Perspectives on the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead, one of the most meticulously documented rock bands, significantly influenced American music and popular culture. Its popularity has endured for three decades despite mixed critical reception. Jerry Garcia, thought of among many as a musical icon and spokesperson for more than one generation of fans, was often equally scorned by various critics. This collection of scholarly essays attests to the varied fields of interest the band and its followers, known as Deadheads, have affected, including psychology, law, and ethnomusicology. The contributions explore the diversity of the culture of fans, empirically analyze the music, apply literary criticism to the lyrics, and explore Dead-related philosophical and theological concepts — in other words, they are as eclectic as the myriad Grateful Dead fans themselves.Appealing to Grateful Dead scholars, fans, and collectors alike, these twenty-two essays are grouped by subject, and each essay includes a bibliography of resources for further research.

"Deadheads will find each of these diverse essays equally challenging, undeniably fascinating, another window on the multi-colored bus that is the Dead. Perspectives on the Grateful Dead is powerful reading, putting the psyche back in psychedelic."-Jeff Tamarkin Author, Got a Revolution!-The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane, "Herein lies ample proof of the Grateful Dead's social prowess. Loved and hated in equal measures, this aspect of the band is explored through delightfully diverse, carefully crafted essays that are revealed to be -- through the depth of their reflections -- organic tentacles, sprouting from the same well the Dead drank from. Weiner has chosen wisely. Open-minded readers, fans or not, will come away enriched."-Michael Getz Co-author of the The Deadhead's Taping Compendium, "It's high time the Grateful Dead come in for serious study. There is no other phenomenon in American culture that has demonstrated the staying power of this remarkable band, its folk and folklore; and yet, until now, the Dead have been marginalized in popular culture, and all but ignored in academe. Rob Weiner is to be commended for breaking the silence with this provocative collection of first generation scholarship about the Grateful Dead."-Carol Brightman Author of Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure and Writing Dangerously, "IPerspectives on the Grateful Dead: Critical Writings is a multi-perspective, innovative work, expanding the world of rigorous rock music study....Serious students and scholars of rock music will find many a 'miracle' in Perspectives on the Grateful Dead."-Paul Friedlander Director Music Industry Program California State University, Chico, "This book adds another significant piece toward solving the enigmatic puzzle of the Grateful Dead and Deadheads by bringing together a wide variety of writings about the music and the fans. No matter if you're a true believer yourself, these writings help explain the near-religious devotion of the fans, dissect the meaning of lyrics, and examine the culture of the Deadheads in intelligent, well-written articles."-F. Barry Barnes, Assistant Professor School of Business and Entrepreneurship Nova Southeastern University Fort Lauderdale, Florida

ROBERT G. WEINER is a Reference Librarian at the Mahon Library in Lubbock, Texas. He is the co-author, along with David G. Dodd, of an annotated bibliography of literature on the Grateful Dead entitled, The Grateful Dead and the Deadheads (Greenwood, 1997).