ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

Chronicling the Grateful Dead’s long strange trip in 50 concerts.

“I believe that a Grateful Dead concert is life. Like life, it can be alternately compelling and lackluster; familiar and foreign; occasionally sublime and sometimes insipid.” So writes Robertson, author of Lives of the Poets (With Guitars), providing a reasonable encapsulation of the Dead experience. In this quick-hitting account of 50 memorable shows (in the author’s estimation), Robertson displays deep knowledge of the band’s personnel, songs, albums, mechanics, and milieu, and many of the vivid entries concisely capture the mysterious alchemy of what made the group a sui generis American rock band. As any Deadhead worth their weight in hemp and LSD will tell you, there’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert, and the author capably demonstrates the good, bad, and ugly elements that followed the band around for decades. After a brief yet astute introduction, the author begins with the 7/29/66 show in Vancouver, ably describing the band’s unique lineup at the time: “Jerry Garcia was a banjo-picking bluegrass obsessive; Bob Weir was a teenage folkie; Bill Kreutzmann, a jazz-loving rock-and-roll drummer; Phil Lesh, another jazz fan, who wanted to compose contemporary classical music; and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan liked to sing the blues.” Those disparate elements, in addition to various other members across the years, would create some of the most indelible rock music of the late 20th century. Of course, readers will quibble with Robertson’s selections and omissions, and the text is heavy on the first decade of the band’s career—though the author dutifully parses the final show, in 1995, before Jerry Garcia died. Robertson is a fluid music writer, and while the book offers little for newcomers to the Dead experience, it’s an enjoyable read nonetheless.

A must for devoted Deadheads; appealing to fans of classic rock; pass for everyone else.