Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco from the remnants of another band, "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions." The Grateful Dead were known for their unique and eclectic songwriting style—which fused elements of rock, folk music, bluegrass, blues, country, and jazz—and for live performances of long modal jams. The band's numerous fans, called Deadheads, were renowned for their dedication to the band's music; many followed the Grateful Dead from concert to concert for years, and often referred to the band simply as The Dead.

History

The Grateful Dead formed during the era when bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones were dominating the airwaves. Former folk-scene star Bob Dylan had recently put out a couple of records featuring electric instrumentation. Grateful Dead members have said that it was after attending a concert by the touring New York "folk-rock" band The Lovin' Spoonful that they decided to "go electric." Since the East-Coast American folk musicians were now tending in the electric direction, it was natural for Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, each of whom had been immersed in the American folk-music revival of the late 1950s and early '60s, to be open-minded toward electric guitars. However, the Dead's music was also naturally different from bands like Dylan's or the Spoonful, because their fellow musician Phil Lesh came out of a schooled classical and electronic-music background, while Ron "Pigpen" McKernan was a no-nonsense deep blues lover and drummer Bill Kreutzmann had a jazz background.

Related Topics:
Beatles - Rolling Stones - Bob Dylan - New York - The Lovin' Spoonful

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The early records reflected the Dead's live repertoire—lengthy instrumental jams with guitar solos by Garcia, best exemplified by "Dark Star"—but lacked the energy of the shows and did not sell terribly well. The 1969 live album Live/Dead did capture more of their essence, but commercial success did not come until Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. These records featured the band's laid-back acoustic musicianship and more traditional song structures.

Related Topics:
Guitar - Dark Star - 1969 - Live/Dead - Workingman's Dead - American Beauty - 1970 - Song - Structure

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Dissolution of the band

Following Garcia's death in 1995, the remaining members formally decided to retire the name "The Grateful Dead". Though some of them occasionally toured through the late 1990s under the name "The Other Ones", they mainly chose to pursue various solo projects, most notably Bob Weir's Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends and Mickey Hart's music for the 1996 Olympics. The remaining members occasionally got together under the pseudonym Crusader Rabbit Stealth Band during the late 1990s, infrequently playing unannounced shows. The mid-2002 fall tour of The Other Ones, with Bob, Bill, Phil and Mickey, was so successful and satisfying that the band decided the name was no longer appropriate. On February 14, 2003, (as they said) "reflecting the reality that ," they renamed themselves The Dead, reflecting the abbreviated form of the band name that fans had long used and keeping "Grateful" retired out of respect for Garcia.

Related Topics:
1990s - The Other Ones - Bob Weir - Ratdog - Phil Lesh and Friends - 1996 Olympics - Pseudonym - 2002 - Fall - February 14 - 2003 - The Dead

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