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Grateful Dead

Fight Sound With Sound: Grateful Dead's Arena Combat

Dave's Picks Volume 9 features a 1974 Grateful Dead concert played in Montana. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Review

Music Reviews

Fight Sound With Sound: Grateful Dead's Arena Combat

Fresh Air

In 1974, sound engineer Owsley Stanley crafted a superior live experience with an enormous conglomeration of amps and speakers called the Wall of Sound. Dave's Picks Volume 9 captures this era.

Fight Sound With Sound: Grateful Dead's Arena Combat

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The Practical Side Of The Great American Jam Band

The Grateful Dead circa 1970. The band's members were quintessential rock hippies — but, a new exhibit reveals, savvy businessmen as well. Gems/Redferns hide caption

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Gems/Redferns

Music News

The Practical Side Of The Great American Jam Band

Filled with press clippings, newsletters and receipts, the new Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California, Santa Cruz, reveals that rock 'n' roll's quintessential hippies were also savvy businessmen.

The Practical Side Of The Great American Jam Band

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Warren Haynes: A Rocker Gets Some 'Me' Time

Warren Haynes' new solo album is called Man in Motion. Steward O'Shields/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Music Interviews

Warren Haynes: A Rocker Gets Some 'Me' Time

The celebrated guitarist and songwriter, known for his work with The Allman Brothers Band, The Dead and Gov't Mule, discusses his first solo album in 19 years.

Warren Haynes: A Rocker Gets Some 'Me' Time

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Music News

University Seeks Grateful Dead Archivist

The University of California, Santa Cruz, is seeking an archivist for its collection of Grateful Dead materials. The job involves managing original documents, clippings, art, posters, recordings, publication and documentation of the band's famous network of fans, known as deadheads.

University Seeks Grateful Dead Archivist

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Music Interviews

Composer Introduces A 'Dead' Symphony

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performs work next week inspired by the music of the Grateful Dead. Composer Lee Johnson, who wrote Dead Symphony No. 6, discusses the piece's origins and talks about learning to become a "Deadhead."

Composer Introduces A 'Dead' Symphony

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Teaching Outside the Box

Blues Song Is a Decades-Long Music Lesson

As part of our series about students and teachers, musicologist Bruce Nemerov describes the way that one song is recorded by several different musicians in different decades of the 20th century. The older musicians are teaching the younger musicians through the song "Sitting on Top of the World." We hear the song as recorded by Al Jolson, The Mississippi Sheiks, Howlin' Wolf, Eric Clapton, Bill Monroe and The Grateful Dead.

Blues Song Is a Decades-Long Music Lesson

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Music News

Beethoven Manuscript Sells for Nearly $2 Million

A long-lost manuscript of composer Ludwig van Beethoven is auctioned by Sotheby's, bringing nearly $2 million. In a separate auction, a nonprofit group hopes to raise as much as $100,000 by offering home fixtures that once belonged to the Grateful Dead's late lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia.

Beethoven Manuscript Sells for Nearly $2 Million

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Studio Sessions

Bob Weir Reviews His Long, Strange Trip

Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, has released a 2-CD career retrospective, Weir Here. The guitarist performs two songs and reflects on music and career with NPR's Scott Simon.

Bob Weir Reviews His Long, Strange Trip

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Music Interviews

'A Long Strange Trip'

The Grateful Dead began their musical journey in 1965, and continued to perform before sell-out crowds until their breakup in 1995. NPR's Scott Simon talks with the band's historian Dennis McNally about his book, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead.

'A Long Strange Trip'

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