shows to a halt with technical breakdowns.
After Stanley went to jail for manufacturing LSD in 1970, the group briefly used house PAs, but found them to be even less reliable than those built by their former soundman. In 1971, the band purchased their first solid sound system from Studios. Because of this, Alembic would play an integral role in the research, development, and production of the Wall of Sound.
The band also welcomed into the fold on a permanent basis that year; Healy was a superior engineer to Stanley and would mix the Grateful Dead's live sound until .
The Wall of Sound fulfilled the band's desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring system. After Stanley got out of prison in late 1972, he, Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead's sound crew, in collaboration with Ron Wickersham, , and John Curl of Alembic combined eleven separate sound systems in an effort to deliver high-quality sound to audiences.
Vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and piano each had their own channel and set of speakers. Phil Lesh's bass was piped through a quadraphonic encoder that sent signals from each of the four strings to its own channel and set of speakers. Another channel amplified the bass drum, and two more channels carried the snares, tom-toms, and cymbals.
Because each speaker carried just one instrument or vocalist, the sound was exceptionally clear and free of intramodular distortion.
Moreover, the Dead's Wall of Sound acted as its own monitor system, and it was therefore assembled behind the band so the members could hear exactly what their audience was hearing. Because of this, Stanley and Alembic designed a special microphone system to prevent feedback.
This placed matched pairs of condenser microphones spaced 60 mm apart and run out-of-phase. The vocalist sang into the top microphone, and the lower mic picked up whatever other sound was present in the stage environment. The signals were summed, the sound that was common to both mics (the sound from the Wall) was cancelled, and only the vocals were amplified.
The Wall of Sound consisted of 89 300-watt solid-state and three 350-watt vacuum-tube amplifiers generating a total of 26,400 watts RMS of audio power. This systems projected high quality playback at six hundred feet with an acceptable sound projected for a quarter mile. at which point wind interference degraded it.
The Wall of Sound was the largest portable sound system ever built (although "portable" is a relative term). [ ] The Grateful Dead had two stages for the Wall of Sound. One would go ahead to the next city and begin being set up as soon as possible while the other was being used; the other would then "leapfrog" to the next show.
Four semi-trailers and 21 crew members were required to haul and set up the 75-ton Wall.
Though the initial framework and a rudimentary form of the system was unveiled in February 1973 (ominously, every speaker tweeter blew as the band began their first number), the Grateful Dead did not begin to tour with the full system until a year later in . The Wall of Sound was very efficient for its day, but it suffered from other drawbacks besides its sheer size.
Synthesist , who toured with the group throughout much of 1974, never received his own dedicated input into the system, and was forced to use the vocal subsystem. Because this was often switched to the vocal mikes, many of Lagin's parts were lost in the mix. The Wall's quadraphonic format never translated well to soundboard tapes made during the period, as the sound was compressed into an unnatural stereo format and suffers from a pronounced tinniness.
The rising cost of fuel and personnel, as well as friction among many of the newer crew members (and associated hangers-on), contributed to the band's 1974 "retirement." The Wall of Sound was disassembled, and when the Dead began touring again in , it was with a more logistically practical sound system.
Fans of the band are commonly referred to as .
While the origin of the term may be shrouded in haze, Dead Heads was made canon by the legendary notice suggested by Hank Harrison and placed inside the album:
How are you?
The Dead Heads formed a huge extended family. Many of the Dead Heads would go on tour with the band.
As a group the Dead Heads were considered very mellow. "I'd rather work nine Grateful Dead concerts than one Oregon football game," Police Det. Rick Raynor said.
"They don't get belligerent like they do at the games".
In , the band finally scored a with the song " " (from ), which garnered a new set of fans from the rock audience. This caused a bit of culture shock between some of the old and new fans, when the peaceful hippie counterculture met the boisterous '80s rockers many of whom were attracted to the drugs that were usually available outside of shows.
[ ] The derogatory use of the term "Touch Head" for the newcomers was short lived, as old and new "just listen[ed] to the music play"(lyrics from Franklin's Tower).
The Grateful Dead allowed their fans to tape their shows like several other bands during the time. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could.
Naturally the best sound was in front of the sound board. The eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the official sound crew. Eventually this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket.
The band allowed sharing of tapes of their shows, as long as no were made on the sale of their show tapes. Recently, there was some dispute over what recordings archive.org could host on their site.
Currently, all recordings are hosted, though soundboard recordings are not available for download.
"Audience recordings" are those recordings made from the audience, with microphones from manufacturers including and others, and portable recording devices, including those manufactured by , , and others. These recording devices include , , , and .
" recordings" are those recorded through the equipment the musicians are using, usually at some point near the . Other include recordings made from the devices distributed by the venue to assist the . involves mixing audience and soundboard sources into one recording.
Tapers have spent $1000s to capture the art they love so much. One of the larger on-line communities is the .
^ Santoro, Gene (2007). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Retrieved on - .
^ (asp). Inductees. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Retrieved on - .
Kaye, Lenny (1970). . Music reviews. Rolling Stone.
Retrieved on - .
Bove, Tony. (html). Rockument.com. Retrieved on - .
Stories about the 'Grateful dead' appear in many cultures. The Jewish version is set out in . A common element is the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial. . Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone. Garofalo, pg. 219, quote in Garofalo, cited to Roxon, Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia, 210 Brock, Ted. "MORNING BRIEFING: IN OREGON, THEY'RE GRATEFUL FOR ALL EXTRA CASH THEY GET", Los Angeles Times, 1990-06-26, p. C2.
Keywords: San Francisco, Phil Lesh, Haight Ashbury, Jerry Garcia, Roll Hall, Summer Tour, Los Angeles
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