Narrator (0:00)

One of the most popular music groups over the last half century is also one of the most unlikely. They were seldom played on the radio, almost never appeared on network television, and had only one song ever make it in the Billboard top 100. Yet they have more top 40 albums than any other group in history and are among the best selling live acts of all time. Learn more about the Grateful Dead's unique legacy and how it cemented its place in American culture. And on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Reggie (0:41)

Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did? Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say. Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.

Narrator (0:58)

Wow. Way to go.

Reggie (1:00)

So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

Narrator (1:05)

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

Sponsor Announcer (1:11)

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Narrator (1:41)

This podcast often covers topics such as empires, world leaders and civilization, changing technologies. So you might be wondering, why am I doing an episode about a bunch of old hippies? I'm not really that much of a Grateful Dead fan, but I am interested in subcultures, cultural phenomenon and innovative businesses, and the Grateful Dead has all of that in spades. The Grateful dead formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area, emerging from the folk and jug band scene surrounding Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Robert, Ron Pigpen, McKernan, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzman. Several members had played together in Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions before deciding to go electric. Initially performing under the name the Warlocks before adopting the name Grateful Dead, they had to change the name because there was another band called the Warlocks that already existed. The phrase Grateful Dead has its origins in folklore and mythology rather than modern music. In many European and Near Eastern folktales, a traveler helps pay the burial expenses or proper rites for a dead person who has denied them. Later in the story, the spirit of that deceased person returns to help the traveler in a moment of danger or need, revealing itself as The Grateful Dead. This idea reflects a belief that the Dead retain moral agency and can show gratitude when treated with dignity. When members of the Grateful Dead were searching for a new name in 1965, Jerry Garcia reportedly encountered the phrase while flipping through a dictionary of folklore references. The band adopted it because of its mysterious archaic meaning and its implication of reciprocity between the living and the Dead, a theme that fit well with their interests in myth and improvisation. The band was a highly eclectic mix of musicians. Jerry Garcia was a bluegrass musician. Bob Weir was a folk guitarist who appreciated cowboy songs. Phil Lesh was a classically trained trumpeter with perfect pitch who had never played bass guitar until Garcia insisted he learn it. And the band actually had two drummers, Bill Kreutzman, a jazz drummer, and Mickey Hart, who was a marching band enthusiast. The keyboardist position was known for its short tenure due to the early deaths of some members. Some of the keyboardists included Pigpen McKernan, Keith Gaucho, Brent Midland, Vince Welnick, and the solo artist Bruce Hornsby. In the late 1960s, the Grateful Dead became one of the defining bands of the psychedelic era. Their early albums, including the Grateful Dead and Anthem of the sun, blended blues, folk and rock with experimental studio techniques that attempted to replicate the spontaneity of their live performances. However, unlike many groups of the era, the band quickly realized that their true strength lay on the stage rather than in the studio. This is where the Grateful Dead began to take a different path from most other recording artists. Their shows weren't concerts so much as they were full blown events. Many of the Grateful Dead shows ran nearly five hours, establishing a stunning precedent that few musicians have ever matched since. The first set of each show featured standard length dead songs, usually 710 minutes long, like Bertha, Althea, Sugary and Jackstraw, the second set is where things truly stretched out. Songs would often jam into each other, often running 40 minutes. Their emphasis on touring and long improvisations is a big reason why the band never received much radio play or had the hit singles that other popular bands of the period did. They went through several eras, often tied to their changing keyboardists. The songs performed during different periods are often difficult to recognize from one iteration to the next. The band also formed a strong following amongst other musicians, including Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, John Mayer, and Jimmy Buffett. The Grateful Dead would go on to reproduce an incredible number of tunes from the deepest reaches of American folk music, while adding their own take on these often short and lost to history tunes. Iconic Dead classics such as Cold Rain and Snow, Deep Ellen Blues, Morning Dew and Peggy O reformed folk takes from the archives of global music and would go on to form some of the most intricate Grateful Dead performances. The late 1970s and early 1980s were marked by both creative resilience and personal struggles, particularly for Jerry Garcia, whose drug addiction affected his health and consistency. Even so, the band continued to perform hundreds of shows each year, and live albums such as Europe 72 became definitive documents of their performances. In 1987, the unlikely happened when the song Touch of Grey became a major hit, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and introducing the Grateful Dead to a broader mainstream audience. It was their first and only hit song. During their final decade, the Grateful Dead became one of the most successful touring acts in history, regularly filling stadiums and arenas. Their concerts functioned as temporary communities, complete with informal marketplaces and rituals that extended far beyond the music itself. Despite declining health amongst several members, particularly Garcia, the band maintained their commitment to live improvisation and audience connection. Jerry Garcia's death in 1995 effectively ended the Grateful Dead as a performing band, though the surviving members chose not to formally disband, acknowledging the music's continuation through other forms. After 1995, the Grateful Dead's legacy continued through numerous successor projects, archival releases, and a still very passionate fan base. Bands such as Dead and Company and various member led ensembles carried the music to new generations. Various incarnations of the Grateful Dead continue to perform up to the present day. So why did the Grateful Dead make such a cultural impact? Well, first, the band had powerful symbolism and iconography. The most famous image, the skull with a lightning bolt known as Steal youl Face, originated from the band Soundcrew as a way to mark equipment and came to symbolize the raw electricity of live performances. It was officially used as the COVID of their 1976 album Steal youl Face. Dancing bears and skeletons were also used as imagery on merchandise and as a way for other fans to recognize each other. But the thing that really cemented the band's popularity with their fans was their touring schedule. The Grateful Dead probably performed more live shows than any other major band in the world during the 30 years that they toured. Over a 30 year period, they performed 2000, 318 live concerts. Fans of the group would often follow the band from city to city on tour and began to refer to themselves as Deadheads. Deadheads would set up small temporary communities around each show, including marketplaces and opportunities to meet other fans. The biggest thing, however, that really set the Grateful Dead apart was was that they allowed their fans to record their concerts. The band accommodated tapers by permitting audience recording as long as the tapes were traded non commercially. By the early 1980s, they even designated official taper sections near the soundboard, where fans could set up microphones without obstructing others. Tapers used increasingly sophisticated equipment, often capturing remarkably high quality recordings. For the era, the only firm rule was that the recordings could not be sold, a norm that was largely enforced by the community itself. It was legal and legitimized bootlegging. As a result, the Grateful Dead became one of the most extensively documented live acts in history. Of their 2,318 concerts, well over 2,000 survive in recorded form, and many have multiple versions. These include both audience recordings and soundboard tapes made by the band's crew. Today, tens of thousands of individual tape sources circulate, and the Dead's live archive is amongst the largest and most complete musical archives ever assembled. Every college dorm room in the United States either had someone who traded tapes or knew someone trading tapes. I remember a guy in college who had hundreds of tapes of live shows back in the 1980s, when tape trading required physically trading tapes in person, buying blank tapes and taking the time to copy them. Today, everything's available online. There are some who argue that the origins of the Internet can be traced in part to the trading of Grateful Dead recordings online. File sharing was in part developed to share Grateful Dead recordings legally, so in some small way was a key part of the foundation of the modern Internet. The band released over 200 albums, the vast majority of which were live performances. The sheer volume of their output is the reason why they have more top 40 albums than any other group. This is despite the fact that in a very strict technical sense, they were a one hit wonder because they only ever had one single reach the top 100. Grateful Dead fans play a game on SiriusXM radio where they listen to the non stop stream of music and try to guess not the name of the song, but the year each song was recorded in concert. Beyond these musical achievements, the Grateful Dead had a broader cultural impact. Their story occupies a unique place in America's cultural landscape. With their roots in the Bay area of the 1960s, the band arrived on the scene at a remarkable time in American cultural history. San Francisco in the 1960s was the epicenter of the counterculture movement. The Grateful Dead and their unique partnerships with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Hell's Angels, and the Beatniks, produced a cultural footprint that can still still be felt throughout the entire Bay Area. The Dead's live shows, which often lacked the structure of even a set list were a perfect companion to the freewheeling 60s. They often dedicated their talents to supporting businesses that they believed in, such as the inaugural opening of the first North Face store in San Francisco in 1966. One of their most famous shows was held in Venita, Oregon on a scorching summer day in 1972 in support of Springfield Creamery, a financially troubled dairy in the Hood river Valley. Today, 60 years after the band was formed, there are still Deadheads everywhere. Grateful Dead music can still be heard in college dorm rooms and in corporate boardrooms. The remaining band members are still playing and people are still showing up to see them, and they're still recording their concerts. There are multiple generations of fans who weren't even born when the band was formed, and much of this is due to the band's innovative approach to business and marketing. The community that they built through touring, the permissible recording policies, and the decades long trading of tapes all help build a fanatical fan base. There are other bands from the 1960s, like the Rolling Stones, that still occasionally perform, but no one has been able to consistently entertain and keep an audience for so long like the Grateful Dead. And given how long they've been going and how unique their approach to business and music has been, it gives a whole new meaning to their lyric what a long, strange trip it's been. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson. Today's review comes from listener Trimbrit2 from Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write grass 1830 episodes. 27,550 minutes 1,372 lawns mowed. 31 weeks of mowing. That's what it took over one and a half summers. I made it finally in the Completionist Club. Thank you Gary for all I've learned. I use it more than I ever thought I would. Just asking where the clubhouse is in Merrill and if there's sundrop and glass bottles. Sorry, couldn't make it to the fifth anniversary party. Well, thanks Tramvert. Always nice to see another Wisconsinite in the Completionist Club. Yes, we have sun dropping glass bottles as well as a fine selection of Dupont cheese curds in our Wisconsin clubhouse. 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