The Freedom of the Dead – G. Patrick Lynch

Separating historical past from legend is all the time sophisticated in relation to rock ‘n’ roll, significantly within the case of the Grateful Lifeless. It’s not as a result of the Lifeless had been significantly strategic in shaping their legacies (though self-interest did play a big function within the band’s later years). No, the rationale for warning is less complicated than that. Due to their well-earned status because the group most related to psychedelic drug use, to not point out Garcia’s long-running battle with heroin habit, it’s all the time value remembering that “remembering” may come from the haze of far an excessive amount of LSD or magic mushrooms.

It appears to be true, although, that the 2 most distinguished members of the primary line-up—Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir—met on New 12 months’s Eve. Weir, then 16 years outdated, was making an attempt to sneak into golf equipment underage and heard Garcia enjoying a banjo at a music store. He popped in together with a buddy and started enjoying with Garcia. The 2 didn’t cease enjoying till Garcia’s demise in 1995.

Put merely, folks misconceive the band’s legacy. Most imagine the Lifeless are related to freedom due to the rampant drug use that shortened Garcia’s life, and in addition is alleged to have impressed a lot of their music. They had been, in spite of everything, the home band for the unique “acid take a look at” occasions organized by Ken Kesey by which members willingly took LSD for “thoughts growth.” Society’s curiosity within the prospects for psychedelics continues immediately as researchers are analyzing whether or not they can be utilized to deal with PTSD and different neurological issues.

Now, it’s true that it wasn’t laborious to seek out mind-altering substances at Lifeless reveals all through the band’s decades-long run performing. However that’s simply the tip of the iceberg in relation to explaining why they’re undoubtedly essentially the most freedom and liberty-oriented of all common bands. Their music, lyrics, enterprise mannequin, and strategy valued free and accountable exchanges between the band and its followers. Followers themselves self-organized in a fashion that even Lin Ostrom would have admired, and enforced norms and guidelines.

The music was primarily based in that the majority American of types, the jug bands of the 1950’s and 60’s that in flip had been primarily based on Appalachian-style bluegrass, solid from the experiences of immigrants who settled the hard-scrabbled hills of Kentucky, Tennessee, and elsewhere. That conventional type melded with electrical rock ‘n’ roll and drew upon these experiences on the acid exams to grow to be free-formed and continuously rising.

Weir admitted that he was closely influenced by jazz, as was Phil Lesh, the band’s bassist. Garcia performed in his personal band that was extra acoustic and true to his roots in Americana. Drummer Mickey Hart and different founding member Invoice Kreutzman explored the assorted sounds and rhythms that drums and percussion made all through the world. The band was actually with out limits when it comes to experimenting, however they stayed, roughly, firmly positioned in a collection of songs that might rotate out and in of live shows every night time. It was evolving as a result of every present was distinctive, however anchored in a collection of establishments (the songs). 

The songs explored quite a lot of themes associated to liberty, autonomy, and suspicion of authority, if not flat-out revolt. Clearly, one can level to songs like “Truckin’” which bemoans a drug bust the band skilled in New Orleans. However the music’s level is that they only maintain going, not altering or bending to the expectations of society. Or, contemplate their much less well-known music “Liberty.” The refrain summarizes the view of damaging, “don’t tread on me” freedom: 

Ooo Freedom, Ooo, Liberty, Oh, go away me alone, To seek out my very own manner house, To seek out my very own manner house.

In fact, freedom may be used to pursue unconventional types of life. One verse says:

If I used to be an eagle I’d costume like a duck, Crawl like a lizard and honk like a truck, If I get a notion I’ll climb this tree Or chop it down and you may’t cease me.

A good portion of {the catalogue} included music set within the Western frontier with poker video games, gunfighters, and lonely rides on horseback. In “Jack Straw,” we encounter two sketchy characters hustling and surviving by their wits and making an attempt to keep away from each justice and retribution from the regulation and people exterior of the regulation. They’re dwelling the kind of unconstrained freedom and autonomy that the Lifeless embodied with their careers.

And the best way they formed these careers actually couldn’t have been extra impartial and pro-market. Exterior observers caricatured the Lifeless as a bunch of hippy socialists and their followers as little greater than folks in quest of a buzz to tune out. Actually, for his or her time, they had been revolutionaries within the music enterprise.

Think about this—no band was as contemptuous of mental property rights because the Lifeless. Their live shows had been the primary, nay, overwhelming, income. They didn’t like making studio albums, and skirted vital business success on the airwaves till the late 80’s and early 90’s with their common single “Contact of Gray” from their hottest album, Within the Darkish, which was launched in 1987. In fact, the “Contact of Gray” had been within the band’s rotation of live performance music earlier than its launch on the album, whereas the business success of the one, far and away their largest business hit, reached #9 on the Billboard charts. Even their largest hit was one which extra extremely achieved bands would have thought-about modestly profitable.

So how did the Lifeless grow to be profitable, common, and rich? They toured yearly, typically enjoying lots of of reveals per yr. In whole, they performed greater than 2,300 live shows over the course of their careers, largely with the identical core line-up. These reveals had some very fascinating traits that different bands didn’t or couldn’t replicate. First, they improvised lengthy solos in each music they performed. No two reveals had been alike. That didn’t imply all reveals had been “good.” Typically the solos and improvisation would take the band and its followers to new ranges of musicality and power (and sure, the chemical compounds performed some function among the many musicians and followers alike). To name it “spontaneous order” could be a cliche, however that’s just about what any Lifeless present actually was. It was a set of explorations primarily based on the construction of every music. That’s why followers needed to listen to the identical music performed once more—every model was completely different in refined or massive methods.

Improvisation remained a important piece of their performances, and that uncertainty or unknown facet to every present drew the viewers in. Typically songs would reappear after years and shock the followers. It was nothing just like the choreographed and prepackaged pop reveals that the music trade produces so readily. Followers didn’t need album variations of the songs.

So how did followers be taught the band’s music? The Lifeless allowed folks to report their performances and distribute these recordings freely. The tapes turned free promoting to potential followers who would play them and move them alongside. Notably well-known reveals, by which the band was at its peak, gained fame. My first tape was the second set of the well-known “Cornell” present of 1977. The band earned their technique to wealth by enjoying the music, not simply copyrighting it and promoting recordings.

In addition they managed the ticket gross sales and distribution. Tickets had been offered by mail order, by the Lifeless’s ticket operation. Often, demand outstripped provide, so candidates would anxiously await return envelopes, hoping for tickets for a minimum of one night time at a venue close by. As a result of the Lifeless reduce out the intermediary, they made significantly extra at touring than their rivals in different teams.

Their followers, the Lifeless Heads, had been legendary for smelling of patchouli, spinning and dancing throughout live shows, and following the band from city to city. The “scene” was usually within the campgrounds and parking tons earlier than and after reveals. Surprisingly, these areas had been effectively self-organized. Individuals funded their live shows by financial entrepreneurship. Some made meals out of the again of VW campers and offered it to live performance goers. Others made T-shirts and jewellery. As a result of the Lifeless didn’t license their logos and such, a sturdy enterprise in privately created wardrobe emerged. My specific favourite was a fellow named Norm, who dressed like an Outdated Testomony prophet and, for a couple of bucks, would provide you with one in every of his “deviations from Norm,” which had been brief, humorous raps or poems. By no means had 5 {dollars} given me that a lot leisure.

However the followers had been scrupulous of their manners and customs. Followers who had been inflicting issues, preventing, or being obnoxious had been frowned upon and shunned. Lifeless Heads had been admonished by the band to “go away no footprints” and clear up after they left. The circus wasn’t welcome in all places, however the scene within the car parking zone labored as a result of it was self-organized and never chaotic. The collective motion downside was solved with out a government.

Bob Weir’s passing firstly of 2026 left the world with one founding member, Invoice Kreutzmann. Mickey Hart, the opposite percussionist, joined after the primary formation, however has lengthy been considered as a full member. These two function the one hyperlink to the band’s previous. They’ve left an incredible legacy of improvisational jam bands that span throughout rock, bluegrass, and Americana music, to not point out jazz and funk. Their reveals and enterprise mannequin tapped into an viewers that nobody knew existed, however the Lifeless’s entrepreneurial spirit uncovered them. Whereas there was a rebellious freedom to the group, they stood on the proper aspect of liberty of their work and lives. You could not “get” the Lifeless’s music, and that’s advantageous. However you possibly can’t low cost their contribution as a revolutionary musical group that was actually supportive of particular person freedom.