The Grateful Dead - What are some good books on this iconic group?

You have to start with Rock Scully's: "Living With The Dead". Without a doubt the best one written i/m/o and I have read all of them. Scully was their road manager for 20 years. You will piss your pants laughing from all the war stories and he gets the spirit of the Dead perfectly in the book. He ultimately fell out with the band because of his enabling Garcia's heroin addiction but his insider stories are crazy and fricking hilarious and its a warts and all book.

I still have it on my computer and read it from time to time just for the lulz.

LINK

I bought some great books from the family on tour back in the day

Do you have Sirius/ XM sat radio ? Big Steve Parish is a wealth of knowledge and shares stories of his life on the road with the band. Lots of personal stories about Jerry. BSP has an amazing memory of concert venues, musicians the band played with, road stories, dealings with the police and Hells Angels, Egypt, setting up concert equipment, and lots of Jerry Garcia Band stuff.

Channel 23:
LIVE - Thursday’s 2PM PST/5PM EST

Pre-recorded shows
Thursday’s – 10PM PST/1AM EST
Sunday’s & Wednesday’s – 6AM PST/9AM EST

Cool Garcia story with LSU ties that I learned from Big Steve. When Jerry was around 10 yrs old, he lived in Menlo Park, CA which is by Stanford / Palo Alto. During the Summer months he would cut grass to earn spending money. Y.A. Tittle (LSU QB - NFL HOF) lived in the same neighborhood and Jerry use to cut his grass. Jerry was a perfectionist at everything he did and would not settle for a half-arse job. Y.A. was so impressed with young Jerome’s lawn care skills that the then 49’er QB gifted him tickets to a football game at Kezar Stadium.

Playing In The Band by David Gans and Peter Simons was the first one I read. For a long time, until after Jerry's death and everyone started writing books, that was the best we had. For a general history of the band, it still holds up.

I've read Phil's book and Billy's book and Rock Scully's book and Dennis McNally's book as well as another one -- Conversations With The Dead -- by David Gans (host of the long-running Grateful Dead Hour on NPR and instrumental in getting Phil back to performing after Jerry's death). Also Dark Star by Jerry Greenfield, a Jerry Garcia biography. They fill in a lot of holes and don't always agree which is to be expected. But overall, Playing In The Band gave me a firm foundation for understanding the band since I was in college back in the late 80's. (My first show was Pittsburgh '87. Changed my life.)

I don't know if any of that helps. But one thing you should DEFINITELY do is read Bill Graham's autobiography: Bill Graham Presents. That's a must read. That's better than all of the above. It will give you insights to the Dead and the burgeoning San Francisco rock scene in the 60's, from a different perspective, but it goes so much farther than that. I can't recommend it highly enough.

All great must read books. I would also mention:

Bear - Owsley Stanley's biography and;

You Can't Always Get What You Want - Sam Cutler's book. Cutler was the tour manager for the Stones seminal 1969 tour. The book is kind of three parts: its about the Stones tour, how the Altamont fiasco happened, then about him going to work for the Dead afterwards. The Stones left Cutler high and dry facing the consequences of Altamont not the least of which was an extremely pissed off Hells Angels MC. Garcia sort of adopted him and he worked for the Dead for the next four or five years. Tons of insight how the two bands came together for Altamont and then Cutler stepping in to help the Dead regroup in the aftermath and become a touring machine....at that point they were basically bankrupt, facing ruin, and taking loads of shite for their role in Altamont. Cutler organized events like Watkins Glenn, the Festival Express, and put together the Europe 72 tour which is a big part of the book. Great insight into both bands. He also talks about the early London pyschedelic scene and his work with bands like Pink Floyd

Joel Selvin's "Altamont" is the best book written about the subject and should be on your list.

the major books have already been mentioned.
i'll offer "heads" by jesse jarnow, not specifically about the dead but very dead-centric.

quote:

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All I'd really want to read from him is a cookbook. ;)

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You could read the cookbook but there was only one master chef

+1 for Searching for the Sound

Great book