The Night the Grateful Dead Played with the Sufi Choir — A Lost 1971 Performance
In March 1971, the Grateful Dead played a benefit at Winterland with robed Sufi chanters circling a bonfire inside a wooden building. The tape was lost for fifty years.
Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) was the Grateful Dead’s lead guitarist, primary lead vocalist, and creative engine. His partnership with lyricist Robert Hunter produced most of the band’s signature songs. Outside the Dead he fronted the Jerry Garcia Band, played with David Grisman in acoustic contexts, and carried a ferocious creative output despite lifelong health struggles. Articles here cover Garcia’s songwriting, his guitar style, his side projects, his 1986 coma and recovery, and his complicated legacy after his death.
In March 1971, the Grateful Dead played a benefit at Winterland with robed Sufi chanters circling a bonfire inside a wooden building. The tape was lost for fifty years.
The Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers shared stages, shared influences, and quietly resented each other. The Fillmore East shows tell the real story.
“Truckin'” was born from a real drug bust in New Orleans, became the Dead’s only charting single, and was declared a national treasure by the Library of Congress.
Six hundred thousand people showed up to Watkins Glen in 1973 for the Dead, the Allman Brothers, and the Band — and almost nobody remembers it.
“Box of Rain” was the first song Phil Lesh ever sang — written while his father was dying. It became the last song the Grateful Dead ever played.
Europe ’72 wasn’t just a live album — it was a financial rescue mission, a creative peak, and the most elaborate overdub job in Dead history.