I have chosen to do my report on the Grateful Dead. They were a rock and roll band from the sixties that stayed popular and still influenced rock and roll until 1995 when the lead singer, Jerry Garcia, died and the band dissolved. The Dead remained popular for so long because of the style of their live concerts that made people keep coming back.
In 1959 when Jerry Garcia was thrown out of the army, he picked up his guitar and started playing music with his friend Robert Hunter. Robert Hunter would later become the Grateful Dead's non-performing song writer. Robert and Jerry lived in San Francisco, California. On one New Year's Eve
Jerry-Mickey at Red Rocks from a deadhead to other...
lighting bold in red and blue square.
Denver, Co concert, Bill Kreutzmann playing the ta...party, Garcia and Hunter met Ron 'The Pig Pen' McKerman, who played harmonica, keyboard and was also a vocalist. Pig Pen was the janitor at the music shop where Jerry gave banjo lessons. During the concert of that night, they also met guitarist Bob Weir and together they formed a band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. A few weeks later Bob Matthews,who later became a part of the Grateful Dead electronics and recording family,joined the group along with John 'marmaduke' Dawson,who later joined the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Work was scarce for the Jug Champions until Dana Morgan, owner at the store where Jerry taught banjo and Pig Pen worked,provided the money and equipment for them to become electric. After they had become electric they renamed the group the Warlocks. Dawson and Matthews were soon to leave and they were replaced by drummer Bill Sommers
(Krentemann) and Phil Lesh, who was a trumpet player who learned to play bass guitar in a very amazing two weeks just to get the spot. This completes the now familiar Dead line up.
The Warlocks played...