Grateful Dead

    Formed in 1965, Grateful Dead soon became a widely known and popular rock band. Created by Jerry Garcia, lead guitar, Phil Lesh, bass, Bob Weir, rhythm guitar, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, harmonica/keyboard/vocals, and Bill Kreutzmann, drums, the band started as a folk rock band, with a long range of sounds incomparable to any other bands style. Starting out as a small band in Palo Alto, California, these four great men didn't realize they would soon be touring the country.

    First picking up a guitar at the age of fifteen, Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia soon got the hang of playing ‘50s rock, only to move on to folk guitar before becoming a bluegrass banjo player. Inspired by the Beatles and Stones, Garcia and his friends formed a band called the Warlocks from 1964 to 1965, soon to move on to the Grateful Dead. Although Garcia had been in the Grateful Dead for a full thirty-year trial, he was also in multiple other bands, such as the Saunders-Garcia Band, Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, Legion of Mary, and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. As if that wasn’t enough, he had also sold multiple solo albums, and participated in a number of albums by other artists. As time went on, Garcia had been ranked as thirteenth in the Rolling Stones article ‘100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time’ cover story. In 1986, Garcia had gone into a diabetic coma caused by his unstable weight that nearly cost him his life. Even though his health issues had gotten better over the years, he had also struggled with heroin and cocaine addiction, and was put into a rehabilitation facility, where he later died of a heart attack in August 1995. (His funeral was at Golden Gate Park which my English teacher attended!)

    Joining the band at age seventeen, Bob Weir was automatically treated as “the kid” of the group. First picking up a guitar at fourteen, Weir learned to be one of rock’s finest and most distinctive rhythm guitarist. Growing up on a small peninsula south of San Francisco, Weir was influenced by a local folkie, Jorma Kaukonen. First starting with Garcia in ‘64 to form Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, later to co-find the Warlocks, and then Grateful Dead. As the band grew, Bob moved to be the co-lead-vocalist, next to Garcia, and wrote multiple songs such as “Sugar Magnolia,” “Playin’ in the Band,” and “Throwing Stones.”

    Being considered one of the best musical talents of rock’s history, Phil Lesh not only re-defined what the bass could sound like, but had a big part in giving the Grateful Dead the sound that it had. Rather being a part of the band’s rhythmic section, Phil used his bass as if it were a low-end guitar, only to intertwine with Garcia’s and Weir’s improvisation, making the Dead the not-quite-rock-band rock band that it was. Raised in the suburbs of San Francisco, Lesh first started his musical interest with classical violin before getting into “cool jazz.” In 1965, Phil unexpectedly got asked to be in the band by Garcia while attending a Warlocks concert in a pizza parlor, and was with it until the end.

    Playing drums at age 13, Bill Kreutzmann was a part of the Grateful Dead for their whole thirty-year career, despite being told by his sixth grade teacher that he couldn’t keep a beat. Having the Grateful Dead’s first real gig two days before his nineteenth birthday, Kreutzmann would use a fake draft card with the name “Bill Sommer” stating he was of age in order to play on stage in bars. Although he had been drumming by himself for a long time, when the band added Mickey Hart in 1967, the two percussionists worked together with remarkable cohesion, synchronicity, and driving power, which soon became a hallmark of the Grateful Dead sound, giving them the nickname “Rhythm Devils.”

    Having the idea to start a rock band, Ron McKernan, better known as Pigpen, was the bands first front man, delivering stinging harmonica, keyboards, and amazing blues vocals. Nicknamed “Pigpen” for his funky look at life and sanitation, Ron was born into a family that was generally conventional. By the time he was twelve, Pig’s life was on the road of blues thanks to his fathers love of R&B. The combination of liquor, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the harmonica, and some barbecue was an odd life for a white kid from San Carlos, but that was the life Ron had. Eventually the hard drinking life had caught up with Pigpen by the early ‘70s. Playing his last show in 1972, he had soon passed away on March 8, 1973.

    Although all of the albums created by the Grateful Dead are loved, American Beauty is the most popular album made, with songs such as Ripple, and Box of Rain. Released in 1970, within six months of Workingman’s Dead, the Grateful Dead’s second most popular album. The combination of the two albums greatly describes the feel of this band, and the type of music they are. With songs from Truckin’ to Casey Jones, or Sugar Magnolia to Uncle John’s band, these two albums seem as if the walk hand in hand.

Working together, these four great men, and many others, had managed to change the world by simply doing what they did best, playing music. Creating masterpieces, the Grateful Dead had released over 130 albums, most of which are live concert recordings. After the death of two important members, the Grateful Dead soon dispersed, and a select few have formed tribute bands such as Furthur, and Phil Lesh & Friends, in which Bob Weir and Phil Lesh are a part of. Despite how long the Grateful Dead was together, their love of music, and talents never wore out. Some may say that they were better in the earlier years, but that’s because as time went on, they would reach higher and higher levels of music, in which could connect people in such a way that it was unfathomable.