The Golden Road and Beyond: A Grateful Dead Primer

by Grateful Dead, Rhino

A career-spanning overview of the Grateful Dead's long strange trip. Includes brand-new artwork, listenable discography, and original essays by Dennis McNally, the band's longtime publicist.

Genres: Music

163 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 27, 2011

Reviews

[M.P.]

A couple essays that appear to be liner notes for album releases make up this overview of the Grateful Dead's official catalog. It's a quick, enjoyable read, but within its few pages, it doesn't go into great detail. The price, though, is right -- at zero bucks, you can't go wrong with the Kindle edition, and the discography at the back is a nice overview of the Dead's recording history ending just past Garcia's death. So it's mostly studio recordings -- you won't get all the lovely Dick's Picks or Dave's Picks live recordings here. Diehard fans won't find anything new here, but recent converts or those who listen to the music but haven't read a lot about the band will get plenty out of this slim volume.

[michael crosbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great Grateful Dead

Great insight of their music history and members that were involved through out their amazing start and ultimate rise to the top.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great companion to the mini series Long Strange Trip.

[Tim Julian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subtitled "A Grateful Dead Primer" this is credited to "The Grateful Dead and Rhino" and consists of a whistle-stop overview of the Long Strange Trip, written by official Dead publicist and scribe Dennis McNally, followed by a useful discography of the official releases, with track listing and the usual info that used to be printed on the back of album sleeves. Hardly essential but nice to have. And it's free. 3 stars.

[Dkolacinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Deadhead trip down memory lane for the official albums.