Evolving Musical Traditions: Jesse McReynolds and the Grateful Dead

In 1964, a young Jerry Garcia and his friend and later musical collaborator Sandy Rothman embarked on an extended road trip East, traveling to see their bluegrass heroes in the South, North, and Midwest. Scholars and fans tend to focus on their meeting with Bill Monroe, immortalized in a homemade recording that Jerry made of one of Monroe’s sets at Bean Blossom, but just as important to the young musicians was seeing brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds, the already famed bluegrass duo from Dothan, Alabama.

Garcia’s path would stray far from the roots music he heard on that trip, but his heart remained close to that wellspring for the rest of his life, returning to it periodically to refresh and renew his eclectic muse. Some of the wonderful results of those periodic renewals can be heard in releases documenting his work with Old & In the Way in the 1970s, the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band in the 1980s, and his later work with David Grisman (whom he also met on that 1964 trip) in the 1990s.

By then, of course, Garcia’s own contributions to music had been recognized, critically and collegially, and after his death, efforts like Pickin’ on the Grateful Dead made clear the ease with which his compositions could be reinterpreted from a bluegrass perspective. Now, 46 years after he met Garcia, Jesse McReynolds makes the definitive case for that with his new release, Songs of the Grateful Dead: A Tribute to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter (Woodstock Records). It represents a remarkable achievement artistically, and for Dead scholars, it also demonstrates the degree to which the Dead’s artistic achievement is thoroughly and inextricably interwoven with the broader currents of American music.


“Jesse absorbed the gestures of Grateful Dead music, then crafted his interpretations,” Sandy Rothman explained. Each of the thirteen songs has its own flavor, its own feel; McReynolds let the songs breathe and find their own resonances with a first-rate band of players also steeped in the Dead’s ethos. Sharp-eared fans will be able to discern contributions from Sandy Rothman, who played with Garcia in the 1960s and again in the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band with Stu Allen, another featured player, and David Nelson, longtime Garcia collaborator and founder of the New Riders of the Purple Sage as well as his own band.

But this is not an exercise in nostalgia. McReynolds didn’t take the easy way out, limiting his choices to obvious candidates like “Friend of the Devil” and other mainstays of the Dead’s acoustic catalog. To be sure, the disc features haunting versions of “Ripple” and “Stella Blue” and “Deep Elem Blues,” but tracks like “Alabama Getaway” and “Standing on the Moon” will surprise and delight jaded fans: McReynolds and his colleagues find hidden treasures in all of the songs they assay, and the results remain in memory long after the CD finishes.

The final touch is a new song, “Day by Day,” composed by McReynolds to words by Robert Hunter, who enthusiastically champions McReynolds’ effort: “Jesse’s singing voice is like a long-lost brother voice between Jerry Garcia and David Nelson,” Hunter observed, and open-eared listeners will agree. (Those who keep up with Hunter's online journal remember when he commented that he was writing lots of new lyrics but wouldn't say who they were for.) For fans, “Day by Day” means the CD is much more than a tribute; it is a statement that the Dead’s corpus is now a living part of the American musical heritage, growing with each interpretation and musician who delves into it.

For Deadheads accustomed to feeling that their musical tastes are decidedly less than mainstream, it is especially gratifying to have a musician of McReynolds’ stature make such a heartfelt statement of appreciation. McReynolds celebrated his sixty-third year in the music business in July of this year, looking back on a career that includes 45 years in the Grand Ol’ Opry, dozens of awards and Grammys, and “membership in any Hall of Fame that means anything to this music,” as Dennis McNally put it recently.

Perhaps the only sadness is the absence of Garcia’s voice and playing. As Hunter commented, “What a trio you’d all have made! The singing is steady and strong. Jerry would approve, I’m certain.” So do we.

The Eyes Have It: Harold Bell Wright’s novel The Eyes of the World

Literary Deadheads may recall that David Dodd first wrote about Harold Bell Wright’s 1914 novel The Eyes of the World on his web site, The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, which preceded his fine book of the same topic (see p. 203 of that book for a print reference to Wright’s book and its offshoots). One interesting recent find in the Grateful Dead Archive is a splendid copy of that tome, inscribed to the band’s founding archivist Eileen Law by Deadheads Kim and Bob Hilton of Bar Harbor, Maine. (It is available now as a Google book and in a modern reprint edition.)

Bell’s book is interesting to Dead scholars for indirect, even oblique, reasons—but those reasons lead to themes that are in fact central to the scholarly study of the band as a cultural, historical, artistic phenomenon.

The novel takes place largely in Southern California, focusing on an unlikely friendship between an older novelist and a young painter. The novelist is enormously successful but considers his work corrupt, debased because of its appeal to popular, prurient tastes; he cuts a Faustian figure in the book, constantly goading and chiding his young apprentice but leavening his mordancy with occasional flashes of calm meditation on the meaning of art and the role of the artist in society. It is a frank statement about the Romantic ideal of the purity of art, and the dangers of being seduced by mammon.

That frankness is what jars most—Bell’s six previous novels had been savaged by the critics (nor has his reputation improved with time), and The Eyes of the World reads like one long, tendentious response to those critics. (See the entry on Wright in Wikipedia for some of those critical dismissals, including particularly pointed—and mordantly funny—attacks singling out this book as his worst.) But the philosophy put forth in the book—of not pandering to popular, vulgar tastes, of honoring the muse as the only way to earn immortality—is at heart a classic expression of the Romantic, bohemian ideal that later defined the hippie milieu which birthed the Dead, and certainly describes their own attitude to their music. (Bell even opens the book with an epigram from Wordsworth.)

The title of the book is a phrase that the older novelist uses when admonishing the young painter: “the eyes of the world” here means the shallow, superficial, easily misled impressions of the public, not the deep, universal awareness that Hunter’s use of the phrase describes in his lyric. Still, the myriad interconnections between the book and the song make comparing them a revealing exercise. Students interested in how the Dead’s art fits into broader arcs in American cultural history will find Bell’s novel an intriguing, if didactic, expression of the debate over high and low culture at the turn of the century. And for those interested in exploring Hunter’s extraordinary mindscape, the way these themes find expression and perdure in a phrase whose literary function changed so dramatically over time is especially fascinating.

Altamont Revisited: Two Recent Views

Both the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones were tarred by their association with Altamont, the notorious free concert held December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway east of the San Francisco Bay. The accusations and counter-charges have swirled since that night, when a perfect storm of bad planning and other factors produced a concert that was a nightmare for many—and perhaps most—attendees.

Captured by the Maysles Brothers for their documentary Gimme Shelter, the Stones concert was marred by repeated brawls and clashes between the Hell’s Angels and audience members and even Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane, who played before the Stones. The violence culminated in the murder of Meredith Hunter, who allegedly flashed a gun and was quickly surrounded by Angels, beaten, and finally stabbed to death by Alan Pasarro, a member (or prospective member) of the Angels’ Oakland chapter. A trial ended in an acquittal.

The Dead did not play, but were blamed by many for suggesting the Angels serve as security and for encouraging the idea of a free concert generally. In the aftermath, the Dead picked up the Stones’ tour manager, Sam Cutler, and Robert Hunter wrote a brilliant lyric reflecting on the meaning of the event, “New Speedway Boogie,” which Garcia put to music and the band recorded for Workingman’s Dead.



Cutler’s recent biography, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, was just donated to the Dead Archive as part of Dennis McNally’s magnificent research archive and library; the warm inscription from Cutler (and McNally’s thoughtful marginalia) make this a prized book in the collection.

Rock fans and Dead scholars will find much of the book fascinating reading, and Cutler’s prose—and perspective—is thoughtful, and thought-provoking; it is a fine rock memoir, even if his own account of Altamont is not apt to change many minds. His view is vital, however, and he adds several twists on the story, including allegations of mob involvement that echo later developments in parts of the recording industry.

And in a genre in which ghost writers and vapidity are the norm, Cutler’s prose—which is his own—stands head and shoulders above most. He is a survivor, and his epigram—a poem he wrote in 1974—is a powerful statement about many of the themes he weaves together in his meditation on a career largely defined by his work first for the Stones, and then for the Dead:

Every day
We murder our dreams;
Then pick them up,
Dust them down,
Adjust their silly hats upon their heads,
Kiss them on the cheeks,
And tell them how glad we are
That they’re still alive.

Less useful, though prettier, is Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones, Altamont, and the End of the Sixties, a glossy coffeetable book that documents Altamont and the tour that preceded it. Cowritten by a photographer on the tour, Ethan A. Russell, it credits eleven members of the tour with providing interviews, suggests that several had never spoken of the events until this book, and positions itself as the untold, and possibly final, word on the Altamont disaster.


The pictures make for a remarkable story, certainly, but the amount of text generated then and since on the concert, and the records of a full murder trial for Pasarro, mean that a thorough history of the event remains to be told.

Still, fans who have wondered about the events leading up to Altamont, and the nature of the rock touring industry on the cusp of radical change, will find much to engage them here.

Marketing and the Business of the Dead

For a band whose Haight-Ashbury origins celebrated an aversion to capitalism, the Grateful Dead have emerged as a powerful example to a variety of business theorists, scholars, and academics. David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan are the latest to delve into the band’s remarkable commercial success, condensing the thirty-year history of the Grateful Dead into a series of pithy lessons to guide managers through the rapidly shifting terrain of marketing today. Their book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, provided them with a unique opportunity to truly combine their passions: as marketing professionals, business writers—and Deadheads.

Published by Wiley and just released, the book is getting good press, helped by the authors’ promotional tour—one that also allows them to catch a few summer shows by Furthur and the Rhythm Devils.

Scott and Halligan join a distinguished roster of scholars who have studied the band’s business model. Dr. Barry Barnes, a professor at Nova Southeastern University, is the most prolific and well known academic business scholar who has focused on the band, but a number of business scholars and analysts have long recognized the significance of how the band’s freewheeling marketing acumen and fanatically loyal customer base helped make the Dead one of the most unlikely economic powerhouses in an industry known for its fickle nature.

The lessons of that approach have not been lost on other Dead scholars, most of whom have had to address the stigma of the band’s countercultural origins and trappings. Unique among the welter of scholarly approaches to the Dead phenomenon, business theorists tend to ignore that stigma—the band’s success, and their maverick approach to courting that success, are sufficient to warrant the attention. To historians, that approach is refreshing because it foregrounds the band’s commercial success, making the point that the Dead’s artistic and commercial success are inextricably entwined; a professional band is, after all, an enterprise that is predicated—and depends—on both.

Their success also allowed the Dead to be generous, and their altruism was another lesson Scott and Halligan took to heart, donating a portion of their advance and earnings to support the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz. It is a wonderful acknowledgment of the old-fashioned ideals that informed the Dead phenomenon, and that now have taken root in its study. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines will find Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead a thought-provoking and informative read.

Musicological Musings on the Grateful Dead: A New Blog

Grateful Dead scholars know David Malvinni for his thoughtful, erudite analyses of “the Eleven,” “Terrapin Station,” and other songs; those who attended the landmark conference Unbroken Chain: The Grateful Dead in American Music, Culture and Memory heard him deliver one of his best analyses of a number of the broader themes that make Grateful Dead music so powerful, dense, alluring, and compelling.

Now Dr. Malvinni has launched a blog, “The Grateful Dead World,” that provides him with a forum for pursuing some of his ideas and sharing them with his colleagues. As he notes there, “The purpose of The Grateful Dead World is to help me get my thoughts out for a book I’m writing called A Touch of the Blues: A Musicological guide to the Grateful Dead.”

The idea for the blog emerged as he was preparing his paper for Unbroken Chain. Called “The Psychedelic Appropriation of the Blues,” his paper was well received and sparked a number of spirited discussions. Dead scholars will be delighted that Malvinni is sharing his work: as he explains, “My idea is that Deadheads, musicologists and anyone interested in the topic can interact with the material before publication.” Thanks to David for this contribution to the literature.

Voices of the Dead: Kearny Street Books’ The Storyteller Speaks Reviewed

David Carter just published a fine review of a new Dead-related book, Rob Weiner and Gary McKinney’s edited anthology The Storyteller Speaks: Rare & Different Fictions of the Grateful Dead (Kearney Street Press, 2010), on the FilmFanaddict webzine (click here).

Carter praises the volume for its range and inclusiveness, grounding his assessment in his own appreciation for the band and scene (he caught a couple of shows in April of their last year.)

He joins a number of critics in praising the volume (for a sample, click here). Co-editor Weiner’s long-time interest in the ways that the scene and phenomenon can be depicted in fiction is amply reflected here, and the two editors have assembled a thought-provoking range of efforts.

Especially notable contributions from band lyricist Robert Hunter and Philip Baruth, author of The Millennium Shows (Albion, 1994), make the volume mandatory reading for Dead fans, and Dead scholars will be interested to see how many of their colleagues have been drawn to write fictional treatments of the phenomenon they study.

McKinney, author of the well-received mystery (featuring a Deadhead sheriff) Slipknot (Kearney Street Books, 2007), and Weiner, editor of Perspectives on the Grateful Dead (Greenwood, 1999), have achieved a commendable first with this volume—and made a fine contribution to the ever-burgeoning literature on the Dead phenomenon in the process.

Startling the Dead: The Art of Dennis Larkins

A recent arrival at the Grateful Dead Archive is Startling Art: Revealing the Art of Dennis Larkins (La Luz de Jesus Press/Last Gasp, 2010). The gift of a supporter who is a fan of Larkins, the book documents the remarkable career of the artist whom Deadheads know as the man responsible for the famous posters of the Dead’s legendary runs at the Warfield and Radio City Music Hall in October 1980. Though not a Deadhead tome by any means, Startling Art does have some important Dead content, reproducing the Radio City Music Hall poster, the Downs at Santa Fe show (17 Oct. 1982), and the gatefold from Dead Set. What may most interest Dead fans and scholars, aside the from the fine overview of Larkins’ unique style and sensibility, are the book’s insights into Larkins’ oversized set pieces for the Dead’s stages, as well as for several other bands, most notably the Rolling Stones. Overall, the book demonstrates that Larkins’ work for the Dead is a vital part of his career and oeuvre that informs his broader vision and contribution as an artist.