THE DEAD BIO

Inductees: Tom Contanten (keyboards; born March 19, 1944), Jerry Garcia (guitar, vocals; born August 1, 1942, died August 9, 1995), Donna Godchaux (vocals; born August 22, 1945), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; born July 14, 1948, died July 21, 1980), Mickey Hart (drums, percussion; born September 11, 1943), Robert Hunter (lyricist; born June 23, 1941), Bill Kreutzmann (drums; born April 7, 1946), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals; born March 15, 1940), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals; born September 8, 1945, died March 8, 1973), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; born October 21, 1952, died July 26, 1990), Bob Weir (guitar, vocals; born October 16, 1947), Vince Welnick (keyboards; born February 22, 1951, died June 2, 2006).

The Grateful Dead wrought a psychedelic revolution upon the cultural landscape of the Sixties. They also kept the spirit of the Sixties alive in the decades that followed, building a massive, supportive network of fans known as “Deadheads.” The Dead and their peers on the San Francisco scene helped steer the adventurous rock audience of the mid-Sixties toward a brave new world of sound in which albums supplanted singles and concerts became improvisational marathons.

From jazz, the Grateful Dead adapted an improvisational approach. Heavily steeped in Americana, the group derived from blues and bluegrass. From the culture of psychedelia, as pioneered by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Dead grew attuned to the broad palette of possibilities that could be tapped when imagination was given free reign. Their signature song was “Dark Star,” an extended piece that never got performed the same way twice. Throughout their thirty-year history, guitarist/leader Jerry Garcia functioned as the pre-eminent pied piper of the rock era.

In the beginning, the Dead - Garcia, guitarist Bob Weir, organist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann - served to link the literary leanings of Fifties beatniks with the musical awakening of the Sixties counterculture - movements that flourished in the enlightened environs of the Bay Area. Initially known as Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions and later the Warlocks, they provided musical settings for novelist and cult leader Ken Kesey’s fabled Acid Tests. After settling on the name Grateful Dead, they began honing their concert alchemy at San Francisco’s psychedelic ballrooms. The Dead fused rock and roll energy with the psychedelic experience to fashion an endlessly elaborate interplay of sound. Along the way, they added a second keyboardist (Tom Constanten) and second drummer (Mickey Hart). The keyboardist position was the most unstable in the band, as no fewer than three of the Dead’s keyboard players died during their 30-year history.

Highlights of the group’s recorded legacy include Anthem of the Sun (1968), their ultra-psychedelic, quasi-symphonic magnum opus; Live/Dead (1969), a concert compendium that bore out fans’ claims that the Dead were best experienced live; Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty (both from 1970), country- and folk-influenced classics that highlighted their songwriting ability and sage-like overview of the counterculture’s past, present and future; and Grateful Dead (a.k.a. “Skull and Roses"), the second and arguably the best of many multi-album live sets. Deadheads and critics alike contended that the best way to experience the group was in concert, where the mystical band-fan bonding ritual drove the music to improvisational peaks. Led by Garcia’s modal guitar work, and taking cues from sources as varied as Jimmy Reed, John Coltrane and Bill Monroe, the Dead would delve into blues, folk, jazz R&B and avant-garde realms for hours on end.

During the latter half of their career, Garcia was periodically beset with drug problems, a state of affairs that came to a head with his arrest on drug possession charges in 1985 and his collapse into a near-fatal diabetic coma in 1986. His health improved in the wake of those crises, revitalizing the Dead through a period of heightened activity that included the 1987 hit albumIn the Dark and Top Forty single ("Touch of Grey"). However, drugs continued to haunt the Grateful Dead, who lost keyboardist Brent Mydland to a fatal overdose in 1990. Garcia himself died on August 9, 1995, at a treatment facility in Forest Knolls, California, where he’d gone to seek help for his heroin addiction. They played their last concert the previous month at Soldier Field in Chicago.

The Grateful Dead could not survive the loss of Garcia, but the music plays on. More than 25 concerts from the Dead’s archives have been released on CD through the band’s online store (http://www.dead.net) as part of the ongoing “Dick’s Picks” series (named for Dick Latvala, the group’s tape archivist). Mickey Hart has pursued a highly successful career as a rhythmatist and ethnomusicologist, recording and releasing many volumes of world music on his own and through the auspices of such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution. Bob Weir formed the band Ratdog, and Phil Lesh has toured with a varying cast of musicians under the rubric “Phil and Friends.” Weir, Lesh, Hart and Bruce Hornsby – who played keyboards for the Dead after the death of Brent Mydland – have toured as the Other Ones (a reference to the Dead concert staple “The Other One”). Several “Furthur Festivals” involving Dead-related ensembles and kindred spirits have helped keep the spirit alive.