#GRATEFUL DEAD DISCOGRAPHY SERIES#

#GRATEFUL DEAD DISCOGRAPHY SERIES#

The Warlocks made their electric debut that July Ken Kesey soon tapped them to become the house band at his notorious Acid Tests, a series of now-legendary public LSD parties and multimedia 'happenings' mounted prior to the drug's criminalization.

By 1962, Garcia was playing banjo in a variety of local folk and bluegrass outfits, two years later forming Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions with guitarist Bob Weir and keyboardist Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan in 1965, the group was renamed the Warlocks, their lineup by then including Lesh on bass as well as Bill Kreutzmann on drums. Upon relocating to Palo Alto, California, in 1960, he befriended Robert Hunter, whose lyrics later graced many of Garcia's most famous melodies in time, he also came into contact with aspiring electronic music composer Phil Lesh.

The roots of the Grateful Dead lie with singer/songwriter Jerry Garcia, a longtime bluegrass enthusiast who began playing the guitar at age 15. The object of adoration for popular music's most fervent and celebrated fan following - the Deadheads, their numbers and devotion legendary in their own right - they were the ultimate cult band, creating a self-styled universe all their own for the better part of their career orbiting well outside of the mainstream, the Dead became superstars solely on their own terms, tie-dyed pied pipers whose epic, free-form live shows were rites of passage for an extended family of listeners who knew no cultural boundaries. Rock's longest, strangest trip, the Grateful Dead were the psychedelic era's most beloved musical ambassadors as well as its most enduring survivors, spreading their message of peace, love, and mind expansion across the globe throughout the better part of three decades.

Grateful dead discography