There comes a time in a music lover’s life when one must ask oneself a most fateful question: the Grateful Dead… do I or don’t I? My fellows promised me that one day it would all come down to this, that as an informed listener, I would inevitably find it necessary to fully explore the beast of a back catalog and wayfaring, wooly live archive of the Grateful Dead. “Erm… o… kay,” I’d say skeptically, “and then what?” “Well,” they’d say, “you will then have to concede to the band’s almighty power.” I don’t think so!

As a San Franciscan with more angry punk than twirly dance hippie in me, I figured it was not only my birthright, but also my moral obligation, to hate the Dead. For my entire natural life, resisting their supposed lure posed no problem for me, even though from the day I was born the very air I breathed was filled with their jams. I made damn sure that very little could penetrate the stony psychic wall I’d erected to protect myself from hearing them or from consorting with their kind, those dirty followers of theirs known as Deadheads. Yep, them. They who would seasonally perch themselves on my doorstep adjacent the Panhandle and regularly taunt me with the question, “Have you seen Jerry?” “No, I haven’t, you freak!” I’d say, emphasizing the word “freak” while glaring at them as I stomped off to work (you know, work, as in job). At the time, I didn’t fully understand going to see the Grateful Dead, night after night, was their job. As it happened, my job was working as a receptionist for the concert promoter in town, where throughout the day I would receive people with names like “Mountain Girl” and “Bear” with suspicion, a sneer, and an asymmetrical haircut. Like I said, I was surrounded.

But as these stories go, the vociferous hatred—verging on phobia—often masks a shadowy side (or at least a very large, Dead-logo-like skeleton in the closet). And so, I live to report that I’ve had a shift in consciousness, having made the proverbial long strange trip from Dead hater to doubter to full-on believer, but with a few caveats: I’m still not sold on Bob Weir, I don’t own anything tie-dyed, and those dancing bears make my skin crawl. Ironically (or not), it took me leaving the Bay Area to discover just how much I missed the omnipresent and unmistakable sound of Jerry in the air (the local FM doesn’t really program them in the California Southland). And yet, I find I’m still a little nervous to admit to my new friends that I find much to admire about the good ol’ Grateful Dead for fear that even the freest thinking ones will stereotype me as some SF hippie chick. As I get adjusted to this new me, I thought I’d go in search of stories from other latecomers, reluctant converts, certified Heads, and the Dead’s fellow musicians to see just what they had to say about the timeless and mystical push/pull of the ultimate jam band, and its impact on their lives.

Among the Grateful Dead’s musician fans are artists diverse as the band’s three-decade spanning repertoire itself. Sure you say, it’s easy to hear the Dead’s influence on Phish and some of those other jam bands, but less detectable may be the way the GD holds sway over Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo. The guitarist has gone on record as pro-Dead enough times that he may as well be given full-blown Head status. The Youth’s punk forebear Patti Smith (a fan of lyricist Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia’s performances) has also sung the band’s praises. You might even call the Dead a secret influence on Elvis Costello, although his alliance with the Dead isn’t all that secret (he was a fan from way back, once jammed with Jerry and posed on the cover of Musician magazine with him, and recently offered up Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, Europe ‘72 and Wake of the Flood on a list of essential recordings). And then there’s Black Flag’s Greg Ginn (known to fly the flag in a Dead t-shirt onstage at the height of the hardcore era), and R.E.M.’s guitarist Peter Buck (who in college days could pick a Jerry lead or two). In more recent years, singer-songwriters like Ryan Adams have come out swingin’ in full favor of the band. Adams went as far as to share stages with Dead bassist Phil Lesh. And freak-folkers Akron/Family’s Seth Olinsky and Fern Knight’s Jim Ayre are both completely unrepentant Dead fans.

“In sixth grade we had to write a letter to a famous person as an English project,” says Olinsky. “Most kids wrote to Michael Jordan, I wrote to Jerry Garcia. And he returned an autographed picture of himself that hangs right now on my studio wall.”

“It’s a dirty secret for those who have yet to come to grips with their unreconstructed inner hippie, but one I’ve never had a problem with,” says Ayre. “The Grateful Dead’s music was foundational for me… and changed my relationship with commerce, community, and culture. I make no apologies.” Early exposure may be the common denominator for the pair’s tight relationships to the band.

The night Elvis Costello sat in with Jerry Garcia in 1989 at the postage stamp-sized Sweetwater in Mill Valley, California, I held my ears closed, hoping for the jam to end. I demonstrated a similar gesture when, as a teenager, I perceived myself to experience the misfortune of seeing the Dead open for my beloved Who. Perhaps I believed that, if I could keep the drippy, trippy sound out of my ear sockets, I wouldn’t be moved by it, as if some part of me recognized that if I let it in, I just might have to let go of all my preconceptions. And if I did that? Well, two things: 1. who would I be without my enmity for them and, 2. if I became a Head, what chance would I ever have of becoming a productive member of society? I don’t do things halfway and so, for me, liking the Dead would be like running off and joining a carnival (and once you’re in, it’s kind of hard to get out). Today I’m relieved to find out that monster resistance to the Dead is not a syndrome from which I alone suffer and that the either/or, black or white, love and hate approach to the band is quite common, especially among those who once identified with punk music and its grrrrr culture.

Jon Houlon, a Philadelphia-based musician and leader of the roots band John Train is a recent changeling who’s experiencing a bit of difficulty with his metamorphosis.

“It’s a truly frightening conversion,” he says, “I’ve listened to nothing but the Grateful Dead for the past few months. I’ve checked out a bunch of books from the library, even those goofy tomes that spell out every single set list, from Phil Lesh’s high school trumpet recital to the Dead’s last show in Chicago. I’ve got my wife sworn to secrecy. I’ve got a handful of friends who will honestly feel betrayed by my conversion. I should’ve never picked up that copy of American Beauty. It was calling to me or something.”

Of course, for every reticent late-coming fan and all the dyed-in-the-wool ones, there are those who might best be classified as ambivalent, or non-committal with a slight bias. Jonathan Segel of rock solid punk roots/alternative band Camper Van Beethoven (often compared to the Dead for their extreme knowledge of indigenous world music, played a bit bent) is one such “fan.” Segel’s ambivalence didn’t prevent him from playing in a pre-Camper band with a bunch of Deadheads, nor did it stop him from turning on a high school friend only to watch him become a Head, lose touch, and years later find him living in Humboldt County. “I never forgave myself,” he says (the friends have recently reunited). He te
lls a story of when he “accidentally” ended up at a Dead gig during their historic two-week run at the Warfield in San Francisco in 1980.