Here Beside The Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead, And An American Awakening (BOK)

In 1965, in Palo Alto, Jerry Garcia opened a dictionary to a fable in which an appreciative soul repays the generosity of a traveler, a “gift of the grateful dead.” After a traumatic car accident that injured him and killed a close friend, Garcia had resolved to build his life around music. He had practiced relentlessly and caromed across the northern California folk and bluegrass scene. He had gathered up some fellow musicians and formed a band. Now they had their name.

Following the history of the Grateful Dead means tracking American cultural history through a period of radical reconsideration. The Dead played at the Acid Tests and the Human Be-In and Woodstock, at the occupation of Columbia and the Bail Ball for People’s Park. They performed at the base of the Pyramids during a lunar eclipse, at Madison Square Garden to defend the rainforests, in San Francisco to sound the alarm over AIDS and at Huey Newton’s birthday party. For three decades, the band explored the meaning and limits of freedom.