The Grateful Dead’s Impact on American Society - the 20Th Century
Analyze how the Grateful Dead influenced American History in terms of the Counterculture movement, musical innovations, and the Deadhead Culture from 1965 to modern day. How was the Grateful Dead a response and influencer to the social and political events of the 1960’s in the United States? Subject: HistoryWord Count: Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Grateful Dead is a rock band that many historians consider essential to the sociological and historical narrative of the 1960’s in the United States, and their reign as a rock band expands beyond time time as well. It is very difficult to define this band as it has such an eclectic style of music, and its creation of original songs spans three decades (1965-1995). To begin discussing the band, its origin needs to be considered.
According to, Rock Scully, tour manager for the band for twenty years, wrote a book with the title Living With the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead, and it his first chapter, he talks about the band’s origins in Palo Alto California. There, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, had been allowing for people to come and experiment with acid. Jerry Garcia and the members of the band called The Warlocks, at the time, were invited to play. When Scully saw them for the first time, it was at Kesey’s acid test in Fillmore Stadium. Garcia, who many claim to be the leader of band, explains in an interview on Blank on Blank with on Joe Smith on PBS many years later, that, “But that was probably the most important six months in terms of directionality. Because the neat thing about the acid tests was we could play if we wanted to” (Garcia). The band grew from there, and an accurate description by Scully, when describing his first impression of the band is, “No matter how I squint my mind’s eye, they are simply a collection of oddities who refuse to fit in the same frame…[later on on the same page] While earlier it had bothered me.
Why in the world would anyone want a band that looked like something that already existed?” (Scully 19). Scully describes the band at their initial stage, yet it still stands today as a proper definition for the band. They are also considered by historians to be a major representation of the Counterculture movement in the United States during the 1960’s, which began in San Francisco, in response to the Vietnam War and an attempt to move away from the societal ideals of the 1950’s. Counterculture’s definition according to Merriam Webster is defined as “a culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society”. While the Grateful Dead was very influential in the Counterculture movement, as it will be explored further in the body paragraphs, they also had a major impact on musical and technological innovations. Mickey Hart, the drummer for the band, discusses in The Long Strange Trip video series by Amazon Video the concepts of rhythm from a non-western point of view, and many say that the Grateful Dead popularized the jam session, forming their own eclectic sense of music.
Not only this, but other sources explore the impact that the band had on technology, writing articles in the modern day about how the Deadhead Culture led to inventions such as Groupme, as well as inventions made by the band itself. The Counterculture movement has a concrete time period from which historians can study and continue to discuss. However, many will argue, especially fans of the band, that a culture born from the Counterculture movement will be immortalized, that of the Deadhead Culture, which continues to expand and grow, gaining new members each year, unlike the Counterculture movement. By looking at the history of the band and the stories of fans, the significance and impact this culture has had on American history and music history will be explored. In this essay, the Grateful Dead and its impact on history will be analyzed through a historical and sociological approach. Johannes Riedel in “Sociology of Music” explains in regards to studying music through a sociological and historical lens that, “We begin with composers of the past in the light of their own time, their own social environment, their own social motivations” (Riedel, 39).
Thesis: This essay explores the concept that the Grateful Dead played a significant role in the counterculture movement, led to musical and technical innovations that were revolutionary for its time, and allowed for a culture, the Deadheads, that have and will live long beyond the time frame in which the band created music, as will be seen through an analysis of various sources and historians’ and sociologists’ perspectives on the various topics listed above. Body: Historians also choose to call the generation that came of age during the 1950’s to be called The Silent Generation. This silent generation was a result of the World War II era, in which a lot of fear and disaster was a part of every day, so people were unwilling to stand out as much on issues. Not only this, but the Red Scare was in full effect, and speaking out against democratic ideals would lead to being blacklisted, which happened to many celebrities and government officials. People wanted to fight for free expression and there was a utilization of free speech in an attempt to protest the Vietnam War. Many young people believed for it to be a useless war, and due to the influence of the television, could be less conditioned to believe propaganda. Tim O’Brien, the winner of the National Book Award for The Things They Carried, explains his opinion, as a 21 year old after learning he would be drafted into the Vietnam War: “I was drafted into a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old, Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (O’Brien 38). O’Brien is writing about his own viewpoints on the war in 1968, when he was young and a part of the generation succeeding the Silent. His perspective is valuable on this, as it allows for people to see exactly what some soldiers saw the war as, and lends a perspective to the Counterculture movement and the political protests, such as that of Kent State, and of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDC). Michael Bensen, author of Why the Grateful Dead Matter, explains that, “America came out of World War II [WWII] as a militaristic animal intoxicated by its own might, its ability to push enemies around, to purge the world of evil. But the following generation, the kids coming of age in the 1960’s saw nulutary solutions in a different light. The war in Vietnam had no real purpose;” (Benson 2). While Benson is not a sociologist with the education that others historians who will be discussed have, he is an important resource as a lifelong deadhead and primary source due to his own experiences with the band and during the time when the US Counterculture was alive. He explains well how the teenagers and young adults were experiencing the world around them at the time, and sheds a specific light on how different The Silent Generation is from that of the Counterculture.
Nadya Zimmerman, author of Counterculture Kaleidoscope: Music and Cultural Perspectives on Late Sixties San Francisco explains that the Counterculture was less about oppositional forces, and more about unity. She writes a chapter specifically on the Grateful Dead, but in her first chapter, helps explain her own perspective on the Counterculture movement, which aligns with Benson’s idea that “The musicians were more piratical than political. They never turned a show into an antiwar demonstration. Although they were against all violence, their vision of show biz didn’t involve causes” (Bensen 2). Zimmerman believes that the Counterculture movement aligns more with the Grateful Dead’s ideal, stating that, “Large portions of the ‘counterculture were far from being an organized socio political community” (Zimmerman 3). In order to discuss the Counterculture in regards to the band, it is important to identify historians’ perspectives on what it was. Some claim that it is more of an activist movement, while others believe that it is nothing beyond people coming together to share ideals and be against mainstream society. Others choose to utilize the Counterculture movement as an example of political radicalism, and warn against radical socio political protests, such as that of Kent State University, the Stonewall riots, and even Selma, all of which allowed for change. As Benson explains, the Grateful Dead weren’t advocators for change, but many consider them to be facilitators of it. Body Paragraph Two: Technological and Musical Innovations After taking a look at the sociological impact of the Grateful Dead in terms of the Counterculture, another aspect of the band to consider is that of what the band actually did in order to define themselves as a band: played music.
The band is eclectic, as was stated previously, and even since its founding had no true sense of direction. To begin this discussion about innovation, one should start with the musical. One very important aspect of the band is the “jam session”. While this appears at a first glance to be a very vague term, every fan knows it to be one of the few concrete terms in its definition. Other terms, as explained in a short interview with a Deadhead who travels the country with his wife and children, are “harmony and love”. This ties back into the sense of the counterculture, in which many people would call themselves “Hippies”, and a few of the clear principles of the Hippie and as will be later discussed, The Deadhead Culture, believe this to be a core value. Scully explains in the chapter from his book that, “But these are not covers in the usual sense of the word…. the Wicked Pickett’s two-minute 40-second Stac Volt blast, is stretched out for a quarter of an hour or more before modulating into ‘Early Morning Rain’” (Scully 14). Even from the very beginning, as Scully shows, the Grateful Dead were not playing in terms of the “traditional,” and they were forming covers in a different way than someone who, as a grad school dropout and promoter had never experienced before. Many other historians and musicians have commented on this, choosing to explain that “there had never been anything like this before” and even band members explained that as well, in the interviews completed on Long Strange Trip directed by Amir Bar-Lev, in which Jerry and other members explained that they didn’t know entirely what they were doing, and were exploring constantly. Body Paragraph Three: Deadhead Culture As the transition begins from the talk of innovations back into the topic of culture, it is important to talk about another aspect that historians claim makes the band even more unique, if not the reason that they are so unique to begin with.
People believe that the Deadhead culture is more than that of the Counterculture movement, which of course, after looking at sociologists and their perspective on the counterculture movement, it becomes increasingly evident that this is the case. One main component of the Grateful Dead’s fanbase is that it has lasted, something which cannot always be said for radical movements, as when the need for them dies out, so do they. When the Vietnam War ended, and Nixon pulled the troops out, there was no longer a need for the antiwar movements that defined the 60’s and 70’s as much as the Vietnam War itself. Yet, the Grateful Dead’s fanbase seemed to be “Built to Last”, as an original song of theirs released in 1989 on the album with the same namesake suggests. Even the fact that beyond the 1970’s and the termination of the Counterculture Movement, the band was successful enough to continue to publish music ten years later, signifies the immortality of every song, and especially the band. The people who banded together as a result of the music live on today.
The revitalization of the music with the new lead singer John Mayer, with a new name Dead and Company, has brought thousands of people a year to stadium after stadium since 2015, after the Fare Thee Well Tour, the 50th anniversary of the band’s genesis, ended. While certain band members, such as Phil Lesh, have decided not to participate in the band, staples to the vision of the music such as Mickey Hart and Bob Weir continue to play each season. To this day, people are still hoping to get a sense of what people felt as a result of the revolutionary music in 1965. Fifty three years later, (over half a century), people are still dedicated to the band, and enjoy listening to new versions of the songs.
