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Grateful Dead

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Grateful Dead came into being in 1965 in Palo Alto, near San Francisco. The band grew out of a jug band and a bluegrass group around the guitarist Jerry Garcia, who also played banjo. At first the group was called The Warlocks. Garcia found the new name by opening a dictionary. The permanent core consisted of Garcia, the guitarist Bob Weir, the bassist Phil Lesh, the drummer Bill Kreutzmann and the keyboard player Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan, later joined by the drummer Mickey Hart. Robert Hunter wrote many of the lyrics. The band was the house band of the writer Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, happenings at which LSD played a large part, and so belonged to the heart of the hippie movement.

Music and breakthrough

The first records, such as Anthem of the Sun (1968) and Aoxomoxoa (1969), were psychedelic and experimental, but sold poorly. The live album Live/Dead (1969), with long improvisations such as Dark Star, gave a better idea of what the band did on stage. In 1970 they surprised everyone with Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, with short, acoustic songs full of country and folk. Not until 1987 did they have their only top 40 hit, Touch of Grey.

Influence

Grateful Dead's music blends rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass and gospel. Their strength lay in the concerts, where they improvised at length and freely and no two evenings sounded the same. Fans, the Deadheads, were allowed to record the concerts and traded the tapes among themselves. In this way the group remained one of America's top-earning live acts for decades and is regarded as the progenitor of the jam bands. After Garcia's death in 1995 the band stopped.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Dark Star on the live album Live/Dead and notice how the musicians start to improvise from a simple theme. Compare that with one of the short, acoustic songs of Workingman's Dead or American Beauty.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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See also

Categories: Artists