Grateful Dead

In January the band gathers at Bob Weir's home studio and begins to make new, unplanned music. Over the next couple of months, songs begin to evolve and gel. Their private sojourn is broken on March 23rd, when they play for a concert to benefit students at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. In a classic Dead moment, they offer 50,000 people (and a live radio audience) 45 minutes of atonal weirdness called 'Blues for Allah.' After about four months of creative exploration, the Dead's record company descends on them and demands they make a record ' like next week.

In March, the band writes Dead Heads that their vacation is 'too exhausting' to continue, and they announce plans to resume touring. By May, the soap opera that is the G.D. Record Company hits fever pitch. Phil Lesh and Bear are mixing a live album from the October 1974 Winterland shows ' the tapes are substandard, although the head of G.D.R.C. denies it ' and Mickey Hart and Hell's Angels buddies have taken over a studio so he can finish mixing his percussion album Diga. The record company head cashes a very large check and departs for points elsewhere, and the record company soon folds.

The band goes into a Los Angeles studio in January to record an album that will be called Terrapin Station. The material is exceptional, especially Weir's 'Estimated Prophet' and the 'Terrapin' suite, but they are working with a producer for the first time since 1968, and he overdubs it with strings and a choir, which leaves the band ' and Dead Heads ' less than entirely satisfied when the album is released on July 27th. On June 1st, 'The Grateful Dead Movie' debuts in New York City.

After tours of the California Central Valley and then the east coast, the band begins work on a new album, Shakedown Street, with a new producer, Little Feat?s Lowell George. Their summer tour includes a number of huge stadiums, such as New Jersey?s Giants Stadium, which is where they announce on September 3rd the grandest Dead caper of them all - they?re about to play three nights (September 14-16) at the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Gizeh, Egypt. It?s truly a grand adventure, but it comes with a catch.

The grind of continuous touring wears on them all, but especially Keith and Donna Godchaux. In February, the band meets and all agree that it's time to part. Garcia's heard Bob Weir's solo band keyboard player, Brent Mydland, and suggests he audition; his first show is on April 22. Mickey Hart has gotten involved with recording a percussion soundtrack for the cinematic masterpiece Apocalypse Now.

The band opens the new year with recording sessions leading to an album they'd call Go to Heaven, out April 28th. Not only would they break tradition and put their picture on the cover, but they'd do so wearing white disco suits. On June 7th, in Boulder, Colorado, the band ' actually, it was more the audience ' celebrated the Dead's 15th anniversary, the date being the occasion of Phil Lesh moving to Palo Alto to join the band. Articles note that the band is more popular than ever, and that the audience seems to be getting younger.

A March jaunt to Europe features a show on March 28th with The Who in Germany and presages another visit to Europe later in the year. After a normal run of spring and summer tours in the U.S., they head back to the old country in October, and after a show in southern France is cancelled, the band spontaneously rolls into a tiny club in Amsterdam called the Melk Weg (Milky Way) where they play on borrowed instruments.

The band initiates a tradition of doing an annual set of benefit shows with a two-night run at the Warfield Theatre in February. In April, Garcia performs, for the first time in his life, a solo show. Always a collaborative musician, he doesn't enjoy it. In July, the band plays at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, near Denver. In nearby Boulder, the Naropa Institute, funded in part by the Dead, puts on a 25th anniversary conference celebrating the publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The band plays 'On the Road Again,' of course.

Much as in 1973, the structure around the band begins to expand. In January, management establishes the Grateful Dead Ticket office, so that fans can buy directly rather than waiting in line at ticket outlet offices. In February, the second annual run of benefit concerts leads to what will be formally organized the next year as the Rex Foundation. Eventually, it'll give away 7 million dollars to good causes. In May the band debuts 'Hell In a Bucket,' one of a group of new songs, but even though they've not recorded a studio album in three years, they have no plans to do so. 'St.

The band goes into Berkeley's Fantasy Studios in February to record, but nothing much comes of it. Contrarily, the band's concert sound is at a peak. Speakers made by John Meyer's Meyer Sound Labs are run by Ultra Sound, which is owned by two ex-Hot Tuna roadies, Don Pearson and Howard Danchik. It has become an essential part of the Dead's musical evolution. Directed by Dan Healy, the tradition of the Wall endures, on a less-is-more basis.