The definitive fifty-year oral history of this seminal band, as told by its members and their family, friends, and followers. Fifty years after the Grateful Dead was formed, the band still exerts a powerful influence over hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. Today, an entire generation of Deadheads who have never experienced a live Dead show are still drawn to the music and the complex and colourful subculture that has grown up around it.
BLAIR JACKSON penned Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped and wrote and published 27 issues of the acclaimed fanzine The Golden Road. He is also the author of the definitive biography Garcia: An American Life.
DAVID GANS has published three books on the Dead. He is the producer and host of the nationally syndicated Grateful Dead Hour, is cohost of SiriusXM's Tales from the Golden Road, and is a working musician who has incorporated Grateful Dead songs and improvisation into his own work.
This Is All A Dream We Dreamed is an epic jam. --Vanity Fair You could hardly ask for a more ideal configuration for a retelling of the Grateful Dead's story than an oral history, which is, after all, the jam band of biographical formats.... [T]he editors have pulled off the pretty neat hat trick of filling in plenty of cracks for the hard core while providing a basic education for novices. Best of all, they've provided a celebration that never feels remotely like hagiography. Even a nominal fan has to appreciate the wonder and unlikeliness of how the band sustained that first quarter-century or so of magic. --San Francisco Chronicle "Because both authors have been immersed in this world for decades, they're able to assemble a storyline out of the wealth of material at their disposal without being overwhelmed by it...even the casual observer will find plenty to relish...the book is fluid, collaborative, immersive." --Columbus Dispatch "Despite its title, what makes this book different from all other books on the Grateful Dead is that it is anything but dreamlike. It is down-to-earth, plainspoken, without special pleading or arguments for differing levels of awareness. You didn't have to be there. On many pages, this could be the story of any band-the story as it emerges here carries no pretensions-and elsewhere it is the story of people doing their work. And it is so full of the intensity and repetitions of ordinary life that it throws the work that was done into a new light." --Greil Marcus, rock critic "This epic oral history of the 50-year-old band... is a solid, engaging chronicle." --Publishers Weekly "[Jackson and Gans] know as much as nearly anyone alive about the storied band.... There's plenty of peace and love here and lots of smoke and psychedelia, as well as the usual Altamont regrets, all voiced by people in and close to the band. Worthy of Studs Terkel and an essential addition to the books of the Dead." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review "The Grateful Dead, when they were making music together, may have sometimes seemed 'more than human, ' but they were always the first to admit that they were less than perfect. Here they are, in all their cockeyed glory. Gans and Jackson have orchestrated a shrewd, essential account of the band members' lives and times, a tale as polyphonic as the 'electronic Dixieland' they unperfected through the years, to our (and their) enduring delight and awe." --Nick Paumgarten, staff writer, The New Yorker "Jerry, Kesey, Bobby, Billy, Bear--this amazing book speaks to me out loud, inside my head, in all the voices of the Grateful Dead! It's an audio illumination of family, fans, and friends, and the long, strange trip. It leaps straight out of the tree-flesh to dance in our dreams." --Wavy Gravy "[A] high-demand backstory...lively oral history." --Booklist Readers will quickly become absorbed into the Dead's world and will feel that everyone is speaking directly to them.... There may currently be no better introduction to the Grateful Dead than this superior tome. --Derek Sanderson, Library Journal, starred review "This Is All a Dream We Dreamed reads like exactly what it is--a beautiful textual tapestry of late 20th century American music, and what happened to that music when it turned on, tuned in, and dropped into a heady space all its own. A must-read for Deadheads." --Buffalo News
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
