Life lessons on two wheels to the tunes of the
Grateful Dead
This Week in Grateful Dead History
Week 1
I wish I was a headlight on a northbound train.
Even the most cursory examination of the lyrics of Grateful Dead songs quickly uncovers one of the most fundamental aspects of the band’s identity: This is an American band, rooted in American culture, and built around easily recognizable locales and deeply American principles and history.
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This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 30 - July 22, 1984
Let your life proceed
Free will versus fate. The debate is as fundamental as any other in the realm of human existence, and has been taken up by many of the great philosophers throughout recorded history. Aristotle (385-382 B.C.E.) said, “The man is the father of his actions as of children”; Augustine (355-430) tipped the scale in the other direction with his belief that all things are determined in some manner by God; Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) believed in free will conditionally: “A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational”; René Descartes (1596-1650) suggested that free will lies in our thoughts: “Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power”; and more recently, Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991) humorously claimed, “We must believe in free will, we have no choice.”
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 46 – November 11, 1973
How does the song go?
One of the most unique aspects of the Grateful Dead experience is the existence and ready availability of thousands upon thousands of recordings of concerts, studio sessions and other archival material. The band’s willingness – whether intentional or accidental – to allow their fans to freely record and share what virtually any other band would protect as copyrighted music, was either the luckiest or the most brilliant marketing strategy in the history of modern music. What the Dead may have lost in revenue from the sale of live concert material was easily eclipsed by the increase in ticket sales resulting from turning their devotees into promotional agents, replete with product samples that were self-produced and widely disseminated.
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 29 - July 18, 1976
The work of his day
After an interminable hiatus in 1975 (and by “hiatus” I mean 4 Dead concerts, numerous recording sessions, the release of the Blues For Allah album, and plenty of shows by Kingfish, Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, and the other splinter groups that performed that year), the boys (and the girl) finally hit the road for a summer tour in June of ’76. After 17 shows in Boston, New York, Passaic, NJ, Upper Darby, PA and Chicago, the summer revival continued with 6 wonderful shows at the 2200-seat Orpheum Theater in San Francisco. The last of these concerts, 7/18/76, was a clear choice for T.W.I.G.D.H.
All Material Copyright 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by Stewart Sallo