Grateful Dead Music

If you're crazy about the Grateful Dead and love to collect memorabilia related to the band, its culture, and its music, there's a recently released book that offers a look into a unique aspect of Deadhead history. Dead Letters: The Very Best Grateful Dead Fan Mail by Paul Grushkin is a book dedicated to preserving the history of Grateful Dead fan letters.

Over the years, the band received countless letters of comment, inquiry, and ticket requests, and perhaps in an effort to get ones letter noticed in the giant pile, it became tradition to decorate the envelopes of these letters with Grateful Dead themed art. Deadheads tend to be a creative bunch, and many of these decorated envelopes were painstakingly designed, elaborately composed, and skillfully executed.

Gratefully, the Dead saved thousands of these letters, and over 300 of them are here reproduced in Grushkin's work. Divided into 14 themed chapters, the book presents collections of letters grouped into categories including “Bears and Terrapins,” “Skulls and Skeletons,” “The Lightning Bolt,” “Song Interpretation,” and much more. There's even a chapter titled, “Shrooms, Tie Dye, and Flying Eyeballs.”

Illustrated in full color, the book also includes photos of Grateful Dead memorabilia as well as historical photos of the band itself. The envelope art and other illustrations are accompanied by essays and explanations that highlight the significance of each piece.

Fun to look at and a delight to share with a friend, Dead Letters is a great book to give to any Deadhead, including yourself. The 208-page hardcover book was released this past October, 2011 from Voyageur Books.

The Grateful Dead had a thirty-year history of active playing, but their musical roots were laid even earlier and continue to grow to this day. Although the band began playing together officially as the Grateful Dead in 1965, it could be argued that the band really had its birth on the fateful day in 1960 when Jerry Garcia made the acquaintance of Robert Hunter, who would later collaborate with Garcia to write the stunning songs that made the Grateful Dead so great. Throughout the years, Hunter contributed lyrics for very many of the band's original tunes, including the much-loved Terrapin Station.

Playing music together with friends was nothing new to Jerry. In fact, both Bob Weir and Pigpen played with Jerry in the early 1960s as the folksy bluegrass band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. Garcia played banjo, while Bobby took the guitar and Pigpen hit the keyboards. The band later added Bill Kreutzmann as a drummer and Phil Lesh as a bassist to complete their sound, and they dropped the Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions act in favor of a new group they called the Warlocks. It wasn't until late 1965 that the band became known as the Grateful Dead.

The band got their start playing free concerts in the San Francisco Bay area, which had become a mecca for cultural progressives and other artistic “hippie” types. In 1966, they were signed by MGM Records, but they were dropped before releasing an album. They were picked up again the next year, this time by Warner Brothers, and the band released its first, self-titled album “The Grateful Dead.” Though the album wasn't particularly well-received, the band had been making a name for itself where their live shows at venues like the Filmore took the concept of rock concert to new heights. Experimenting with psychedelics and pulling the audience into both the music and the culture, a Dead show wasn't just a show—it was an event. Their magnificent and mind-blowing performances were enough to land the band excellent word-of-mouth publicity, and after getting known and popular in the Bay area, the group was ready to hit the nation and then the world.

Although some of its members are no longer with us, the Grateful Dead is still going strong in spirit, with its music and its lessons continuing to thrive today.

Do you miss the days of traveling around from show to show? Do you long for those lost moments of hanging out in the happy haze with your Deadhead buddies? If you've been feeling lonely lately, take action! It's true that the Dead, and their fans, are everywhere, and it's really not too hard to round them up for a good time. Here's what you need to know to start a Grateful Dead club in your own area in three easy steps.

First, decide what sort of group you want to have. Do you want your club to be open to everyone, or would you prefer a more elite, invitation-only set up? Would you like to hang out listening to old Dead shows, go to live jam band performances, or organize massive music swaps? Think about what you want to do and who you want to do it with.

Next, think of a name for your club. Look to Dead band members, history, lyrics, symbols, and song titles for inspiration. Make sure the name is catchy and not too cumbersome, easy to spell and say out loud. It doesn't hurt if the name looks cool written out, too—you never know when you might want to create a club t-shirt or other paraphernalia!

Finally, get the word out about your club. Advertise online via social networks and forums, and consider using a site like meetup.com or a group email service such as yahoogroups.com to help you get organized. Make flyers or postcards and ask around at local record stores, coffee shops, smoke shops, and other friendly venues to see if you can leave your info for anyone who might be interested.

Your club will be as good as you make it. Be sure to have some sweet Grateful Dead music, plenty of snacks, and fun conversation starters on hand, and get ready to have a great time.

Over the past several weeks, we've taken a philosophical look at the possible meaning behind some of the Grateful Dead's most iconic symbols, examining the dancing skeletons, the bears, the steal your face symbol, and the terrapin. For the last stop on our journey, let's consider one of the Grateful Dead's lesser-known symbols: the rose.

The symbol of the rose appears often with other Dead symbols—the familiar “Skull and Roses” design is one example. Roses are depicted in much of the band's artwork and merchandise, seen on posters, clothing, album covers, and more. In fact, they even found their way into Jerry's music!

In “Must Have Been the Roses,” the rose appears to be a symbol of remembrance, a token of sweeter times, an emblem of love and living spirit. Although it was never performed by the Dead, Jerry sings about roses also in “Run for the Roses.” Here, the rose acts as a symbol of the good things in life, the deep mysteries that unfold, blossom, and quickly fade. In both songs, we see that the rose conveys the idea of fleeting beauty, fleeting love and life that just as the rose, must one day fade and wither.

There is also the dualistic nature of the rose to consider. It's lovely smell and perfect petals invite us to come nearer, while the sharp thorns stand ready to punish anyone who dares to come too near. In a similar sense, the Grateful Dead really knew how to put on a great show and treat the audience to a fabulously fun time—so fabulous in fact that you might just decide to leave your entire life behind and become a traveling, acid-making hippie, instead! This is an extreme, of course, but you get the point—those roses have thorns, and the lot definitely had its dark side.

Perhaps we like roses because their layered blooms look so intricate, and yet so simple and elegant—kind of like Jerry made playing all those complex guitar refs look like a piece of cake!