What's next for the Grateful Dead's legacy?

Summary

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NPR Music: "What's Next for the Grateful Dead's Legacy?"

Date: August 1, 2026
Hosts: Felix Contreras & Isabella Gomez Sarmiento
Series: Dead After Death

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Overview

This episode, released fittingly on Jerry Garcia’s birthday, dives deeply into the shifting legacy of the Grateful Dead following the recent passing of Bob Weir and other core band members. Felix Contreras and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento go on a cross-country “summer tour” to explore what comes next for Deadheads, the music, and the community. Through on-the-ground reporting, archival treks, and interviews with musicians, historians, fans, and the Dead’s inner circle, they paint a comprehensive portrait of how the Grateful Dead’s spirit endures and morphs across generations.

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Main Themes and Purpose

• Transition Point: Exploring the band's legacy after the deaths of key members and the end of “original” Dead tours.
• Community & Identity: Investigating why and how Deadhead culture remains vibrant and multi-generational.
• Preservation & Innovation: Looking at the ongoing archival efforts, the proliferation of cover bands, and the band's “musical DNA.”
• The Music Never Stops: Asking who carries these songs forward, how, and why the appeal goes on, despite—and because of—change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Days Between: Ritual, Remembrance, and Cosmic Coincidence

• The episode opens during the “Days Between,” the span from Garcia’s birthday (Aug 1) to his death (Aug 9), celebrated as Deadhead tradition.
• Summer tours historically central to Dead culture; this week heightens reflection.

“It’s become more of a celebration... a celebration of Jerry Garcia's life, but also a celebration of everything Grateful Dead.”
—Felix Contreras [00:33]

2. Finding Community as a Deadhead

• Both hosts recall their “initiation” into Deadhead culture, emphasizing the community (“tribe,” “family”) aspect.
• The Grateful Dead’s appeal is as much about communal experience as the music itself.

“It's curious that both you and I had a sensation of finding like minded people because that's such a part of the Grateful Dead experience.”
—Felix Contreras [02:24]

3. Musical DNA: Improvisation and Audience as Participants

• Interview with Grateful Dead historian Dennis McNally in San Francisco.
• The Dead “weren’t a rock band. They were a jazz band... their commitment to improvisation made them different from all other bands.” [05:37]
• Early “Acid Test” shows shaped a dynamic where the audience was not passive—“Everybody in the room was the show.” [08:23]

“The audience was, in fact, their peers on a quest—it was close to that. Everybody in the room was in the band.”
—Dennis McNally [08:37]

4. The People vs. The Band: What Outlasts the Original Members?

• The Deadhead community’s strength lies in valuing the music and gathering, not just the core lineup.
• Proliferation of over 800 Dead cover bands across the country (e.g., Grateful Shred, Dark Star Orchestra, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead) offer communal experiences.

“It's become a phenomenon and it's your way of getting your fix of the community. It's not just the music, but it's the community.”
—Dennis McNally [11:04]

5. Archival Efforts: Preserving Ephemera, Technology & Performance

a. UC Santa Cruz Archive Visit

• The Grateful Dead donated their extensive memorabilia, newsletters, and fan communications to UCSC in 2008, establishing “Dead Central” as the exhibit space.

“The story of the Grateful Dead is in the minutiae of all the predictions, stuff that we saw... the way people dressed, the tie dyes, the colors, the swirls, even in what some of the magazines were talking about back then...”
—Felix Contreras [16:17]

b. Iconography as Accidental Legacy

• The “stealy” lightning bolt logo was created for pragmatic reasons (to label road gear), later becoming essential to identity.

c. Fandom as Record-Keepers

• Famed sound engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson discusses her pivotal live tapes; fans (the “tapers”) continue taping and trading shows as both preservation and participation.
• The Vault, managed by Dave Lemieux and Rhino Entertainment, continues to release concerts for obsessive collector-fans.

“Deadheads are all archivists. We all love to collect these things.”
—Dave Lemieux [26:11]

“There's a lot of people that are not taping anymore, which is unfortunate. But this, this stuff right now that we're getting, you can't let it slip away. I mean, and if you gotta preserve it and capture it and share it, and we're very lucky, that's all I can say.”
—John Chandler, taper [27:05]

6. Passing of the Torch: Generational Shifts

• Anecdotes from fans and musicians—old and young—demonstrate how each new generation discovers the Dead through archival tapes, family tradition, and live experiences.
• Bob Weir’s evolving public persona (“young Bob” vs. “old Bob”) is discussed as emblematic of the band’s shifting relationship with fans.

7. Who Plays Next? Don Was, Graham Lesh, and The Living Songbook

• Don Was (Wolf Brothers/Panda Troy Ensemble) shares the unique challenge of playing the Dead’s music and his journey to “just be yourself” as instructed by Bob Weir:

“The most Grateful Dead-like thing you can do is just be yourself.”
—Bob Weir (as quoted by Don Was) [34:33]

• Graham Lesh, son of Phil, is the only current touring child of an original member, but sees himself as a branch, not the trunk; the “oak tree” metaphor illustrates the ongoing, mutable nature of the Dead community.

“My folks called [the band] a big old oak tree. The roots were the jazz and blues... The trunk is the band members, and the branches and leaves are everyone inspired by them... it’ll grow and grow... not every tree lives forever, but it outlives all of us.”
—Graham Lesh [43:49]

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Notable Quotes

• On Community Over Band Lineup:
  “The Deadheads decided that it wasn’t the band per se... it was the music. It didn’t matter who it was.”
  —Dennis McNally [09:23]

• On the Band’s Experimentation For Fans:
  “They were cutting out the middleman on the ticketing services. They were, you know, designing their own sound systems... strictly to make a wonderful customer experience, as we would say now.”
  —Felix Contreras [21:15]

• On Musical Continuity:
  “Bobby used to say that he wanted the songs to last 300 years. And what he meant was... the themes of the song were relevant to the human condition.”
  —Don Was [35:41]

• On Endings as New Beginnings:
  “Fare Thee Well was supposed to be an end, but then everyone was, like, turned on... That’s very Grateful Dead, that the end becomes a new beginning.”
  —Felix Contreras & Dennis McNally [39:44−39:55]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [00:20] Setting the scene: Jerry Garcia’s birthday and Days Between
• [01:03] Hosts share their first Deadhead moments
• [05:37] Dennis McNally: The Dead’s jazz DNA and audience dynamics
• [08:23] The Acid Tests and participatory concerts
• [09:38] Fan perspectives: Mark Pearl (CA) and Eunice Kang (NYC)
• [11:04] Rise of cover bands as living community spaces
• [13:57] UC Santa Cruz archive visit and fan communication history
• [22:16] Betty Cantor-Jackson & the legacy of live show recordings
• [24:31] The Vault and official release operation explained by Dave Lemieux
• [27:02] Tapers and the fan-as-archivist phenomenon
• [31:35] Don Was and adapting the Dead’s bass legacy
• [35:41] Don Was on Bob Weir’s vision of a 300-year legacy
• [36:33] Monte Rio “Terrapin Roadshow”—multi-generational expressions
• [40:38] Graham Lesh’s perspective on carrying the torch
• [43:49] Oak tree metaphor: the evolving Dead ecosystem
• [45:12] Reflections on legacy after the founders’ passing

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Memorable Moments

• Hosts geeking out at Dead memorabilia and the archival table used in band HQ [16:17]
• Betty Cantor-Jackson’s “Betty Boards” still cherished by fans, decades later [22:26]
• Live tape trading: single taper spotted at a modern show, keeping tradition alive [27:02]
• Mini “family reunion” vibes at the Terrapin Roadshow, kids in tie-dye, and the torch being passed [37:32−42:55]
• Heartfelt musical interludes: clips from “Eyes of the World,” “Broke Down Palace,” and “The Music Never Stopped” reinforce themes of change and continuity
• Final reflections: “ending is a new beginning,” the Dead as a living tree, optimism for another 300 years of songs and stories [45:33]

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Conclusion

“What's next for the Grateful Dead's legacy?” The answer: it lives in the music’s endless reinterpretation, the persistence of a fiercely loyal and ever-expanding community, and a spirit of openness that welcomes new voices, new bands, and new listeners. The Dead may no longer tour, but as long as the music—archived, performed, or heard in the back of a car—continues, so does the trip.

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For More

• Visit npr.org/deadafterdeath for extra podcasts, articles, and reporting.
• Listen to related episodes: All Songs Considered, song deep-dives.
• Follow NPR Music on Instagram and TikTok @nprmusic.

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Keep on truckin’...

Transcript

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[Felix Contreras]

From NPR Music, I'm Felix Contreras.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And I'm Isabella Gomez Sarmiento.

[Felix Contreras]

Issa, do you know what day it is?

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Of course I do, because I look forward to it all year. It's Jerry Garcia's birthday today, August 1st.

[Felix Contreras]

And it kicks off a week that's known as days between.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Between August 1st and August 9th, the day that Jerry Garcia died in 1995.

[Felix Contreras]

And it's become more of a celebration than anything else, Specifically the celebration of Jerry Garcia's life, but also a celebration of everything. Grateful Dead.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, it's like unofficial Grateful Dead week. I feel like it's the most fun week of the summer because there's always a bunch of different events and gatherings, and people get together to talk about why they love the Grateful Dead.

[Felix Contreras]

And it's kind of cosmic that it happens in August because the summer tours were such a big part of Grateful Dead life for the band and for the fans.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Do you remember, Felix, when you first identified as a Deadhead?

[Felix Contreras]

Yeah, it was my first show. I'd been listening and exploring, and then when I went to the first show and that first note when everybody started dancing and I didn't expect it, and I'm like, what is this? And then I felt like, okay, I found my people.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Do you remember the date?

[Felix Contreras]

It's 5,000, 491. Wow. In Sacramento at Cal Expo.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Did you get up and dance?

[Felix Contreras]

I did not dance. I am dance challenged. But that's another story for another time.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

I find that kind of hard to believe.

[Felix Contreras]

It's completely true. We.

[Dennis McNally]

What about you?

[Felix Contreras]

When did you first know that you were at Deadhead?

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

You know, I think it was also my first show. I had really gotten into them towards the end of High School 2015. And then I went to see Dead and Company at that first fall tour. And we got there kind of late, and we walked in and they were playing Feel Like a Stranger, And we were really close. It was like, easier to get pit tickets at the beginning of those tours, you know?

[Don Was]

Yeah.

[Felix Contreras]

Yeah.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And then, you know, then I got on the bus, then I started going to all the shows.

[Felix Contreras]

It's curious that both you and I had a sensation of finding like minded people because that's such a part of the Grateful Dead experience. Being part of that community, being part of the tribe, being Part of the family being part of Deadheads.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah. And it's kind of how we found each other at npr, too. I remember the very first time I asked you to get coffee with me. You noticed my lightning bolt tattoo stood out.

[Felix Contreras]

Definitely stood out from someone of your generation, because this is. You were my first exposure to folks who were coming in long after Garcia died and absorbing the Dead and Company experience.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah. It's not the original thing. It's not what you saw. It's not Jerry Garcia, you know, playing in the evenings at Shoreline Amphitheater, as you love to tell me. I know that. I recognize that. But there was still a magic. There was still this sense of going to these giant shows and hanging out with people of all ages and. Yeah. And feeling like you were a part of something much, much bigger than yourself and much, much bigger than this moment in time. And it's interesting to me that that through line has existed even as the music and the people who are playing the music on stage has had to sort of reinvent itself. Right. Or regenerate a new iteration, a new kind of way to get together and play the songs. The people have kept following, and new people have joined. New people like me, have. Have gotten on the bus and sort of joined the giant traveling circus of the Grateful Dead over the years. And this summer, it feels like we're reaching another moment where people are kind of are looking around and getting a sense of where the scene is right now.

[Felix Contreras]

With Bob Weir's passing in January of this year, Phil Lesh and Donna Gottschau in the last couple of years, and with drummers Billy Kreutzman and Mickey Hart laying low, it definitely feels like a point of transition. But what happens next? Where do we go from here? What happens with the fans? What happens with the music? And what happens to people who still love to play the music? You and I talked a lot about it, and we wanted to go out and find some answers. So to do that, we went on our own summer tour. We talked to people all over the country to try to get to the answer of what happens next.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

We went to California, New York, Maryland. We had some calls with people who live even in other countries. We talked to someone who lives in

[Felix Contreras]

Canada, and the result is a series that we're calling Dead After Death. A series of reports on our website, audio reports, a podcast, lots of social media. Taking a look at where this long, strange trip goes next. Roll away the dew Roll away the

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

doo and there was only one place we could start, because that's where this entire story starts. And that's San Francisco. I can mic us, Felix and you, Mike. Dennis.

[Felix Contreras]

Okay, cool. Let's see.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

We went to see a Grateful Dead historian by the name of Dennis McNally. He was the biographer for the band. He was their publicist for a very long time, and he very graciously welcomed us into his home, which was full of Dead memorabilia. Felix and I were freaking out.

[Felix Contreras]

Oh, my God. And during the conversation with Dennis, you know, he reminded us that in order to understand the band, you have to really understand the band's musical DNA.

[Dennis McNally]

There are two truly unique things about the Grateful Dead. One is that in the world of rock and roll, at least, they weren't a rock band. They were a jazz band that happened to use rock instruments and rock songs and rock forms, but their commitment to improvisation made them different from all other bands.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Felix, I mean, I know you're going to bring up Darkstar, but is there a song that, for you, really demonstrates what Dennis is saying, that the Dead were actually a jazz band, not, you know, a psychedelic rock band.

[Felix Contreras]

The band's jazz influence has always been sprinkled throughout all of their music. But for me, that trilogy that you like so much, help on the way, Slipknot, Franklin's Tower, that particular stretch of music, no matter when they play, it always brings to mind what I feel like are the jazz bonafides. And then also the fact that during that time, they were using a lot of Fender Rose electric piano, which a lot of jazz musicians were using at the time, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock in particular. So the timbre of the piano as well as the musical direction, that, in particular, like, really nails the jazz influence for me.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

I also really like this way of thinking about the Dead, because so many people think of them as a jam band. And I think jam band, you know, as we've learned from talking to our colleagues, like the great Robin Hilton, I think the term jam band can really turn people off to the Dead's music. And I think if you reframe it, as they're coming at it, from this improvisation that is more rooted in the spirit of jazz. Even though, you know, you have these, like, bluegrass elements from Jerry, you have Phil with the classical training, Bobby as the sort of kid with the rock and roll elements, I think understanding that what they were doing was closer to maybe, like, Miles Davis than necessarily, I think it helps to sort of understand what they were aiming for and what those long sort of, like, musical interludes in the set lists represent, you know, and another really Important part of the band's musical DNA, according to Dennis, is their very, very early shows at the Acid Test parties that the author Ken Kesey would throw in the bay. This was, you know, when LSD was still legal. And basically, you know, everybody walked in, everybody paid a couple dollars, and everybody took lsd. And Dennis says that those shows and the way that the Dead interacted with the people there really came to define how they would treat their audience.

[Dennis McNally]

They had this experience for 3 months of not being the show. Everybody in the room was the show. They were the soundtrack if they chose to play, and they didn't always.

[Felix Contreras]

And that only got stronger as the audiences started to grow.

[Dennis McNally]

The Grateful Dead, even when they were playing to 50,000 people down deep, certainly Jerry had the notion that the audience was, in fact, their peers on a quest, a quest for cosmic. You know, you start describing that quest and immediately go, you know, woo, woo. Oh, Lord. But it was close to that. Everybody in the room was in the band.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And I think that's what gets us to this point where you have people traveling across the country, traveling at some point as far as the pyramids in Egypt to see this band. You have people develop this attachment to the band and to this experience of being one with the musicians, being one with everybody else in the crowd, even if it was thousands and thousands of people.

[Dennis McNally]

The Deadheads decided that it wasn't the band per se, the people that was their linchpin in it was the music. It didn't matter who it was, a matter of taste, who you wanted to have play it.

[Felix Contreras]

You don't have to just take Dennis word for it. We talked to Mark Pearl in Monte Rio, California, at a nice little festival in the Redwoods. He's a longtime Deadhead who describes himself as an old hippie. To me, the people are more important than the music. We're here for the people.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And, you know, it's interesting because I also heard that from people who had never been to a Dead show before. I talked to Eunice Kang in New York City. She was at this tribute show in Brooklyn. It was her first time at any sort of Dead gathering. So, of course, I asked her what her favorite part was. I don't know, honestly. Well, the music first and then second. I just have to say, the people. I feel like, you know, I'm meeting and seeing people from so many different paths of lives. And it's just really beautiful to see everyone come together and, you know, being one thing.

[Felix Contreras]

And now people are going to be going to Dead cover bands to get their fix. And there are a lot of different bands all over the place. It seems like every neighborhood in the country possibly has a Dead cover band.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, I mean, when we were at Dennis's house in San Francisco, he said that there is a website that catalogs all of the different Grateful Dead bands across the country. He said there's like more than 800 and you know, that includes big ones like Grateful Shred, Dark Star Orchestra, Joe Russo's Almost Dead, but also just little local ones. And it shows that what people really want to do is listen to this music with other fans, regardless of who necessarily is on stage.

[Dennis McNally]

It's become a phenomenon and it's your way of getting your fix of the community. It's not just the music, but it's the community. You go in, you see people you know, or you make new friends. It's an incredibly benign and sweet phenomenon.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And here's one of those cover bands, Joe Russo's Almost Dead, doing their take on Eyes of the World. Don't worry, we still have a couple more stops on this road trip, but we're going to take a quick break.

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[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

So we wanted to go talk to people at the shows, people who were looking for a way to get together this summer. But before we did that, there was. That contains a lot of history and really helps explain how the Grateful Dead built that community. So we had to make a stop at the official Grateful Dead archive.

[Felix Contreras]

The Grateful Dead were a product of a very specific time and place in San Francisco in the mid-1960s, when the so called Summer of Love happened. And like every other community that pops up, infrastructure started to develop, like helping people find shelter, food, medical assistance, and communication. Right. There were newsletters about helping people navigate the city. And the band also started using these methods of communication. They had a newsletter. You could write to them and they would send you a newsletter about what's going on with the band, upcoming performances, album previews and stuff like that. The band collected all that stuff. Then in 2008, the band donated a bunch of their stuff to the University of California at Santa Cruz, to the library that holds special collections. And that's where we went. Beautiful campus nestled in the redwoods, just a stone's throw from the picturesque, beautiful central California coast. And we talked to the woman who is in charge of managing that archive. So we're in Dead Central, which is the exhibition space that is devoted to displaying materials from the Grateful Dead archival collections.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

That's Sam Riegel. She is the instruction and exhibitions librarian and special collections and archives at UC Santa Cruz. And she gave Mia Felix a very special tour of the exhibit collection.

[Felix Contreras]

So the current exhibition is called all the pages are My Print and Visual Culture of the Grateful Dead in Context.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

So it was this, like, big yellow room in the university library, and there was just Grateful Dead stuff everywhere. There were like giant dancing bear stuffed animals. There were posters from the Dead's earliest shows. There were zines. There were all these underground political pamphlets and newsletters. And Sam said a lot of this has to do with how printing became so accessible during this time and how leaflets, underground newspapers, underground posters, this all became a big part of the Grateful Dead's footprint in their community. And the Haight Ashbury and eventually further beyond California. They're really the kind of originators of

[Felix Contreras]

the psychedelic art movement as we understand

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

it, at least in the context of the States. Felix, was there something in that Dead Central room that stood out to you or that you were really psyched to see?

[Felix Contreras]

Well, besides the life size marionettes that were used in the Touch of Gray video that were right there on exhibit. It must be getting early. Clocks are running late. Paint by number, Morning sky look so phony. I think that the story of the Grateful Dead is in the minutiae of all the predictions, stuff that we saw, the things that we're developing. People tend to forget that you're coming out of the 1950s, and then all of a sudden, there's this giant movement of counterculture. And expressed in the way. Just look at the pictures, the way people dressed, the tie dyes, the colors, the swirls, even in what some of the magazines were talking about back then in the mid-1960s and late 60s, the politics, the civil rights, the anti Vietnam War, there was a lot of stuff. It was electric. There was a lot of stuff popping. And people were thinking of different ways to express that. So. And it was spread out on this massive table that was actually the table that was used in the Grateful Dead headquarters in San Rafael, California, where a lot of these decisions were made. That table was donated to the archive. It's got a glass enclosure on top, and then a lot of this stuff underneath. That was pretty cool just to be see the table and see all this stuff.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, I think it was also cool just to see all of the different aspects of Dead iconography in one place. You know, like the tie dye, the dancing bears, but also the steely, the skeletons and roses, all of these sort of characters that have become ubiquitous with the Grateful Dead. And I think it's things. You know, I was getting off the subway this morning. I saw a guy with the Grateful Dead shirt. We were standing outside of the library at the UC Santa Cruz campus, and there was a kid doing a college tour with his parents, and. And he was wearing a Grateful Dead shirt. And he told us he had no idea who they were. He didn't listen to music. He didn't know anything about the band. He just thought the shirt looked cool. And I think that that aspect of the Dead's visual identity and how distinct it is and the care that people have put into preserving those materials and preserving that visual style, it was really, really cool to see it and to understand it firsthand from someone like Sam, who specializes in recording this part of the band's history.

[Felix Contreras]

And what's really kind of amazing, even the visual iconography that we appreciate right now was, like so much else of the Grateful Dead, sort of a cosmic accident. Because, you know, the stele that we all love, the skull with the lightning bolt through the middle, that was designed by somebody in the Grateful Dead camp to stamp on their road gear so that they could easily identify which was their stuff at festivals. At concerts and venues and stuff. I just said, somebody came up with this, let's stick it on the thing. And then it became something that people were getting tattoos with. You know, it become so ubiquitous, it's like easily identifiable. One look and you know you're a member of the family if you're wearing it.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, I think that also like that, that aspect of how the Steely was created, how these different aspects of the band's culture was created, I think it speaks to how much everybody in their crew and their orbit had some kind of role or played some kind of job in keeping this whole train running. You know, like, I think it's really cool that we were there and we got to go up to not just the, you know, there was the exhibit in the main library floor, but we got to go up to the reading room. And Sam started wheeling out different archival documents that were, you know, being stored in the climate controlled facilities at the university. And she had a document that was pretty legendary. I recorded you going through, going through some of the boxes.

[Felix Contreras]

It was so much fun, man. Deadhead Newsletter number one, January 1972. Oh, italic font at the top it says Deadheads unite. Oh, it's a listing, it's announcement of Europe 72. It has a list of all the shows that were recorded that were released on the album. Oh, my gosh. And at the very bottom, at the end of all the copy, it says, take care, have fun, and stay high.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

The Grateful Dead Words to live by. Sam was saying, but it was really cool to see this piece of paper. I mean, you know, I had heard of Eileen Law. She was one of the people who worked in their office who helped coordinate these newsletters that went out to fans that turned into a ticketing hotline that was like, on the east coast and west coast. People could call the band and buy tickets directly from them. But there was something so cool about seeing it firsthand and understanding how there were all of these people who were working to maintain this community, not just when the band was on the road, but also, you know, letting them feel like they were a part of something. They were in the loop. They were like, you know, getting this letter directly from the band, letting them know what was going on. And it's crazy that it was Europe 72, which went on to be some of the most legendary shows and albums that the band recorded.

[Felix Contreras]

I think that that's the thing that looking back, and I was really grateful, pardon the expression, and rediscovering in this project that we did just the Respect for how they tried to control as much as they could, the business side of things, strictly for the benefit of the fans, not to make money. They were cutting out the middleman on the ticketing services. They were, you know, designing their own sound systems. They were designing their own recording equipment. They were doing a lot of different things. And all these different people within the Dead Orbit were experimenting and creating, doing these things. And again, it goes back to. It was strictly to make a wonderful consumer customer experience, as we would say.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Now, it's funny to think of Deadheads as consumers or customers, but you're absolutely right. That is, you know, that is what they were doing. And we got to talk to one of the people who was at the forefront of some of that innovation. I think we were both really geeking out on this call when we were getting to ask her about her experience, and that is the producer and engineer, Betty Cantor Jackson.

[Dennis McNally]

We wanted to capture performances because that's where the energy was. That's where they really excelled. They never played it twice the same. They never had a set list.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

So Betty, you know, like Eileen, Betty was one of the women working behind the scenes to innovate, to break new ground for the Grateful Dead. She was mixing and recording hundreds and hundreds of hours of shows. You know, she told us that it wasn't always easy being a woman in that environment, in that very male dominated, macho environment, and that she kind of just stayed out of everybody's way and got her work done. But her work is legendary. I mean, the shows that she recorded are now known as Betty Boards, and they're beloved by fans around the world.

[Dennis McNally]

We had to develop a split to make sure we had three ways to go. So I had my own feed. Because I didn't record out in the audience, that wasn't what I did. I didn't do the room sound. That wasn't going to be what I wanted. I wanted to do my own mix and to make it clear and to make the space more real, like you're either in the front row or you're on the stage.

[Felix Contreras]

Betty Bor tapes were so important to the culture and to the movement and that point in time that her recording of the iconic Cornell 5877, it was included by the Library of Congress in their massive collection of significant sound recordings that reflect the culture of the United States. Here's a little bit of that show. Let's hear the whole show. Issa, let's just sit back.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, let's just put on the whole show.

[Felix Contreras]

I wanna Tell you how it's gonna be. You gonna give your love to me. I wanna love you night and day.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah. You know, not to get too corny, but I think you could say Betty made sure the Grateful Dead songs did not fade away. And all of those tapes are not stored at the University of California and Santa Cruz, but they are in a separate climate controlled facility in Southern California that is known as the Vault.

[Felix Contreras]

I mean, the Grateful Dead are unique in a thousand ways, but one of

[Dave Lemieux]

the most unique ways about it is that there is this Vault that they played 2,300 shows, and there are millions

[Felix Contreras]

of fans that would love to hear

[Dave Lemieux]

all 2300 of those shows.

[Felix Contreras]

He rounded that off as 2,318. Okay, just for the record,

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

you know more than Mark Pincus on this subject.

[Felix Contreras]

Obviously, he was rounding it off. I'm sure that's Mark Pincus. He's the president of Rhino Entertainment. They entered into an exclusive contract with the Grateful Dead to manage this massive tape archive that the Dead had accumulated over the years. And they have been responsible for so many of these beautiful box sets that come out once a year. They managed the Dick's Pick series, the Road Trip series, and now Dave's Picks, which comes out quarterly in a limited number of releases that come out every

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

year, I can honestly say that after

[Dave Lemieux]

36 Dick's picks and 17 road trips and now 59 Dave's picks and countless box sets and on and on, I honestly feel like we're just getting started.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And that's the Grateful Dead's archivist and legacy manager, Dave Lemieux. That's where the Dave's Picks name comes from. I think what's interesting about the Vault and about the work of someone like Dave and, you know, Ann, Marc and the folks at Rhino Records is how much the Vault is still a really core part of the experience for Deadheads across generations. You know, whether it's someone like you, Felix, who got to see the band live in the original lineup, or someone like me who never saw Jerry, never interacted with the Grateful Dead. I wasn't even born when the Grateful Dead actually existed. But those recordings hold such a special place in the Dead's footprint and in their history.

[Dave Lemieux]

Deadheads are all archivists. We all love to collect these things.

[Felix Contreras]

Guilty is charged. I have every ticket stub of every show I've ever went to.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And, you know, even though, of course, we've been talking about the Vault and these official recordings that exist and, you know, the 2,300 plus shows that are still being rolled out. But one step beyond that, the fans were a real part of those shows and that experience because they were allowed to record the shows, because they had their own entire ecosystem of trading tapes, of cataloging their own recordings, there are still tapers out there. It's not as common as it used to be, but we were at a show in Monte Rio, California. There were hundreds of people there, and there was a single guy standing in the crowd with his taping equipment held up. Felix freaked out and ran to talk to him. His name is John Chandler. He's been going to Dead shows since the 80s, and he had thoughts about being the only one out there with his recording equipment.

[Dave Lemieux]

It is. And, you know, I think that's the thing that I've been realizing.

[Felix Contreras]

There's a lot of people that are

[Dave Lemieux]

not taping anymore, which is unfortunate. But this, this stuff right now that we're getting, you can't let it slip away. I mean, and if you gotta preserve it and capture it and share it, and we're very lucky, that's all I can say.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And again, it's like, you know, those tapes, those archival shows, this fan experience of listening to a performance that you weren't necessarily there for. It's still how people find the dead and connect to the dead. Today I talked to 27 year old Julius Miller at a show in Brooklyn. Here's how he became a Deadhead.

[Felix Contreras]

I had a friend in high school who was into it, and I remember we just listened to one show in his Prius One Night 77 show. And it was great. And I was kind of into it. I'm kind of a historian and I like numbers and history. So that was an alluring aspect of

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

it, you know, from there, I think, you know, David Lemieux told us it was the same thing for him. He was listening to the shows, he was collecting the tapes. And then Julius told me he actually went out. He started seeing Dead and company a bunch of times. And he was at those very last performances for The Grateful Dead, 60th in Golden Gate park last year. It was Bob Weir's last ever performances.

[Felix Contreras]

And I really like old Bob.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Like, I love.

[Felix Contreras]

I mean, I like, I love young Bob, I love Jeans Bob. But old Bob is really cool. And I like to hear his old voice and his weathered voice, and I just don't really feel like he's left. So the idea of like an old Bob and a young Bob, you know,

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

this is a real thing. I used to joke with my friends that we couldn't call him Bobby, he was Mr. Weir to us, like he was the kid in the original Grateful Dead. But like, I think for my generation, Bobby is like the old with the beard that wears the capris and the ponchos and the cowboy hats. He's like a mythical figure.

[Felix Contreras]

For years he was the, the young, energetic one, the one that would do the, the power chord gestures and get the crowd going. And such an expressive voice, probably the most expressive voice in the band. No diss to Jerry. It was an adjustment to hear it weathered, to hear it slowed down. Even when my career highlight, I think so far has been bringing the Wolf Brothers, his trio with Don Was and Jay Lane to the tiny des. And to be in the room with the voice and hear it like this guy said, slow and weathered, it was a different thing. It was really, it hit me in a very different way. If my words did flow

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

with the

[Felix Contreras]

gold of sunshine and my tunes were played on my heart,

[Don Was]

would you hear

[Felix Contreras]

my voice come through the music? Would you hold it near?

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

That tiny desk is so beautiful and it breaks my heart every single time because it was recorded like a week before I started at NPR and I didn't get a chance to be there.

[Felix Contreras]

If only I knew you were coming.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

I know I should have tapped into it earlier, let you know.

[Felix Contreras]

And that was Bob Weir and Wolf Brothers, featuring the drummer Jay Lane and bassist Don Woods. And we're going to hear from Don woods after we take a quick break. Ripple Hill, Still Water where there is no double cost, no wind to blow.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from. Made in Cookware president and co founder Jay Kalik shares why he was inspired by his family's fourth generation kitchen supply business.

[Felix Contreras]

Growing up in a commercial kitchen at home really opened my eyes to bringing what was cool in restaurants into your home. And when you think about what we do today, we are asking these chefs for product ideas. We are designing products together with them that we then realize a home cook can use as well.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Learn more about Made in Cookware at M a d e I-ncookware.com and we're back.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

We've been talking about the Grateful Dead's history, you know, their long legacy, the vault, the archives, and how the band got to this point as part of our series called Dead After Death. And now, you know, we've gotten up to this moment. Bob Weir died earlier this year and a lot of people, Felix, you and I have been asking this to ourselves. We've been asking this to Deadheads. A lot of people are thinking about what Happens now. Who carries these songs forward? Who keeps playing this music? And you had a great idea for someone that we should talk to.

[Felix Contreras]

Don was this guy who is not only just an amazing bass player, but he's a music industry veteran. He's played with all kinds of people. He's a Grammy award winning producer, multiple Grammys, Bonnie Raitt, a bunch of people, an extensive background. He's the president of Blue Note Records, the. The distinguished jazz label. He's got all his background and he got recruited. Bob Weir says that he had a dream that he wanted to start a trio and he wanted. Don was in the trio and so he was part of Wolf Brothers. And he told us that playing the Dead songbook was a very, very different experience from any other that he's ever had.

[Don Was]

It's unlike any other audience that I've certainly ever played for. They're super locked in and focused on what you're doing. They. They respond to every move. And I know that it's different lines, different strokes for different folks, right? Different lines mean something to. To everybody. Everybody's different. Everyone's got their own unique inner emotional life. And there's something in those songs. There's something in there that really speaks to people and helps them, I think, deal with the craziness of life, the unpredictability of life, the chaos of life.

[Felix Contreras]

Go leave this Broke Down palace

[Dennis McNally]

on

[Felix Contreras]

my head I will roll, roll, roll make myself a bed by the waterside in my time in my time I

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

will roll, roll That's Bob Weir and the Wolf Brothers doing their beautiful rendition of Broke down palace, one of many Grateful Dead songs about transitions, about endings and beginnings. And, you know, it was really interesting to me that Don was. Played bass with Bob because the bass was always such a particular instrument in the contained chaos of the Grateful Dead. Phil didn't know how to play bass when he joined the band. People often say he played it more like a low guitar than a traditional bass. So we wanted to ask Don if he felt some pressure playing those parts every night on stage.

[Don Was]

At first, I felt that people were expecting to hear Phil's approach to these songs, which, by the way, is different every single night. There's no. You don't learn the bass part to the song because there is no bass part. The bass part is whatever he felt like playing that night. I felt like people were expecting to hear that and I was trying to imitate it, but I. I couldn't get it right. And after a couple shows, at the very beginning, Bobby said, you know, the Most grateful dad like thing you can do is just be yourself.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

I love that.

[Felix Contreras]

So Zen, right?

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Just be yourself, man.

[Felix Contreras]

And Don was. Has taken that to heart. After Bobby died, we brought him in with his own band, the Panda Troy Ensemble, where they played their music, but also they did a Dead cover. They played the Music Never Stops,

[Dave Lemieux]

Our own.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

It's a rainbow full of sound it's fireworks, Goliath beads and clowns Everybody is dancing.

[Felix Contreras]

It was a different interpretation of a song that we're all very familiar with. And, in fact, his band has been known to cover entire albums like Blues for Allah. And I think they're doing that in the fall this year.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, it's the 50th anniversary of blues for Allah. And Don told us that they were already planning to do those tribute shows before Bobby passed. And then, you know, we asked him if now, without Bobby, if he felt like he still wanted to keep playing those songs, if he wanted to keep playing that music. And he said that's what Bobby would have wanted him to do.

[Don Was]

Bobby used to say that he wanted the songs to last 300 years. And what he meant was, he felt that this was music that transcended fashion or a particular moment in time in San Francisco, that the themes of the song were relevant to the human condition. And he wanted people to continue to play these songs and relate to them.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

You could say the music never stopped.

[Felix Contreras]

Right.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And that is still happening, even without a formal Grateful Dead iteration. This summer, people are playing the music all over the country. People are getting together, the. They're wearing their tie dye, they're dancing. That's why we went to. At the end of May, a little clearing surrounded by redwood trees about two hours north of San Francisco in Monte Rio, California. It's off a road called. This is not a Joke, the Bohemian Highway.

[Felix Contreras]

You know, I grew up in Northern California, and I remember driving through there when I was younger, and when it was. It's pretty rural now, and it was even more rural back then. It was. It hadn't become a destination for people from the Bay Area or from Northern California. But even now, it's still very rural, very secluded. But it has that whole area around Marin county where the band eventually settled, had their offices, had their homes. That's still very dead country.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And we were there because it was the first stop for the Terrapin Roadshow this summer, which is a celebration of the Grateful Dead's music, organized by the family of the late bassist Phil Lesch.

[Felix Contreras]

It was a small little gathering in this little clearing in like, Almost a makeshift amphitheater amongst the redwoods. A small little town. I think there was a country store and a restaurant. And what surprised me was the multi generational aspect of the crowd, the people that we talked to in the audience.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Yeah, there were a lot of families there, a lot of little kids in cute tie, dye, Grateful Dead shirts running around. But it wasn't just the audience that was multi generational. It was. It was also the people performing on stage. Everyone was here to see Phil Lesh's son, Graham Lesh, perform the Grateful Dead songbook.

[Dave Lemieux]

And, you know, I was born in December of 86, so not long after that, in the Dark came out, Touch of Gray came out and they, like, blew up. So that's all I remember is the, like, Stadium Dead. But that means, you know, meant they had the kind of the resources to. For, you know, my dad to bring his whole family on tour. So. So I basically just grew up with it. All the other members were like my uncles. And, yeah, it was just like what my dad did.

[Felix Contreras]

I'm just shaking my head for people who can't see us because we're listening to audio. It's just to grow up in that environment where that sets your musical bar. With that kind of music, that kind of improvisation, that kind of musical statement sets your musical bar. It's bound to impact you. And even after the Grateful dead ended in 95, Phil took some breaks. I mean, he was a very active dad, but he also toured and played with a bunch of different people. A group they put together called Further. They put together the Dead, Phil Lesch and Friends. And then there was the massive 50th anniversary shows in 2015, fare thee well, which were really the last official Grateful Dead shows.

[Dave Lemieux]

I didn't really realize the extent of the Grateful Dead's thing until the 50th in 2015. That was sort of when everyone came out of the woodwork that I knew that I didn't know were Deadheads and were like, I'm a Deadhead, you know, like my high school friends who were like little skater kids and, like, didn't like hippies and stuff like that. They're all at the 50th, like, knowing every lyric. It was like, oh, well, this is deeper than we sort of thought.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

But, you know, that's so funny because I talked to Pete Shapiro, who was the producer for those Fare Thee well shows, and, you know, he talked about conceptualizing those performances and how they were really billed as, you know, the title says it Fare Thee well. The very last shows. It was supposed to be an ending,

[Dennis McNally]

and it ended up to be a new beginning, really.

[Felix Contreras]

You know, fairly well it was supposed to be an end, but then everyone was, like, turned on and that.

[Dennis McNally]

Back to scale, back to outdoor, back to summer.

[Felix Contreras]

That's very grateful that the end becomes

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

a new beginning, you know, that's when Dead and company was formed. That's when all these young people like me got into the band. You have the big stadium shows kind of picking up right where the original Grateful Dead left off. And then, simultaneously, Phil Lesh was doing his own thing in the Northern Bay. The family opened and operated this venue and restaurant called Terrapin Crossroads. And when we were at this show in Monte Rio, it was really cool to see how so many of the people who were there to see Graham perform used to go to this venue. They were just really connected to this pocket of Dead country. And Graham is the only child of a Grateful Dead member that's currently touring the music, performing the music. But he told us he doesn't really see himself as the sole keeper of this massive legacy.

[Dave Lemieux]

My sense, in terms of, like, the music continuing is someone is going to be playing it. So, like, I don't necessarily feel any added pressure because of who my dad was or anything like that. I truly believe that whether I do it or not, it's going to live on. You know, what we can do is sort of bring all these other musicians in and provide a place for them to be in the band and to take the music and then maybe go out and spread the good word to their fans and the people that they play with.

[Felix Contreras]

On the day that we were there, Lesh was performing with his band and the Wolf Pack, which was the string and horn ensemble that often played with Bob Weir and Don Was and Jay Lane with the Wolf Brothers. And I gotta say, like, we're sitting back in the shade after collecting interviews for most of the afternoon and just digging the groove, taking in the vibe and, you know, Issa, it felt like a seamless transition. Honestly, it was my first Post Bobby show, and they weren't trying to replicate it just felt like the groove, it was a nice continuation of what attracts me to the music in the first place.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Cry now

[Felix Contreras]

don't you cry don't you cry.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

It was my first Post Bobby show, too. And it was really cool looking around because there many was so. So many kids there, right? And it's like, it was so symbolic of what the Grateful Dead has managed to do for so many years, where you had these, like, grandparents and their Adult kids and little kids running around. And you see how this is. The Grateful Dead's music is like an inheritance that people keep passing down and passing down and passing down. You know, one of the people I talked to there was this kid C.J. smith. He's 23 years old. He and his friends drove 10 hours down. They live in Eugene, Oregon. They drove down just to see the show. And because he told me that his parents met on Dead tour and he feels like he owes it to his parents, he owes it to the band to keep this thing going.

[Felix Contreras]

Being young, I kind of like owe it to them to try to keep that going and keep bringing out people. Every show I always go to, I always try to get more of my friends to come out, try to get more people on the scene. And I feel like once they come out once, they just want to keep coming back. So I just keep trying to keep that going. And in the context of multi generational, there are people like Susan justice, who went to her first Grateful Dead show in 1976, though she saw the Jerry Garcia Band, his solo project before that. We like to hear the people play

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

the Dead material with their own personalities. And it's nice to hear other people

[Dave Lemieux]

playing sort of their own style with

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

the music as opposed to just trying to imitate, you know, what Bob told Don. The most Grateful Dead thing you can do is be yourself.

[Felix Contreras]

Exactly.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And you know, from where he's standing, Gram Lush told us that he doesn't see the Dead's long, strange trip ending anytime soon.

[Dave Lemieux]

I'm all in on Bob's 300 year thing, like my folks called it. They described the Grateful Dead as a big old oak tree. And it's like the roots were like the jazz and the blues and Jerry was a big banjo player and my dad's classical roots. The trunk is the band members and the. The branches and the leaves are everyone inspired by them. You know, that's what I am. All of us, you know, and it'll grow and grow. And, you know, not every tree lives forever, but outlives all of us.

[Felix Contreras]

You know, look out of any window, any morning, any evening, any day. When people talk about this, they're so philosophical about it, totally doing this project. It was the first time that I really had to intellectualize what it is that attracts me to the music, because we are supposed to be able to transmit that and try to get other people to do that. And it was, like I said, the first time I had to really think about something that I've only had an emotional reaction to for decades. I think you'd agree that taking on this project was a labor of love. I mean, we, we got to immerse ourselves in the history and the music. But it was also important to do because, again, that this is the first summer in 61 years without any member of the band touring.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

It's real, you know, like Jerry, Phil, and now Bobby are no longer here. Neither is Donna. I'm going to shout out Donna, who was only woman ever in the Grateful Dead and one of my favorite voices in the ensemble. But, you know, after talking to people this summer, I keep coming back to that thing. Pete Shapiro said, like the ending is a new beginning. You know, like maybe Bobby was onto something with this 300 years thing.

[Felix Contreras]

At least. 300.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

At least.

[Felix Contreras]

What do you want me to do to watch for you while you sleep? Thank you for taking this trip with us. And it doesn't stop here. You can go to npr.org deadafterdeath to see so much more of our reporting, including a couple of additional podcasts.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

We did an episode of All Songs Concerted with Robin Hilton where Felix and I try to convince a non believer to try the Grateful Dead. And I also got to sit in with Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler Amin on their NPR Music podcast talking about the monumental Grateful Dead song Touch of Grey.

[Felix Contreras]

And also keep an eye out for other goodies on Instagram and TikTok. We are NPRMusic.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

Thank you to all the Deadheads who spoke with us, the fans, the musicians, the archivists, every single one of you. We appreciate you so much. And thank you to our editors on this project, Hazel Sills and Jacob Ganz. Special thanks to the NPR Visuals team for the amazing photography and videography. And thank you to our audio editor, Noah Caldwell.

[Felix Contreras]

Nicole Werbeck is director of NPR Visuals. Soraya Mohamed is executive producer for NPR Music. And Sonali Mehta is executive director of NPR Music. I'm Felix Contreras.

[Isabella Gomez Sarmiento]

And I'm Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Thank you for listening and keep on trucking.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

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[Felix Contreras]

Instead of scrolling mindlessly, engage mindfully with the NPR app. With a mix of on demand news stories from this station and your favorite podcast, you can relax without shutting off your brain. Download the NPR app today.