GOOD OL' GRATEFUL DEADCAST

Episode: Dead Studies

Date: December 9, 2021
Hosts: Rich Mahan & Jesse Jarnow

Episode Overview

This episode of the "Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast" dives into the burgeoning field of Grateful Dead scholarship. Drawing from presentations at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association's annual Grateful Dead Caucus, hosts Rich Mahan and Jesse Jarnow welcome a panel of leading Dead scholars. The episode showcases how interdisciplinary academic approaches are revealing new facets of the band's music, community, and cultural legacy—from musicology to memory science, sociology, gender studies, and more.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Community of Deadheads

• After the Grateful Dead ceased touring in 1995, their community fragmented, yet persists in new ways—at spin-off concerts, local bars, online forums, and annual gatherings like the Southwest PCA Conference.
• Rebecca Adams highlights:

  “We all knew what the party was that night... Now you've got to choose where you are and which part of the Deadhead community you're going to encounter.” (04:30–04:50)

2. The Academic Emergence of Grateful Dead Studies

• Nicholas Meriwether (Grateful Dead archivist and founder of the Grateful Dead Studies Association) traces the growth of Dead scholarship from informal fan research to interdisciplinary conference panels and academic publications.

  “At one point I counted 27 different disciplines and fields... Grateful Dead Studies is interdisciplinary. It’s unique in that it requires all scholars who are working in it to read way outside of their disciplines.” (15:01–15:55)

Key Timeline:

• Early 1970s: Sociological studies begin and “Deadbase” launches fan scholarship.
• Late 1990s: Annual academic presentations start, led by Rob Weiner and Nicholas Meriwether.
• 2007 & 2014: Landmark conferences with dozens of papers and notable Dead family figures (09:30–11:07).

3. Collaborative Teaching & Fieldwork on Tour

• Rebecca Adams shares her pioneering work taking college students on Grateful Dead tour as part of qualitative research courses:

  “Shows were improvisations within a structure. The structure of the show was comforting to Deadheads, but allowed them to be adventurous. And this improvisational ethos filters down into the everyday practice of Deadheads.” (13:48–14:19)

• Shows as secular rituals, fostering transformation through "liminality"—a state where external statuses dissolve and personal/cultural change becomes possible.

4. Musicology: Song Evolution, Tragic Odes & Harmonic Shifts

• Brentwood Robert Roni examines “Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain” as a microcosm of the Dead’s creative method:

  “The performance has something for every taste... The medley became the longest sustained dance vehicle in the group's repertoire and in some later concerts stretched out beyond 30 minutes.” (16:58–17:58)

• Jerry Garcia’s penchant for tinkering with chord changes is highlighted—particularly, the emotional depth added via introducing a C# minor chord in “Fire on the Mountain.”

  “That insertion of that kind of minor chord…to evoke a fleeting moment of pathos. That’s one of Garcia’s signature gestures.” (18:01–18:42)

• Melvin Backstrom reveals how Dark Star’s chord structure subtly shifted in 1990, illustrating the band’s continual evolution—decades after its first recording.

  “[After March 29, 1990] its harmonic form is instead A, A, B, A, B, A, B... that it happened so late in Darkstar's performing history is curious to say the least.” (24:45–25:54)

5. Women's Work and Overlooked Contributions

• Beth Carroll centers Eileen Law, office manager and voice of the Dead hotline, showing how “women’s labor” was vital in connecting fans and managing archives.

  “…in charge of the Deadheads’ mailing list from 1972–93, the voice of the Grateful Dead hotline from '76 to '95, in charge of the guest list... her most significant contribution…collect[ing] materials that have become part of the Grateful Dead archive.” (27:34–28:19)

• Roney Stanley, first secretary and insider, shares stories of backstage camaraderie and egalitarian payrolls, noting,

  "Men, women, stars, and staff all got the same salary. No matter their role, each person contributed a share that made the whole work better. We never thought of it as a political statement, but perhaps it was." (31:36–31:57)

6. The Dead, LSD, and Counterculture

• Nicholas Meriwether presents on the Dead's first (non-musical) appearance on a 1966 LP called LSD, and the fraught legacy of anti-LSD hysteria.

  “For the Dead, the LP was their first encounter with the corporate music industry... that experience taught them that a major label could be cynical, exploitative, and cruel.” (37:29–39:38)

7. Spirituality, Identity, and the Dance Floor

• Isaac Sloan explores the ephemeral nature of live Dead shows and the intersection of spirituality and embodied identity, referencing “shuckling,” a Jewish prayer movement mirrored on the jam band dance floor:

  “The acknowledgment, study, and memorialization of ephemeral moments as a means of relating to history is an aspect of Deadhead culture that compels me... I too dance to music in ways that mimics the act of shuckling...” (42:18–43:20)

8. Digital Age & Subculture Recruitment

• Julie DeLong’s research asks whether the online Deadhead community is “less real” and how technology both transforms and preserves subcultural identity:

  “While the initial stage of my subcultural recruitment was through physical points of contact... most of the deeper learning... was facilitated through the Internet. Does that make me less of a Deadhead?” (45:17–45:51)

  “The recruitment of new members continues thanks to a vibrant online community... the move from the Dead to physical to digital subculture allows not only more people to get on the bus, but also allows older folks... to participate.” (47:00–47:35)

9. Memories, Family, and Resilience

• Adam Brown connects the Dead community’s storytelling and memory practices to emotional coping and resilience—especially during crises like COVID-19:

  “...there is... some evidence of people feeling generative, people feeling proactive, coming together, showing up digitally online... a certain amount of ongoing engagement and focus towards the future... might be contributing to this overall sense of being able to carry on.” (48:04–50:06)

10. The Role of Memory: Blogs, Prosopography, and the Crowd

• Corey Arnold details his long-running historical blogs and how “public note-taking” helps aggregate and reconcile the millions of discrete memories from attendees, roadies, and opening acts.

  “If you only went to one show, then you know it. The other golden source is opening acts... The one time they opened for the Dead... it was absolutely legendary, and they're still dining out on it, so they remember everything.” (57:52–58:44)

  • Grateful Dead history is a “crowdsourced” endeavor with new data always emerging—comment sections become vital memory archives.

  “It might be two years after the previous comment.” (55:52–57:28)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nicholas Meriwether [06:52]:

  “When you listened to a Grateful Dead show, you were really listening to history... a band that was in dialogue with its own history.”

• Brentwood Robert Roni [20:33]:

  “If ‘Fire on the Mountain’ became a soundtrack for Garcia's tragic decline... it now plays the same role for us all as we plunge headlong into climate crisis triggered by the same problems that plagued Garcia, but on a global scale.”

• Roney Stanley [31:36]:

  “1972, in the business history of the Grateful Dead, was very egalitarian... No matter their role, each person contributed a share that made the whole work better. We never thought of it as a political statement, but perhaps it was.”

• Isaac Sloan [44:12]:

  “Both in synagogue and at shows, this kind of movement enables participants to achieve total spiritual immersion. As an observant Jew... I find in both settings a familiar and welcoming feeling of giving my full body over to the experience...”

• Adam Brown [48:04]:

  “One of the wonderful things about the Grateful Dead family is that it is so diverse... it’s an additional form of family... when I think about the Grateful Dead, I think about memory... memory is automatically a part of the experience.”

• Corey Arnold [60:19]:

  “If you think about early Dead shows... we’ve got 1.5 million memories. We've got to get them all. And even the ones that are kind of boring... That's actual information. There's plenty of shows. That's all I want to know—that they occurred.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:18] Community after 1995—Deadhead subculture fragmentation and new gathering spaces
• [06:52] Nicholas Meriwether on becoming a Dead scholar—Dead as public history
• [12:28] Rebecca Adams’ 1989 Grateful Dead college tour as field research
• [16:16] Song study: “Scarlet Begonias”/“Fire on the Mountain” as microcosms of the Dead
• [22:21] Jesse and Rich debate Fire’s chord change—Amaj7 or C#m?
• [26:34] Beth Carroll’s research on women’s labor; focus on Eileen Law
• [33:55] Voter registration in the Grateful Dead office, 1972
• [34:14] LSD, the Dead, and 1960s counterculture repression
• [41:27] Isaac Sloan on Jewish spiritual movement in jam band spaces
• [45:17] Julie DeLong on Deadhead recruitment in the digital age
• [48:04] Adam Brown: Grateful Dead family as emotional resilience during COVID
• [55:03] Corey Arnold on Dead history, blogging, and public note-taking
• [58:44] The power of Internet comment sections for reconstructing Dead history

Tone & Takeaway

Throughout, the episode is warm, intellectually curious, and inclusive—reflecting the Dead’s ethos. The hosts and presenters mix close musical analysis, personal anecdote, rigorous scholarship, and communal feeling. Ultimately, the legacy of the Grateful Dead is shown to be not just musical but deeply cultural, psychological, and ever-evolving—inviting both the “committed and the curious” to engage.

For more resources and links to the scholars’ work, visit dead.net/deadcast.