The Grateful Dead

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Josephine A. McQuail

Hunter was probably referring to the Dead's other primary singer, Bob Weir, who could be difficult to work with. John Barlow, a childhood friend of Weir, referred to himself in interviews with David Gans as "the Grateful Dead's word nigger," but explains that although sometimes Weir may abuse him, he is "only that way when he's feeling a bit uptight and overworked. Then he gets very headstrong about certain creative decisions, and I'm not in a position to gainsay him because he's got to get out in front of a whole bunch of people and sing that stuff." Barlow, an active member of cyberspace by the late 1990s, started out as a poetry and fiction writer, but Weir persuaded him to try his hand at song lyrics after Weir joined the Dead. Barlow's patience was in evidence when the very first song he wrote, "Mexicali Blues," was transformed into a polka number by Weir, something that Barlow hadn't envisioned. As with those lyrics, Barlow often infuses a Western flavor into his songs; they include "Estimated Prophet," "Looks Like Rain," "Cassidy," "Hell in a Bucket," "Heaven Help the Fool," and "Black Throated Wind." Collaborations with Brent Mydland include "Easy to Love You," and "Just a Little Light," while "Throwing Stones" was a Barlow, Weir, and Mydland effort. Mydland's death in 1990 of a drug overdose ended what had promised to be a fruitful collaboration.

Studio albums present polished versions of the Dead's songs, but the concert experience was the essence of the Dead. Improvisation was their chosen method; they claimed never to perform with a set list (although drummers Hart and Kreutzmann admitted practising the famous extended drum solo features known as "Space" that were a capstone of a Dead show's second set). This is one reason why, perhaps, the Dead could keep filling large stadiums on their tours, even in the early 1990s when the live concert industry hit a slump. In 1991 they were the top grossing concert band in the United States. The Dead never had a number one hit-- in 1987 the Hunter/Garcia song "Touch of Grey" went only to number nine--but their music was being listened to, and no one knows how many bootleg tapes were trading, and continue to trade, hands.

Every former member of the Grateful Dead, except Bill Kreutzmann, formed a separate band with which they performed, toured, and recorded. Lesh, the only classically trained musician in the group, played on occasion with the San Francisco symphony until he underwent a liver transplant in 1998; upon his remarkable recovery from this operation, Lesh immediately began performing occasional gigs with a roving cast known as "Phil and Friends." Mickey Hart, the most eclectic member of the band, went on to compose and perform experimental pieces, even contributing a composition used in the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He also composed music for Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now (1979).

At the end of the twentieth century, members of the Grateful Dead were continuing as an industry unto themselves. The band is the most complete and longest lasting representation of the San Francisco counterculture, begun in the 1950s with the Beats and flowering in the 1960s with the hippies. The band helped to propagate and preserve the spirit of 1960s America at home and abroad with its recordings and tours. That it was never in need of reviving, and continues to thrive in various guises, attests to a thread of continuity in fast-paced American pop culture.