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This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead
In This Is All a Dream We Dreamed , two of the most well-respected chroniclers of the Dead, Blair Jackson and David Gans, reveal the band’s story through the words of its members, their creative collaborators and peers, and a number of diverse fans, stitching together a multitude of voices into a seamless oral tapestry. Capturing the ebullient spirit at the group’s core, Jackson and Gans weave together a musical saga that examines the music and subculture that developed into its own economy, touching fans from all walks of life, from penniless hippies to celebrities, and at least one U.S. vice president.
This definitive book traces the Dead’s evolution from its humble beginnings as a folk/bluegrass band playing small venues in Palo Alto to the feral psychedelic warriors and stadium-filling Americana jam band that blazed all the way through to the 90s. Along the way, we hear from many who were touched by the Dead―from David Crosby and Miles Davis, to Ken Kesey, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and a host of Merry Pranksters, to legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, and others.
Throughout their journey the Dead broke (and sometimes rewrote) just about every rule of the music business, defying conventional wisdom and charting their own often unusual course, in the process creating a business model unlike any seen before. Musically, too, they were pioneers, fusing inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to craft an utterly unique and instantly recognizable sound. Their music centered on collective improvisation, spiritual and social democracy, trust, generosity, and fun. They believed that you can make something real, spontaneous, and compelling happen with other musicians if you trust and encourage each other, and jam as if your life depended on it. And when it worked, there was nothing else like it.
Whether you’re part of the new generation of Deadheads who are just discovering their music or a devoted fan who has traded Dead tapes for decades, you will want to listen in on the irresistible conversations and anecdotes shared in these pages. You’ll hear stories you haven’t heard before, possibly from voices that may be unfamiliar to you, and the tales that unfold will shed a whole new light on a long and inspiring musical odyssey.
This definitive book traces the Dead’s evolution from its humble beginnings as a folk/bluegrass band playing small venues in Palo Alto to the feral psychedelic warriors and stadium-filling Americana jam band that blazed all the way through to the 90s. Along the way, we hear from many who were touched by the Dead―from David Crosby and Miles Davis, to Ken Kesey, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and a host of Merry Pranksters, to legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, and others.
Throughout their journey the Dead broke (and sometimes rewrote) just about every rule of the music business, defying conventional wisdom and charting their own often unusual course, in the process creating a business model unlike any seen before. Musically, too, they were pioneers, fusing inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to craft an utterly unique and instantly recognizable sound. Their music centered on collective improvisation, spiritual and social democracy, trust, generosity, and fun. They believed that you can make something real, spontaneous, and compelling happen with other musicians if you trust and encourage each other, and jam as if your life depended on it. And when it worked, there was nothing else like it.
Whether you’re part of the new generation of Deadheads who are just discovering their music or a devoted fan who has traded Dead tapes for decades, you will want to listen in on the irresistible conversations and anecdotes shared in these pages. You’ll hear stories you haven’t heard before, possibly from voices that may be unfamiliar to you, and the tales that unfold will shed a whole new light on a long and inspiring musical odyssey.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
107 people are currently reading
718 people want to read
About the author
Blair Jackson
25 books9 followersBlair Jackson is a music journalist and author best known for Garcia: An American Life and Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped. He edited 27 issues of The Golden Road fanzine and has contributed to Mix and Electronic Musician. His books include Classic Tracks, exploring iconic rock and soul recordings. A passionate reader of history and music biographies, he shares his insights on Dead.net. He lives in California and is the father of two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
June 28, 2020
This book offers a scholarly, well-documented history of the band. Multiple Grateful Dead book authors Blair Jackson and (my cousin’s buddy) David Gans present insights from over one hundred insiders, including an index which briefly describes each person’s connection to the band. Together they recreate a vivid picture.
The book follows the band’s history from the front steps of 710 Ashbury, to Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, to the drug culture which enveloped and followed them, to many of the worldwide venues they played, to the arrivals and departures of Pigpen, Brent, Keith and Donna, and Bruce, to Jerry’s passing, and beyond. Key events in the band’s history are commented upon by those who were there. Jerry, Bob, Pigpen, Brent, Donna, Mickey, Bill, Phil, and Bruce share insights into their own roles as much as they do about their fellow musicians.
The band’s near-telepathic communication onstage was the result of countless hours of practice and innovation. They trusted each other up there, often with varying levels of success, but the off nights were as much a part of their mystique as the hits.
Jerry invited new band and staff members who shared his values, a hippie credo in which peace and love prevailed. Sadly, drugs and alcohol played a significant and tragic role in the history of the Grateful Dead, as it did for many of the performers and bands which came up in the 60s.
There’s no shortage of Grateful Dead books but this one offers plenty of fascinating first-person insight as well as solidly sourced material. It’s a well-rounded compilation written by two respected authors who have known the Grateful Dead intimately from their earliest days. A winner, not to be missed.
The book follows the band’s history from the front steps of 710 Ashbury, to Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, to the drug culture which enveloped and followed them, to many of the worldwide venues they played, to the arrivals and departures of Pigpen, Brent, Keith and Donna, and Bruce, to Jerry’s passing, and beyond. Key events in the band’s history are commented upon by those who were there. Jerry, Bob, Pigpen, Brent, Donna, Mickey, Bill, Phil, and Bruce share insights into their own roles as much as they do about their fellow musicians.
The band’s near-telepathic communication onstage was the result of countless hours of practice and innovation. They trusted each other up there, often with varying levels of success, but the off nights were as much a part of their mystique as the hits.
Jerry invited new band and staff members who shared his values, a hippie credo in which peace and love prevailed. Sadly, drugs and alcohol played a significant and tragic role in the history of the Grateful Dead, as it did for many of the performers and bands which came up in the 60s.
There’s no shortage of Grateful Dead books but this one offers plenty of fascinating first-person insight as well as solidly sourced material. It’s a well-rounded compilation written by two respected authors who have known the Grateful Dead intimately from their earliest days. A winner, not to be missed.
July 21, 2021
Most gripping of the Dead bios I've read so far - but maybe I'm just partial to the oral history format. Garcia's archival quotes regarding his process and outlook were particularly moving. I also appreciated that Jackson and Gans dive a little deeper into the 80s than others, I find those years often get breezed thru in 10-15 pages. Also - Phil was fuckin' funny in this! Loved it
July 18, 2020
While Rock Scully's book was a bit of a slog for me, this one flowed really well. It deals more with the band than with the drugs. (Both are probably accurate, but the latter bored me.) I also liked how this book covered the entire life of the band. I can imagine an expanded version that has a chapter on the Dead-related projects that followed Jerry Garcia's death as well as the 50th-Anniversary "Fare Thee Well" concerts that took place. Overall, I would say this book was more informative than Rock Scully's, even though it did not have my favorite story from Scully's book: the Dead meeting Salvador Dali.
September 20, 2024
A solid read. I'm a sucker for an oral history, and this has some interesting participants. I've read too much about the Dead at this point, tho. It's more out of compulsion than enjoyment.
January 27, 2016
I want to start writing reviews for the books I have read. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I will write a review for this and Americanah.
June 21, 2017
An essential addition to the library of any serious fan - a monumental oral history that covers all phases of the bands life and work. Highly recommended!
September 19, 2025
June 15, 1995, Highgate, Vermont - Bob Dylan opens the Show for Grateful Dead. This Summer Tour is unofficially referred to as the Tour of Doom, as it marked the final time Grateful Dead would perform live before evaporating as a meteor failing to become a meteorite. The tour is especially notorious for the chaos it created with close to 100000 fans, a significant number of which were ticket less, and who gatecrashed into the venue, breaking down walls, equipment resulting in a widespread anarchy that the law and administration apparatus failed to control. This forced Grateful Dead to think hard about the upcoming Indiana tour, which they nevertheless undertook at the Deer Creek. That was no better as the fans stormed the venue and repeating what had transpired in Vermont, but with a far more intense storming. Grateful Dead had to issue a strong letter of protest for its fans admonishing them not to end the Band’s touring life by being gatecrashers and creeps.
A month later in August of 1995, Jerry Garcia, the larger than life coxswain of the rudderless Grateful Dead suffered a fatal heart attack, and the band, known for concerts up north of 2000 passed on to the other side, well, not literally as the remaining members continued to tour as ‘The Other Ones’, and as ‘Dead’ into the first decade of the new century. But, without the heart and soul in the form of Garcia, who had two close shaves with death, once, when he was in coma and thence as a result of the most demonic intoxicant known to humans, heroin, and surviving to kickstart once again, the ensuing tours of the remaining members had struck-through the Grateful.
For the band that ruled the circuit for three decades, beginning in the early sixties in California, their music fluctuated between ‘Jug’ and ‘Jam’ in the early years, before exploding on to the scene with prolixly improvised song structures eclectic from Blues to Jazz to Spirituals to Psychedelia. Having begun their career as ‘The Warlocks’, they switched to ‘Grateful Dead’, thanks to a reference from Britannica World Language Dictionary, where Grateful Dead is defined as an angel, who shows gratitude to someone who arranges for the burial of the dead. Despite such a deep influence on the world psychedelic and jam, only ‘Touch of Grey’ from 1987’s ‘In the Dark’ album remained their Top-40 Single.
There is no dearth of literature on the band, including memoirs, with Blair Jackson and David Gans having authored seven books between them. As much as possible, there is a phenomenological lens on the life of the band, but “This is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead”, co-authored by the fixated Jackson and Gans leaps over the otherwise-available literature, in that it plainspeak, or in other words, a 455-pager of quotations from most of those who were close to the band, including the technical crew, roadies, managers, and the eloquent band members themselves. The prose is an honest reflection in so far their musical journey and structure evolves, but is shorn of the dark side, except when the band enters the twilight zone in the 1990s, where too, Garcia’s substance abuse, and the overall musical structure losing steam improvisationally has minimalist allusions.
The sayings, though, do give a glimpse into the more humane and humble considerations, imploding with the quasi-corporatization of their music’s angularity. A particular statement by Jerry Garcia needs to be placed here,
“I don’t think our records have ever been much to scream or write home about, actually.”
The deaths of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the founder singer-songwriter in 1973 due to alcohol abuse and gastrointestinal hemorrhage, Brent Mydland, the keyboardist in 1990 due to coke and morphine OD (he was subsequently replaced for tour duties by the extremely talented Bruce Hornsby, of the ‘That is the Way it is’ fame), and Bill Graham, the man behind the musical renaissance in the 1960s America and Manager of Grateful Dead in a helicopter crash in 1991 sent the band, and especially Garcia into a severe depression, they found hard to come out of.
Had it not been for the fundamentalist fan base, the ‘deadheads’ and ‘iconography’ that proliferated the world over in the age sans the media of the present, the reach of the psychedelics would have possibly be arrested over a geographical terrain much shrunken from what it is today. The editorial duties poured in by Jackson and Gans have a distinct phase-shift here, in that most of the pages might seem mundane, or even repetitive, but, they have sieved the pedantic for an authoritative take of the, by the and for the ‘Band’. In a nutshell, ‘This is Al a Dream We Dreamed’ is a testament for the diehard deadheads, and has very little to offer by way of chronological events surrounding the band, for which Blair Jackson’s ‘Garcia – An American Life’, David Browne’s ‘So Many Roads’ or Bill Kreutzmann’s (the drummer) memoir are decent starting points to excavate the band’s history.
A month later in August of 1995, Jerry Garcia, the larger than life coxswain of the rudderless Grateful Dead suffered a fatal heart attack, and the band, known for concerts up north of 2000 passed on to the other side, well, not literally as the remaining members continued to tour as ‘The Other Ones’, and as ‘Dead’ into the first decade of the new century. But, without the heart and soul in the form of Garcia, who had two close shaves with death, once, when he was in coma and thence as a result of the most demonic intoxicant known to humans, heroin, and surviving to kickstart once again, the ensuing tours of the remaining members had struck-through the Grateful.
For the band that ruled the circuit for three decades, beginning in the early sixties in California, their music fluctuated between ‘Jug’ and ‘Jam’ in the early years, before exploding on to the scene with prolixly improvised song structures eclectic from Blues to Jazz to Spirituals to Psychedelia. Having begun their career as ‘The Warlocks’, they switched to ‘Grateful Dead’, thanks to a reference from Britannica World Language Dictionary, where Grateful Dead is defined as an angel, who shows gratitude to someone who arranges for the burial of the dead. Despite such a deep influence on the world psychedelic and jam, only ‘Touch of Grey’ from 1987’s ‘In the Dark’ album remained their Top-40 Single.
There is no dearth of literature on the band, including memoirs, with Blair Jackson and David Gans having authored seven books between them. As much as possible, there is a phenomenological lens on the life of the band, but “This is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead”, co-authored by the fixated Jackson and Gans leaps over the otherwise-available literature, in that it plainspeak, or in other words, a 455-pager of quotations from most of those who were close to the band, including the technical crew, roadies, managers, and the eloquent band members themselves. The prose is an honest reflection in so far their musical journey and structure evolves, but is shorn of the dark side, except when the band enters the twilight zone in the 1990s, where too, Garcia’s substance abuse, and the overall musical structure losing steam improvisationally has minimalist allusions.
The sayings, though, do give a glimpse into the more humane and humble considerations, imploding with the quasi-corporatization of their music’s angularity. A particular statement by Jerry Garcia needs to be placed here,
“I don’t think our records have ever been much to scream or write home about, actually.”
The deaths of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the founder singer-songwriter in 1973 due to alcohol abuse and gastrointestinal hemorrhage, Brent Mydland, the keyboardist in 1990 due to coke and morphine OD (he was subsequently replaced for tour duties by the extremely talented Bruce Hornsby, of the ‘That is the Way it is’ fame), and Bill Graham, the man behind the musical renaissance in the 1960s America and Manager of Grateful Dead in a helicopter crash in 1991 sent the band, and especially Garcia into a severe depression, they found hard to come out of.
Had it not been for the fundamentalist fan base, the ‘deadheads’ and ‘iconography’ that proliferated the world over in the age sans the media of the present, the reach of the psychedelics would have possibly be arrested over a geographical terrain much shrunken from what it is today. The editorial duties poured in by Jackson and Gans have a distinct phase-shift here, in that most of the pages might seem mundane, or even repetitive, but, they have sieved the pedantic for an authoritative take of the, by the and for the ‘Band’. In a nutshell, ‘This is Al a Dream We Dreamed’ is a testament for the diehard deadheads, and has very little to offer by way of chronological events surrounding the band, for which Blair Jackson’s ‘Garcia – An American Life’, David Browne’s ‘So Many Roads’ or Bill Kreutzmann’s (the drummer) memoir are decent starting points to excavate the band’s history.
May 14, 2021
In This Is All a Dream We Dreamed, two of the most well-respected chroniclers of the Dead, Blair Jackson and David Gans, reveal the band’s story through the words of its members, their creative collaborators and peers, and a number of diverse fans, stitching together a multitude of voices into a seamless oral tapestry. Capturing the ebullient spirit at the group’s core, Jackson and Gans weave together a musical saga that examines the music and subculture that developed into its own economy, touching fans from all walks of life, from penniless hippies to celebrities, and at least one U.S. vice president.
This definitive book traces the Dead’s evolution from its humble beginnings as a folk/bluegrass band playing small venues in Palo Alto to the feral psychedelic warriors and stadium-filling Americana jam band that blazed all the way through to the 90s. Along the way, we hear from many who were touched by the Dead—from David Crosby and Miles Davis, to Ken Kesey, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and a host of Merry Pranksters, to legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, and others.
Throughout their journey the Dead broke (and sometimes rewrote) just about every rule of the music business, defying conventional wisdom and charting their own often unusual course, in the process creating a business model unlike any seen before. Musically, too, they were pioneers, fusing inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to craft an utterly unique and instantly recognizable sound. Their music centered on collective improvisation, spiritual and social democracy, trust, generosity, and fun. They believed that you can make something real, spontaneous, and compelling happen with other musicians if you trust and encourage each other, and jam as if your life depended on it. And when it worked, there was nothing else like it.
Whether you’re part of the new generation of Deadheads who are just discovering their music or a devoted fan who has traded Dead tapes for decades, you will want to listen in on the irresistible conversations and anecdotes shared in these pages. You’ll hear stories you haven’t heard before, possibly from voices that may be unfamiliar to you, and the tales that unfold will shed a whole new light on a long and inspiring musical odyssey.
Heather's Notes
I will start by saying I read this book for a challenge. I also read the forward that stated this was not a timeline of the Grateful Dead's career. I actually thought that was good because I was hoping to get a feel for the band and the members. Instead I got a bunch of quotes from a bunch of people I didn't know. What I knew about the Grateful Dead was very basic, unfortunately this book did not really change that. Maybe if you are really into the Grateful Dead this book will make since to you, but for me it just felt never ending.
This definitive book traces the Dead’s evolution from its humble beginnings as a folk/bluegrass band playing small venues in Palo Alto to the feral psychedelic warriors and stadium-filling Americana jam band that blazed all the way through to the 90s. Along the way, we hear from many who were touched by the Dead—from David Crosby and Miles Davis, to Ken Kesey, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and a host of Merry Pranksters, to legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, and others.
Throughout their journey the Dead broke (and sometimes rewrote) just about every rule of the music business, defying conventional wisdom and charting their own often unusual course, in the process creating a business model unlike any seen before. Musically, too, they were pioneers, fusing inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to craft an utterly unique and instantly recognizable sound. Their music centered on collective improvisation, spiritual and social democracy, trust, generosity, and fun. They believed that you can make something real, spontaneous, and compelling happen with other musicians if you trust and encourage each other, and jam as if your life depended on it. And when it worked, there was nothing else like it.
Whether you’re part of the new generation of Deadheads who are just discovering their music or a devoted fan who has traded Dead tapes for decades, you will want to listen in on the irresistible conversations and anecdotes shared in these pages. You’ll hear stories you haven’t heard before, possibly from voices that may be unfamiliar to you, and the tales that unfold will shed a whole new light on a long and inspiring musical odyssey.
Heather's Notes
I will start by saying I read this book for a challenge. I also read the forward that stated this was not a timeline of the Grateful Dead's career. I actually thought that was good because I was hoping to get a feel for the band and the members. Instead I got a bunch of quotes from a bunch of people I didn't know. What I knew about the Grateful Dead was very basic, unfortunately this book did not really change that. Maybe if you are really into the Grateful Dead this book will make since to you, but for me it just felt never ending.
October 8, 2017
In a way, assembling a band biography from a set of rambling but always action-packed accounts from a multitude of voices is the best way to approach the history of the Grateful Dead, a chaotic collective that went beyond any one participant's vision for the band. They started playing at Ken Kesey's acid tests, where playing itself was optional, and sometimes nearly impossible given the amount of ingested toxicants. “There were times we’d play maybe 20 bars [of music], and everybody would come all unglued & we’d all split,” Garcia said.
They ended up growing too popular to even play stadiums (By 1989, even Giants Stadium couldn’t do multi-day shows of The Dead due to the costs of managing 10,000 people camping in the parking lot). The key to their success for these musicians, at least for anyone paying attention to the music, was close and attentive listening to what was going on around them, not only with the fellow musicians in the best tradition of jazz, but with the mood of audience itself. “They weren’t just playing what was on the music sheets. They were playing what was in the air,” Kesey said.
The last chapters bring in some voices of that fiercely loyal audience, mostly notably the Oade Brothers who made a science, and art, from recording the band -- sometimes in the acoustically worst venues possible. More book quotes here.
They ended up growing too popular to even play stadiums (By 1989, even Giants Stadium couldn’t do multi-day shows of The Dead due to the costs of managing 10,000 people camping in the parking lot). The key to their success for these musicians, at least for anyone paying attention to the music, was close and attentive listening to what was going on around them, not only with the fellow musicians in the best tradition of jazz, but with the mood of audience itself. “They weren’t just playing what was on the music sheets. They were playing what was in the air,” Kesey said.
The last chapters bring in some voices of that fiercely loyal audience, mostly notably the Oade Brothers who made a science, and art, from recording the band -- sometimes in the acoustically worst venues possible. More book quotes here.
December 10, 2022
I'm not even particularly a fan of the Grateful Dead and pick this up out of interest in the cultural impact, but this is a masterful oral history.
If you're a fan of the Dead, this is the perfect book to pick away at over the years(less elegant reviewers might call it toilet book), or if you're looking for a really well done example of oral history, I would recommend picking it up.
For everyone else, it's extremely long, and it can be hard to pick out details. While I would usually state that this needed more extreme edit, it feels like all of the included material is relevant to the task which is documenting the 30-year history of the band and coming on 60 years affect it has had on everything in Western societies' music.
If you're a fan of the Dead, this is the perfect book to pick away at over the years(less elegant reviewers might call it toilet book), or if you're looking for a really well done example of oral history, I would recommend picking it up.
For everyone else, it's extremely long, and it can be hard to pick out details. While I would usually state that this needed more extreme edit, it feels like all of the included material is relevant to the task which is documenting the 30-year history of the band and coming on 60 years affect it has had on everything in Western societies' music.
March 14, 2025
Fascinating and entertaining
Really enjoyed reading this book, it's got a lot of interesting stuff in it, and the "voice" of the authors manages to tell the story without saying things that are annoying or distracting.
As well as the main text there are several codas which are also interesting, for instance one is an interview with two brothers who taped many Grateful Dead shows and whose work can be found on archive.org.
My only complaint is that the production of the Kindle edition is quite poor, the styles and indentation are messed up and there are a few sections where small bits of text have been repeated. Even considering this I still give it a 5 for the underlying quality of the book.
Really enjoyed reading this book, it's got a lot of interesting stuff in it, and the "voice" of the authors manages to tell the story without saying things that are annoying or distracting.
As well as the main text there are several codas which are also interesting, for instance one is an interview with two brothers who taped many Grateful Dead shows and whose work can be found on archive.org.
My only complaint is that the production of the Kindle edition is quite poor, the styles and indentation are messed up and there are a few sections where small bits of text have been repeated. Even considering this I still give it a 5 for the underlying quality of the book.
May 22, 2018
For as long as I can remember, when late spring and the summer set in, I listen to the Grateful Dead. Now mind you, for many many years that meant listening to a song or maybe side one of American Beauty. For a long time I just didn't like it, didn't get, but I knew there was something there. Finally about fifteen years ago I started to get it. Each year when the weather turns nice I get it a little more. This year I am a fan. I took a half dozen books out of the library and read parts of them, this one I completed in audio form. Great history and storytelling and explanation. So well put together.
December 7, 2017
Excellent book. Told from a narrative style of quotations culled from various sources (and all cited in the back, which I am sure was quite the chore). Very good selection of characters speaking, sometimes offering differing perspectives on the same events, offered up chronologically. And, Blair Jackson and David Gans really need no intro. If you enjoy reading about the Grateful Dead, just get this book and enjoy it.
February 2, 2025
While the length seemed daunting this was actually a quick and fun read. The compilation of quotes made it read like a conversation. While I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot of new information, it was interesting to see so many different perspectives throughout the 30 year history of the Grateful Dead.
I really enjoyed the codas at the end. I would read a whole book of compiled stories like those. More adjacent to the band than directly involved but very entertaining!
I really enjoyed the codas at the end. I would read a whole book of compiled stories like those. More adjacent to the band than directly involved but very entertaining!
October 5, 2025
Hearing it Live
There is nothing like reading it 'live' in your mind. Putting the voices to the words on a page and hearing the story that means so much to so many. The bus went on for years, from a VW bus to a Greyhound in size and scope with a band beyond description. For anyone who got on that bus, even for a short while, you will enjoy these personal words and the memories they stir up in you.
There is nothing like reading it 'live' in your mind. Putting the voices to the words on a page and hearing the story that means so much to so many. The bus went on for years, from a VW bus to a Greyhound in size and scope with a band beyond description. For anyone who got on that bus, even for a short while, you will enjoy these personal words and the memories they stir up in you.
July 26, 2017
I knew a lot of the history of the Dead and of course knew their music, but this book offered so much more. It really gives the whole picture of their mission as a band and a history of it from those who were there from the start. For a band with such a colored history, what better than an oral history to tell the tale?
July 9, 2018
I quite like the format of a well-crafted and edited Oral History, of which this book is one. A spliced together song, voices from all walks adding into the experience.
As one of the first books I am reading on the Dead, maybe not the best start, as I felt that I needed a more honed band biography to get timelines and history a little more straight, as this was commentaries on events.
As one of the first books I am reading on the Dead, maybe not the best start, as I felt that I needed a more honed band biography to get timelines and history a little more straight, as this was commentaries on events.
Read
May 11, 2020A great book for Deadheads or those trying to understand the Grateful Dead. There were some new tales even for me, a Deadhead of 35 years now. And I really love the oral history format, where they take interviews from all the players and stitch them together to form the narrative. I especially enjoy when there are different points of view in those narratives!
March 10, 2022
Much like Frank Zappa or Miles Davis, I'm way more interested in the Grateful Dead as a cultural object than I am in their music. I was surprised especially in later chapters by how incredibly self-reflective the Dead were about their live shows during their final years, when, by all accounts, the quality of live shows dropped off a cliff.
August 8, 2021
An oral history of the Greatful Dead
While not a Deadhead , I am interested in the 60's counter culture and music in general. So this book is a must for anyone interested in the Dead's influence on the 60s and music.
While not a Deadhead , I am interested in the 60's counter culture and music in general. So this book is a must for anyone interested in the Dead's influence on the 60s and music.
December 29, 2021
Absolutely loved this, even only being a recent Deadhead. The style of writing which I thought might grate being effectively a series of quotes from various people was actually easy to read and flowed well
October 16, 2022
I've read a lot of books about the history of the Grateful Dead, including David Gans' earlier collection of interviews, "Conversations with the Dead." This is by far the best and most definitive history of the band and the scene as told by the participants in their own words.
July 19, 2023
This book was a lot like their music: rambling and much longer than it probably needs to be.
In a nutshell: ‘we took drugs and made noise with instruments, and nobody cared what it sounded like because they were also on drugs.’
In a nutshell: ‘we took drugs and made noise with instruments, and nobody cared what it sounded like because they were also on drugs.’
May 4, 2024
Thorough, magical, topical. Drawn from many interviews with diverse members of the band, family, and scene. Gets into some friction amongst members and staff. Provides interesting background to many things I thought I knew about. Essential reading.
May 15, 2017
A collection of interviews from Dead Heads over the years that gives interesting insight into the Dead Head culture and all the ups and downs over the years.
July 22, 2017
Lots of great info about how the band started, their business model, and their first European tour-Im a fan, not a dead head- worth a read!
September 22, 2017
Highly recommended. The mind-meld spiritual appeal of the music and culture they created may never happen again.
October 9, 2017
Really fun, listened on audible which I think actually made it better because of the different voices used for each person throughout.
June 3, 2020
Great book, but the kindle edition is broken with repeat pages and missing pages.
June 29, 2020
Enjoyable but somehow too light for the scope and breadth of the subject. What’s included are great impressionistic subjects but the fast forward button is hit too much for my tastes.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews