"So Many Roads": New Grateful Dead Bio
1. So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead
The release of David Browne's biography of The Grateful Dead–So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead– comes at a special moment in the extended history of the band. On July 3-5, the group's main surviving members–Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutmann–will be joined by guitarist Trey Anastacio on guitar and keyboardists Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti to bide farewell to the Grateful Dead as a working ensemble. Performing in the same Chicago arena where Jerry Garcia played his last performance with the band he came to represent, the Grateful Dead will honor the late guitarist and other now-gone former band members, as well as their rabidly loyal fans.
Browne's engrossing book grants us a special look at a very special band. Here's a handful of notable moments from the long strange trip.
2. Crazy Fingers
In 1947 Tiff Garcia cut off much of his brother Jerry's middle finger in a wood chopping accident. Jerry made the most of his loss indulging in school pranks.
"Garcia might also jam that finger into his nostril to make it look as if he was sticking his finger all the way up his nose. The missing finger only added to his image, especially when he would boast, wrongly, that the absent part of his finger was in a jar at home and accepting visitors. That Garcia kid surely has a twisted sense of humor."
3. The Warlock's scary bad night
The early days for the band (then known as The Warlocks) were rough. Garcia and Weir were unaccustomed to electric guitars while Phil Lesh had only been playing bass a very short time. A gig at a teen club called Frenchy's was a disaster.
"The only thing I can remember is how stiff I felt.," [Lesh] recalls of that show."I didn't feel I had the groove. and I didn't know what the other guys were going to be doing." When the Warlocks returned for a second night they were told they'd been replaced by an accordion, bass and clarinet trio, the polar opposite of what The Warlocks were trying to accomplish. "That was such a moment," he says."I can't even remember what we did the first night that would have thrown up the red flag."
4. Bob and Pigpen almost get the boot
During the summer of 1968, Garcia, unsatisfied with the band's musical direction, actually toyed with the idea of having Weir and Pigpen leave The Grateful Dead. Playing as a quartet didn't quite cut it though.
"It sucked, Lesh says. "It was nowhere. So the next time we all got together to play, it was the whole Grateful Dead, and it was like nothing had changed. In order to have the magic happen, we needed everybody. We couldn't make it happen without them. That's what we needed to know. Now we can go back and work with these guys."
5. Joan and Jerry
In the early 1980s, folk icon Joan Baez (then romantically involved with drummer Mickey Hart) began recording with Garcia. Owing to the guitarist's, let us say, lack of focus, it wasn't successful.
"He was way out there," Baez recalls. "He would noodle and get lost and start finding the part and go off into outer space, and it had nothing to do with that song...I was feeling quieter and duller and weirder by the minute," Baez says. Turning to Hart, she said "What's going on?" In a phrase she would long remember, he replied, "You're getting a contact low."More »
6. Bruce, the band, the fans
Already a star, Bruce Hornsby couldn't resist joining one of his favorite bands as a guest keyboardist and singer. As great as it could be, the experience also got tough sometimes.
"They said, 'Come on and play!'" Hornsby recalls. "And suddenly I'm standing next to these guys. Garcia said, 'We don't let just anyone play accordion with us.' They were a bunch of smiley faces. It was surreal." Early on, Hornsby also learned how demanding the band's fan base could be at the Laguna Seca shows he played the identical songs both nights, and Deadheads responded by yelling out, "Same Set!"
