The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelia; for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams that typically incorporated modal and tonal improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its "The Greatest Artists of All Time" issue. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and a recording of their May 8, 1977 performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012. Despite having only one top-40 single in their thirty year career, "Touch of Grey", the Grateful Dead remained among the highest grossing American touring acts for multiple decades and gained a committed fanbase by word of mouth and the exchange of live recordings due to the band's permissive stance on taping.
Robert Dennis Crumb is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.
Los Lobos is an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. The band rose to international stardom in 1987, when their version of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" topped the charts in the U.S., the UK, and several other countries. Songs by Los Lobos have been recorded by Waylon Jennings, Frankie Yankovic, and Robert Plant. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2018, they were inducted into Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. They are also known for performing the theme song for Handy Manny.
Mathis James Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with blues as well as non-blues audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (1960), "Big Boss Man" (1961), and "Bright Lights, Big City" (1961) appeared on both Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues and Hot 100 singles charts.
Ronald Charles McKernan, known as Pigpen, was an American singer and musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.
Workingman's Dead is the fourth studio album by American rock band Grateful Dead. It was recorded in February 1970 and originally released on June 14, 1970. The album and its studio follow-up, American Beauty, were recorded back-to-back using a similar style, eschewing the psychedelic experimentation of previous albums in favor of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's Americana-styled songcraft.
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions.
"See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" is a song recorded by American blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson in two slightly differing versions in October 1927 and February 1928, that became "one of his most famous compositions". Son House used the melody on his 1930 recording of "Mississippi County Farm Blues".
Aoxomoxoa is a 1969 album by the Grateful Dead. One of the first rock albums to be recorded using 16-track technology, fans and critics alike consider this era to be the band's experimental apex. The title is a meaningless palindrome, usually pronounced.
Tracy Nelson is an American country and blues singer. She has been involved in the recording of over 20 albums in her recording career, which started in 1965.
Blues for Allah is the eighth studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded February 27 – May 7, 1975, and released September 1, 1975. It was the band's third album on their own Grateful Dead Records label and their third studio album in a row. Blues for Allah was the group's highest-charting album until 1987's In the Dark, reaching No. 12 during a thirteen-week stay on the Billboard Album Chart.
Wake of the Flood is the sixth studio album by rock band the Grateful Dead. Released October 15, 1973, it was the first album on the band's own Grateful Dead Records label. Their first studio album in nearly three years, it was also the first without founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who had recently died. His absence and keyboardist Keith Godchaux's penchants for bebop and modal jazz contributed to the band's musical evolution. Godchaux's wife, backing vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux, also joined the group and appears on the album.
The Jerry Garcia Band was a San Francisco Bay Area rock band led by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Garcia founded the band in 1975; it remained the most important of his various side projects until his death in 1995. The band regularly toured and recorded sporadically throughout its twenty-year existence, generally, but not always, during breaks in the Grateful Dead's schedule.
From the Mars Hotel is the seventh studio album by rock band the Grateful Dead. It was mainly recorded in April 1974, and originally released June 27, 1974. It was the second album by the band on their own Grateful Dead Records label. From the Mars Hotel came less than one year after their previous album, Wake of the Flood, and was the last before the band's then-indefinite hiatus from live touring, begun in October 1974.
Dick's Picks Volume 18 is a three-CD live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It was recorded on February 3, 1978, at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin and on February 5, 1978, at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There are also two songs from the February 4, 1978 show at the Milwaukee Auditorium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The album was released in June 2000.
"Turn On Your Love Light" is a rhythm and blues song recorded by Bobby Bland in 1961. It was both an important R&B and pop chart hit for Bland and has become one of his most identifiable songs. A variety of artists have recorded it, including the Grateful Dead, who made it part of their concert repertoire.
"I Know You Rider" is a traditional blues song that has been adapted by numerous artists. Modern versions can be traced back to Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Deceitful Brownskin Blues", which was released as a single in 1927. It later appears in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by the noted father-and-son pair of musicologists and folklorists, John Lomax and Alan Lomax. The book notes that "An eighteen-year old black girl, in prison for murder, sang the song and the first stanza of these blues." The Lomaxes then added a number of verses from other sources and named it "Woman Blue". The music and melody are similar to Lucille Bogan's "B.D. Woman Blues", although the lyrics are completely different.
Flashback with the Grateful Dead is an album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains ten songs, selected from eight of their studio albums that were originally released between 1969 and 1989. The compilation was released on CD on the Flashback label, a subsidiary of Rhino Records, on April 5, 2011.
Dave's Picks Volume 18 is a three-CD live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded on July 17, 1976 at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California. It was produced as a limited edition of 16,500 copies, and released on May 1, 2016.
Dave's Picks Volume 41 is a three-CD live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded on May 26, 1977, at the Baltimore Civic Center in Baltimore, Maryland. It was released on January 28, 2022, in a limited edition of 25,000 copies.
