Grateful Dead

1970's intense. T.C. leaves the band in late January. The band's 'busted down on Bourbon Street' on January 31st. In March they discover their manager, Mickey Hart's father Lenny, has been stealing them blind (they're already hugely in debt to the record company). Only the music is sane; they enter the studio in March and in three weeks record Workingman's Dead, fulfilling Garcia and Hunter's work of the past year. It comes out in June. They add a regular opening act, the New Riders of the Purple Sage (Garcia plays pedal steel in it), and their shows stretch ever longer. Late that month they cross Canada on the Festival Express. In September they have some spare time, and go back into the studio, producing another gem, American Beauty. In the fall they begin a long series of college concerts that will establish them (along with the two albums) in a long-term way as a touring band.