![]() ![]() ![]() 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. 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 gritty Merle Haggard cover might be followed by a dark and spacey interlude that would stretch on for half an hour. 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. 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. But the Dead would acquire a devoted cult all their own, one that transcended both the geography and the era. 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. 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. ![]()
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