The Grateful Dead Essay, Research Paper

I have chosen to do my report on the Grateful Dead. They were a rock and roll band from the sixties that stayed popular and still influenced rock and roll until 1995 when the lead singer, Jerry Garcia, died and the band dissolved. The Dead remained popular for so long because of the style of their live concerts that made people keep coming back.

In 1959 when Jerry Garcia was thrown out of the army, he picked up his guitar and started playing music with his friend Robert Hunter. Robert Hunter would later become the Grateful Dead’s non-performing song writer. Robert and Jerry lived in San Francisco, California. On one New Year’s Eve

party, Garcia and Hunter met Ron “The Pig Pen” McKerman, who played harmonica, keyboard and was also a vocalist. Pig Pen was the janitor at the music shop where Jerry gave banjo lessons. During the concert of that night, they also met guitarist Bob Weir and together they formed a band called Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. A few weeks later Bob Matthews,who later became a part of the Grateful Dead electronics and recording family,joined the group along with John “marmaduke” Dawson,who later joined the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Work was scarce for the Jug Champions until Dana Morgan, owner at the store where Jerry taught banjo and Pig Pen worked,provided the money and equipment for them to become electric. After they had become electric they renamed the group the Warlocks. Dawson and Matthews were soon to leave and they were replaced by drummer Bill Sommers

(Krentemann) and Phil Lesh, who was a trumpet player who learned to play bass guitar in a very amazing two weeks just to get the spot. This completes the now familiar Dead line up.

The Warlocks played their first concert in July 1965 and they played pretty straight rock and roll music until the “acid tests.” In early 1965 a state hospital in the Palo Alto area was conducting experiments with hallucinogenic drugs. This was still legal at the time. Robbert Hunter and others volunteered to try them. Before long the whole music group was participating in “acid tests” and their music became more diffused, the numbers stretched out and the volume turned up. Jerry Garcia became known as “Captain Trips” and they played at the Ken Kesey organized trips festival.

In February 1966 the Warlocks had to change their name due to threats by an older group with the same name. Legend has it, according to ,”during a acid trip Garcia opened a dictionary and pointed to the word “grateful” on one page and the word “dead” on another”, and the Grateful Dead were born.

In June of 1966 the Grateful Dead moved to 710 Haight – Ashbury district of San Francisco, California. This was the center of the counter culture that is known by many as “Hippie”. The group was about to explode in a blaze of publicity. The Dead were playing for free at parks and a place called the Family Dog. Jerry Garcia was the group’s guru figure despite his denials. After a while, word started

to spread about the Grateful Dead and their incredible sound. By 1967, the summer of love, they were regulars at the Avalon and Carousel Ballrooms and the Filmore West. In 1969 the Dead packed their bags and headed to Woodstock, New York. This outdoor concert would go down in history as the largest

outdoor rock concert. On August 16, 1969, the Grateful Dead, along with many famous rock and roll groups, played in front of thousands of people.

From 1965 and on,there has been over 3,000 Grateful Dead concerts, that range from San Francisco to the pyramids in Egypt. After each of them, at least one more person became obsessed with the band and became part of the group known as the “deadheads”. According to the Dead heads

“there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert”. The Grateful Dead have many fans that follow them from

concert to concert; these fans are called deadheads. These fans thrive off of the Grateful Dead’s live performances. The deadheads would almost do anything to get a ticket to a dead show. A typical deadhead would go to 25 or more shows a year. Dead fans are so loyal, “They would come under water, from Utah, backwards, to stand in line to see them play”. Many people say that if it was not for Grateful Dead live shows the dead would still not be popular today. In 1972 the Grateful Dead went on a

European tour. They played in England, Denmark, West Germany, France, The Neatherlands, and to end their tour they went back to London, England. The Grateful Dead put out a live album of their tour called Europe ‘72. On this tour the dead picked up many new European followers and there were many deadheads that came from the U.S.A to watch their favorite band live in Europe. Just before the tour was about to begin, Pigpen, the group’s harmonica and keyboard player, became seriously ill. He was replaced for awhile by Keith Godchaux. Keith played with the Dead in Europe and at the end of 1972, Pigpen died of a liver ailment. After Pigpen’s death, Keith Godchaux took his place as the group’s harmonica, keyboard, and part time vocalist. Even after his death the Dead still played live performances and produced albums. After the group had this enormous loss the Dead fans stuck through the hard times and continued to be the best fans a group could have.

There are many age variations in Deadheads. Some of the Deadheads may be as old as 60 and some may be as young as 10. The Grateful Dead have seen many generations of people. In some cases the grandfather of a family may have been a deadhead and now his grandson is one, too. The Dead have

managed to outlast most of their competitors by attracting these Deadhead fans know as Deadheads. Although many critics have labeld these fans as burnt-out hippies, the Grateful Dead are still alive in the 1990’s and playing their beloved songs.

On August 10, 1995 at 4:23 a.m. a nurse walked into the room that Jerry Garcia was staying in at a drug rehabilitation center 60 miles North of San Francisco. She found him on the floor and noticed he wasn’t breathing. She quietly called the Sherriff’s Deputies. When they arrived the nurse and the deputies tried to revive him but they were unsuccessful. Jerry Garcia was dead. Garcia did not tell

any of the group members that he was going to a rehabilitation center. He had told them that he was taking a trip to Hawaii with his wife. It was a shock to the rest of the group to find out that Jerry Garcia had died in a drug rehabilitation center. “Garcia’s last performance with the Dead, was July 9, 1995 in Chicago”, that night will not be forgotten by anyone who attended that last show. Jerry Garcia was fifty-three years of age when he died. Jerry was the Grateful Dead’s singer, song writer, gutaitariest and

many believe the heart and soul of the Grateful Dead. This tragedy has left many to wonder if the Grateful Dead will ever play again. One thing is sure about the Grateful Dead, “The Grateful Dead are the best-known and longest lasting of all the San Francisco bands,..”.

In conclusion, the Grateful Dead is a very unique group and has vary unique followers. it is one of the longest lasting bands and has played for over three generations of people with their own style and creativeness. They have had a long journey and there have been many bumps in the road. There is only one phrase that can wrap up the Gratefuldeads career, “What a long strange trip it’s been”.