Featured In
ALBUMFrom the Mars Hotel: The Angel's ShareGrateful Dead
Albums by Grateful Dead
ALBUMFrom the Mars Hotel: The Angel's ShareGrateful Dead
ALBUMWake of the Flood: The Angel's ShareGrateful Dead
ALBUMWorkingman’s Dead (2023 Mickey Hart Mix)Grateful Dead
ALBUMAmerican Beauty: The Angel's ShareGrateful Dead
ALBUMBuilt to LastGrateful Dead
ALBUMIn the DarkGrateful Dead
ALBUMGo to HeavenGrateful Dead
ALBUMShakedown StreetGrateful Dead
ALBUMTerrapin StationGrateful Dead
ALBUMBlues for AllahGrateful Dead
Grateful Dead's Popular Music Videos
Touch Of Grey
Grateful Dead
Morning Dew (Live at Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 10/18/74)
Grateful Dead
Ripple
Grateful Dead
Reuben and Cherise (Live at Buckeye Lake Music Center, Hebron, OH, 6/9/1991)
Grateful Dead
Sugaree (Live at Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, CA, 10/18/1974)
Grateful Dead
Touch of Grey (Live at Orchard Park, NY, 7/4/89)
Grateful Dead
Box of Rain (Live in Philadelphia, PA, 7/7/89)
Grateful Dead
Bertha (Live at Rich Stadium, Orchard Park, NY, 7/4/1989)
Grateful Dead
Bird Song (Live in Hebron, OH 7/1/92)
Grateful Dead
Eyes of the World (Live at Buckeye Lake Music Center, Hebron, OH, 6/11/1993)
Grateful Dead
Artist Playlists
Grateful Dead Essentials
From wild psychedelia to rootsy Americana, the Dead blazed the trail.
Grateful Dead: Deep Cuts
Their folk roots come to the surface in these lesser-heard takes.
Inspired by Grateful Dead
Jam out to these extended grooves.
Grateful Dead: Live
Their psychedelic stage performances defined the jam-band experience.
Grateful Dead: Influences
From American roots music to improvisatory genius.
Artist Biography
The Grateful Dead expanded rock’s horizons with long jams and fierce improvisation, but they also turned their communal aesthetic into a way of life. The band—Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron McKernan, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann—emerged from the same psychedelic San Francisco milieu that birthed Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, and the group’s shared house near the corner of Haight and Ashbury during 1967’s Summer of Love became a focal point for the scene. But the Dead would acquire a devoted cult all their own, one that transcended both the geography and the era. Indeed, the group’s relationship to that fanbase—their faithful were officially known as Deadheads by the early ’70s—is arguably their most significant legacy, fostering innovations like open tape-trading and the use of the internet to share information. From the beginning, they were renowned for their thick stew of influences—rock, jazz, bluegrass, country, experimental composition—and skill at in-the-moment creation. A gritty Merle Haggard cover might be followed by a dark and spacey interlude that would stretch on for half an hour. Their live prowess put them on the map first (1969’s Live/Dead was an instant classic), but the Dead revealed themselves as songwriters of the first order in their second decade. A pair of albums in 1970, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, focused on acoustic guitars and rustic Americana, and Europe ’72 beautifully extended those songwriting ideas into an expansive live setting. As the ’70s wore on, the Dead’s music grew jazzier and lighter, with albums like 1975’s Blues for Allah touching on the sound of jazz fusion; later in the decade, they’d experiment with progressive rock (1977’s Terrapin Station) and even disco (1978’s Shakedown Street). No matter their studio output, the Dead never lost their live alchemy, and shows as late as 1989 (which newcomers can sample on Without a Net) are highly regarded by Deadheads. Singer and lead guitarist Garcia’s death in 1995 brought a close to the initial iteration of the band, but the Dead’s seemingly bottomless vault of live music (and various post-Garcia offshoots) lives on.
Hometown
San Francisco, CA, United States
Genre
Rock