The Greatful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band. Formed in 1965 in San Francisco from the remnants of another band, "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions," the Grateful Dead were known for their unique and eclectic songwriting style—which fused elements of rock, folk music, bluegrass, blues, country, and jazz—and for live performances of long modal jams.

Some of the band's fans followed the band from concert to concert for years. These "Deadheads" were renowned for their dedication to the band's music. Many followers referred to the band simply as The Dead.

The Grateful Dead became the de facto resident band of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, with the early sound heavily influenced by Kesey's LSD-soaked Acid Tests, as well as rnb. Their musical influences varied widely with input from the psychedelic music of the era, combined with blues, jazz, rock and roll, and bluegrass. These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world."

One of the most notable things about the existence of the Grateful Dead is the extent to which they were together as a band. They were a complete band for thirty years only being stopped by the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. The music of the Grateful Dead lives on through many tribute bands and solo projects of the rest of the band. The reconciliation of the Dead's music by its members most notably thrives today in Phil Lesh and Friends and Ratdog (Bob Weir solo) although the remaining members did still perform together for a while as The Other Ones and later on simply as The Dead. To think that Phil Lesh and Bob Weir have been playing this music for almost fifty years is astounding.

In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked the Grateful Dead #55 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

On January 4, 2007 Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart reunited along with Bruce Hornsby, Mike Gordon (of Phish and the Rhythm Devils) and Warren Haynes to play two sets at a post-inauguration fundraising party for speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi. They were billed as "Your House Band" and performed some Grateful Dead classics such as "Truckin'" and "Touch of Grey".

On February 10, 2007, the Grateful Dead received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was accepted on behalf of the band by Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. Find out more about this classic "Flower Power" band at: http://www.dead.net/

Research info provided by: www.wikipedia.org

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