The Man Who Wrote the Book on Acid Failed the Test

Jerry Garcia made the Grateful Dead study a Junior Walker B-side like a jazz chart. Inside the Detroit soul DNA buried under sixty years of acid rock branding.

Robert Hunter was asked point-blank in a 2015 interview, was the Grateful Dead’s Althea written about Jerry Garcia? His answer was no. Flat, categorical, no. And then, in literally the next breath, he said this, “That does kind of sound like a messag

Me and My Uncle is the most-played song in Grateful Dead history — and Bob Weir learned it secondhand from a pot smuggler who claimed he helped write it. No two databases agree on the count.

A dozen people from the Grateful Dead’s office walked up the road for crab sandwiches one afternoon in early 1970. They came back to an empty room and a single phone sitting on the floor. And the band that came out the other side of it played some of the best music of their lives….

Workingman’s Dead is the 1970 Grateful Dead album most newcomers start with, and all eight songs were alive onstage first. The track by track history, and the tapes to go find. The Shakedown Archives publishes new research on Grateful Dead history each week. If you enjoyed this essay, you can subscribe to the companion YouTube…

Jerry Garcia called showbiz tricks fascism. Bob Weir was using them every night. From firing to RatDog, the 27-year campaign to become the boss of something.