Grateful Dead

This article is about the rock band. For the folktale, see Grateful dead (folklore). For other uses, see Grateful dead (disambiguation).

Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead in 1970, in a rural setting – Bill Kreutzmann, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Phil Lesh
A promotional photo of Grateful Dead in 1970. Left to right: Bill Kreutzmann, Ron McKernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Phil Lesh.
Background information
Also known asThe Warlocks
OriginPalo Alto, California, U.S.
GenresRock
DiscographyGrateful Dead discography
Years active1965–1995
Labels
Spinoffs
Past members
Websitedead.net

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965.[1][2] Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia,[3][4] the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances,[5][6] and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists."[7] For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".[8]

The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area during the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s.[9][10][11][12] The band's founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar and vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar and vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, and vocals), Phil Lesh (bass guitar and vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).[13] Members of the Grateful Dead, originally known as the Warlocks, had played together in various Bay Area ensembles, including the traditional jug band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they changed their name to Grateful Dead, replacing Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who left the band from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history.[14] Other official members of the band included Tom Constanten (keyboards from 1968 to 1970), John Perry Barlow (non-performing lyricist from 1971 to 1995),[15] Keith Godchaux (keyboards and occasional vocals from 1971 to 1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals from 1972 to 1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards and vocals from 1979 to 1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards and vocals from 1990 to 1995).[16] Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.

After Garcia's death in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as The Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and as The Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts in Santa Clara, California, and Chicago that were billed as their last performances together.[17] There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.

Despite having only one Top-40 single in their 30-year career, "Touch of Grey" (1987), the Grateful Dead remained among the highest-grossing American touring acts for decades. They gained a committed fanbase by word of mouth and through the free exchange of their live recordings, encouraged by the band's allowance of taping. In 2024, they broke the record for most Top-40 albums on the Billboard 200 chart.[18] Rolling Stone ranked the Grateful Dead number 57 on its 2011 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[19] The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994,[20] and a recording of their May 8, 1977 performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[21] In 2024, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Hart were recognized as part of the Kennedy Center Honors.[22]

  1. ^ Meriwether, Nicholas G. (2012). Reading the Grateful Dead: A Critical Survey. Scarecrow Press. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-8108-8371-0.
  2. ^ Metzger, John (1999). "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions". The Music Box. The Music Box, Inc. Archived from the original on September 27, 2012. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
  3. ^ "purveyors of freely improvised space music" – Blender Magazine, May 2003 Archived June 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "'Dark Star', both in its title and in its structure (designed to incorporate improvisational exploration), is the perfect example of the kind of 'space music' that the Dead are famous for. Oswald's titular pun 'Grayfolded' adds the concept of folding to the idea of space, and rightly so when considering the way he uses sampling to fold the Dead's musical evolution in on itself." – Islands of Order, Part 2, by Randolph Jordan, in Offscreen Journal Archived September 20, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, edited by Donato Totaro, Ph.D, film studies lecturer at Concordia University since 1990.
  5. ^ Santoro, Gene (2007). "Grateful Dead". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on March 22, 2007. Retrieved February 4, 2007.
  6. ^ "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum – Grateful Dead detail". Inductees. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Archived from the original (asp) on November 23, 2006. Retrieved January 16, 2007.
  7. ^ Kaye, Lenny (1970). "The Grateful Dead – Live/Dead". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved October 18, 2010.
  8. ^ Garofalo, Reebee (1997). Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA. Allyn & Bacon. p. 219. ISBN 0205137032.
  9. ^ "The Grateful Dead Biography". rockhall.com. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on May 8, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  10. ^ Sylvan, Robin (2002). Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. NYU Press. pp. 86–. ISBN 978-0-8147-9809-6. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015.
  11. ^ Barnes, Luke (June 26, 2013). "UC Santa Cruz's Grateful Dead archive offers a reason to visit the campus this summer". santacruzsentinel.com. The Santa Cruz Sentinel. Archived from the original on May 8, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  12. ^ Meriwether, Nicholas G (August 5, 2023). "A map of where Grateful Dead lived, worked and played in SF". SFGATE. Archived from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
  13. ^ Rolling Stone, p. 332
  14. ^ Garofalo, p. 218
  15. ^ Although he is identified as an official member on the band's website, Barlow (who frequently collaborated with Weir, Mydland and Welnick) was not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "The Grateful Dead". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dead.net-band was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ "Dead 50". Grateful Dead.
  18. ^ Kennedy, Mark (February 5, 2024). "The Grateful Dead make Billboard chart history despite disbanding in 1995". AP News. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
  19. ^ "The Greatest Artists of all Time". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 5, 2011.
  20. ^ "The Grateful Dead: inducted in 1994". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on April 16, 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  21. ^ "New Entries to the National Recording Registry". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on September 13, 2013. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
  22. ^ "Grateful Dead, Francis Ford Coppola, Bonnie Raitt on 2024 Kennedy Center Honors list". Isabella Gomez.