The Truth About Why the Grateful Dead And Allman Brothers Fell Apart

Jerry Garcia left Wolf to the man who built it. The Grateful Dead disputed the ownership, turning a personal bequest into a fight over a legendary guitar. Doug Irwin built Wolf for a player who kept asking more of his instruments. It became part of the Grateful Dead’s changing sound in the 1970s, from the…

The Grateful Dead killed this song three times in 15 years — twice on Halloween, 12 years to the day apart. In all 189 plays, it never once closed a set. The band built three different homes for it, and all three collapsed. The song was St. Stephen. St. Stephen was the first song the…

Phil Lesh played bass wrong on purpose — and after Jerry Garcia died, he became the one member who treated the Grateful Dead’s vault, name, and music as too fragile to sell. This is the real story of the fracture that split the band’s survivors for thirty years. When Jerry Garcia died in 1995, the…

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…

Four men who held the Grateful Dead’s keyboard chair are gone — Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, Vince Welnick. Tom Constanten is the one the “curse” never touched. Here’s why he walked away clean. Tom Constanten (“TC”) played keyboards for the Grateful Dead for just 14 months, 1968–1970 — the only man to sit in…

Jerry Garcia’s music supported a whole working community. Behind the Grateful Dead’s equal pay was a growing pressure to keep the road going.