and in 2016, John Mayer and three additional musicians joined Dead & Company along with original band members, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart. In 2015, surviving members of the Dead planned a 50th-anniversary tour, called the Fare Thee Well Tour.
The band disbanded, but despite this, the Deadheads showed a desire to remain connected through online forums and bands such as Phish and Rusted Root that also attracted Deadheads. And with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, many of them felt adrift. This unique group of followers, the Deadheads, shared some of the values of the 1960s counterculture, which was in the process of fading in the 1970s, just as the Dead were gaining popularity.įor some Deadheads, the shows provided a sense of community, a sort of home. While they didn’t produce top 10 hits, they did have a group of followers who were so devoted that they followed the band from city to city. Several of their albums were certified gold and platinum, but the only single that hit the top 10, “Touch of Grey,” was from their 1987 album In The Dark. The Dead released their eponymous debut album in 1967. The group had its genesis in the ‘60s, arose in the Haight-Ashbury, the area that also gave rise to the hippies. But, to paraphrase another departed Dead lyricist, John Perry Barlow (died 2018), the music has almost never stopped. Lyricist Robert Hunter, who was responsible for the words of most of the Dead's biggest songs and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a non-playing band member, died in 2019. The list of departed Dead includes co-founder and organist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (died in 1972), keyboardist Keith Godchaux (1979), and keyboardist Brent Mydland (1990). Garcia isn't the only member of the Grateful Dead who's left this mortal plane. Thanks to a nearly religious fan following and the perseverance of surviving members including Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, incarnations and spinoffs of the Dead have kept the music playing even after the death of leader Jerry Garcia in 1995. The Grateful Dead has been a cultural force for over 50 years - even though no group by that name currently exists.