This month’s theme music is brought to you by the the good ole’ Grateful Dead. I’ve been a Deadhead since the word drop! Being born in San Francisco in 1966, it was in my blood. We lived on Page Street in the Haight until 1969. My Dad claims that I was at The Human Be In as a baby. My first recollection of the band was through my parents record collection sometime back in the 70’s, a faded copy of American Beauty always somewhere in the pile. It’s music sounded ancient, archaic, even square to my young ears already pricked to the current revelry of Bowie, Lou Reed, and Cheap Trick. Yet somehow while I was in High School in the early 80’s, their mystique and magic caught my attention as something more than my parent’s old-timey music, thanks to psychedelics. The band played at Austin’s Manor Downs in 1981, which a lot of the Seniors at my school attended, thus throwing Grateful Dead scene headlong into the young preppie mindset. It was okay to like Talking Heads and Jerry Garcia back then, not at all ironic. Suddenly, a lot of the kids around my town were digging into our parents’ collections or hitting up the used stores for copies of Psychedelic Music! Paisley clothing soon came back as well. Our hair grew longer. By the time “Touch of Grey” hit the airwaves, we were christened ‘Touchers’ by the older fans, who let us into the scene with open arms. They were the original jamband, and countless scores of folks from my generation formed improvisational bands highly influenced by them. I saw them three times with Jerry at the helm, each show an amazing journey, experience, and enlightenment.

Over the years, I grew to love jambands, and the many newer integrations of Grateful Dead music: Other Ones, Further, The Dead, Ratdog, Phil & Friends, and finally Dead & Company. I saw each of the aforementioned at least once; the Mayer-led band in 2021 where I was completely blown away with John’s seat in the Captain Trips chair, Jeff slaying the keyboards, as well as Oteil laying down jazzy bottom end. Bob, Mickey, and Bill held on for dear life at times as the youngsters played their modal circles. I also watched their recent storied return to Barton Hall last month, the band firing on all cylinders for this one, early in their FINAL TOUR. What does their future hold? Hopefully, John, Oteil, and Jeff do something together; we all know that Bob will never leave the road, probably headed to the safety and control of Wolf Brothers. And I heard Peter Shapiro publicly claim in a CBS interview that he has Soldier Field on hold for Grateful Dead 60…so there’s that!

At the beginning of 2021, I decided to play through as many of the live archival releases as I could, making a playlist of my favorite live song versions in the process. That endeavor has lasted since, albeit with a few breaks. I made it through the box-sets and remastered shows including Dick’s Picks, Veneta, Pacific Northwest, Cornell, Download Series, Europe 72 Box, So Many Roads, 100 Days, etc. I tried to focus on very few repeats of songs, and including all eras of the band through Jerry’s last tour. So below I present you with 200 Grateful Dead LIVE songs…dig.

https://www.dead.net/