Speaker 1: As success spoiled the Dead. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I was noticing the other night, for instance, that
Speaker 2: when I'm going through pistachios opening pistachios.
Speaker 1: That the hard to open ones.
Speaker 2: I don't bother with them anymore. Who's got time?
Speaker 1: Good point. We're totally bumming rock and roll. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll leave you.
Speaker 2: You're reading Little Hands this, It's time to rock and roll.
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to book Don Rock conversations
Speaker 2: with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind classic
Speaker 2: rock's greatest songs, albums and artists. And before we get started,
Speaker 2: if you're watching this episode, you're seeing this lovely grateful
Speaker 2: Dead shirt that I'm wearing here, and I picked it
Speaker 2: up at old Glory dot com. If you want to
Speaker 2: get some great classic rock merch there for fifteen percent off.
Speaker 2: Find something you like and use the promo code Booked
Speaker 2: on Rock and you'll get fifteen percent off. Just click
Speaker 2: the link in the show notes or visit booked on
Speaker 2: Rock dot com and head to my deals. We are
Speaker 2: going to talk about a song. Now, this shirt is
Speaker 2: about Ship of Fools, but we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: a different song. We're going to talk about touch of Gray.
Speaker 2: Our guest is John Brackett. He's the author of Touch
Speaker 2: of Gray or How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast, John.
Speaker 1: Thank you so very much. It's great to be here. Eric.
Speaker 2: This is a question I love asking Dead fans because
Speaker 2: the answer often depends on when they became a fan.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first time you heard Touch of
Speaker 2: Gray and what was your initial response to it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I remember the very first time, although
Speaker 1: I'm very aware of when the video took over and
Speaker 1: when I would see that on MTV and all of
Speaker 1: the related video programs at the time. At the time,
Speaker 1: I thought it was just another old rock band trying
Speaker 1: to make a quick buck by coming back. You know,
Speaker 1: I was kind of part of this jaded Gen X
Speaker 1: generation that was listening to kind of alternative rock and
Speaker 1: things of that nature, and familiar with the Dead, you know.
Speaker 1: I'd heard the tunes on classic rock radio, but you know,
Speaker 1: throughout much of the eighties you didn't really hear about
Speaker 1: them if you weren't you know, a dead head, if
Speaker 1: you didn't really follow them, and so it seemed like, oh,
Speaker 1: here comes another band, you know that's trying to kind
Speaker 1: of cash in at the time, so wasn't really ahead,
Speaker 1: you know, until much later. So going back and looking
Speaker 1: at this time and kind of reevaluating, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of how this song kind of gets interpreted. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it kind of really informed, you know, the
Speaker 1: book and kind of why I wrote the book.
Speaker 2: And it is interesting when you ask each dead fan
Speaker 2: when they first heard the song and how long they
Speaker 2: were a fan, because that will change used the response.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a divisive song for somebody like me.
Speaker 2: It's the first song that I really took to as
Speaker 2: a kid. It was fifteen, and then years later I
Speaker 2: got into the rest of the catalog, but I got
Speaker 2: to admit it's it's a great song. It just it
Speaker 2: pulled me in, like so many.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and you were one of you know,
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people who got on the bus,
Speaker 1: you know, at that time. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: one of the points in the book is like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's about this time, and it's about that moment in
Speaker 1: the summer of eighty seven, but it's much much larger
Speaker 1: than that. I mean, this song really kind of transformed
Speaker 1: the prevailing historical trajectory of the band, and in some
Speaker 1: ways helped to kind of lay the foundation for you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what we see today. I mean, this band is,
Speaker 1: you know, bigger than ever. And you know a point
Speaker 1: of the book is that, Yeah, this was the moment,
Speaker 1: This was the moment that has shifted and you know,
Speaker 1: to get to this spot now.
Speaker 2: After you read your account of the December fifteen, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six performance, I watched it and I get goosebumps
Speaker 2: hearing that crowd erupped when Jerry sings I will get by,
Speaker 2: I Will survive. Take us back to that night and
Speaker 2: explain why that particular performance was so powerful following Jerry's
Speaker 2: health crisis and in light of what was about to
Speaker 2: happen with the song, because it hadn't been released yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, precisely. I mean, Touch of Gray had been in
Speaker 1: the Dead's repertoire since nineteen eighty two, and this was
Speaker 1: a song that was familiar to fans. As you pointed out,
Speaker 1: it had not appeared on any recordings yet, any official recordings.
Speaker 1: I mean, the band hadn't released any recordings since nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one. The live records Dead Set and Reckoning then
Speaker 1: released a studio album since since go to Heaven in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty and so fans were familiar with the song.
Speaker 1: It was a popular tune. It was, you know, many ways,
Speaker 1: kind of one of the fastest songs in the Dead's
Speaker 1: live repertoire throughout much of the eighties. But nothing really
Speaker 1: stood out about it, you know, it was, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, fans enjoyed it and it was a
Speaker 1: good time, but nothing really stood out. Jerry got sick
Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen eighty six and was very,
Speaker 1: very ill, and it was very touch and go for
Speaker 1: a while, and fans, the band, the entire Grateful Dead organization,
Speaker 1: you know, had to well, the band and the fans organization.
Speaker 1: They were concerned. They didn't really you know, we're quite
Speaker 1: sure what was going to happen. The band had been
Speaker 1: living by making money from touring, and when Jerry got sick,
Speaker 1: that money stopped, so they weren't quite sure of what
Speaker 1: the future of the organization would be. And when it
Speaker 1: was finally announced that the band would be returning to
Speaker 1: playing live again in December of nineteen eighty six, obviously
Speaker 1: fans were elated. And then, you know, when the band
Speaker 1: took the stage and the very first song that they
Speaker 1: played was touch of Gray. You know, as you heard,
Speaker 1: I mean, the crowd lost it, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: as I described in the book, you know, the response.
Speaker 1: There were a number of reasons for the response. I mean,
Speaker 1: just the pure joy of seeing the band again, you know,
Speaker 1: in light of everything that happened in the previous you know,
Speaker 1: few months, but also the fact they kind of knew
Speaker 1: what to expect in the song. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is that they knew that Jerry was going
Speaker 1: to sing I Will Survive and they were just waiting
Speaker 1: for that moment. You can hear it on the recordings.
Speaker 1: Every time the chorus comes up, you know, the response
Speaker 1: gets more and more, you know, raucous for.
Speaker 2: Those who may not be aware. So he was in
Speaker 2: a diabetic coma. He almost he almost died.
Speaker 1: Yes, his heart stopped when he was in the hospital too.
Speaker 1: He had been given vallum he was allergic to that. So, yes,
Speaker 1: he was in a diabetic coma. It was on dialysis.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was in very very bad shape, probably
Speaker 1: much worse than we kind of know. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: to see him back on stage, you know, six months later,
Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty remarkable. Well, I mean, he'd
Speaker 1: actually played in October. He'd played earlier with the Jerry
Speaker 1: Garcia Band. So remarkable recovery. But the band also had
Speaker 1: to get back on the road. They had to start
Speaker 1: making money again. And when they're hearing the song, right,
Speaker 1: I will survive, the fans are responding to that. But
Speaker 1: the fans, you know, they also knew at the very
Speaker 1: end of the tune, you know, the lyrics shift and
Speaker 1: they shift that we will survive. And you know, fans
Speaker 1: had been responding to that shift since nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: I think they've always kind of recognized maybe themselves in
Speaker 1: that we element. And December of nineteen eighty six, that
Speaker 1: was the moment where it just kind of blows up.
Speaker 1: You can just hear the response from the audience at
Speaker 1: that point. You know, the idea that the Dead were back,
Speaker 1: the dead Head community was still intact. You know, this
Speaker 1: was you know, a really joyous moment for the fans,
Speaker 1: but it was fraud because the band knew that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they had to do something, you know, and the decision
Speaker 1: then was all right, you know, we have to make
Speaker 1: a record, you know, and perhaps even make a record
Speaker 1: that's actually going to sell a few copies and make
Speaker 1: us some money. You know, given the situation that we
Speaker 1: are presently in.
Speaker 2: What I noticed in that video is Jerry's body language
Speaker 2: when he says I will survive, like he knows, he
Speaker 2: puts a little emphasis on that, you know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: And he's not one to do that, so he's not looking.
Speaker 2: He's not a performative type of person on stage, you know.
Speaker 2: He but even he couldn't help. But you know, he
Speaker 2: couldn't hold back that emotion there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so few INSS of any sort
Speaker 1: of interaction right between Jerry and the audience, and I
Speaker 1: mean this, this would be one of those moments that
Speaker 1: you would expect it and yeah, and it's slight, it's there,
Speaker 1: you know, but then it's just to move on, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's a very dead thing to do.
Speaker 2: In fact, I would love to know prior to them
Speaker 2: going on stage if Jerry was uncomfortable doing that, because
Speaker 2: he never liked to make it about him, but there
Speaker 2: was you could not you could not not play that song,
Speaker 2: you know, to open that show.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the story of Touch a Grade begins with
Speaker 2: Robert Hunter, years before The Dead performed or recorded it.
Speaker 2: His nineteen eighty notebook contains dozens of possible verses, and
Speaker 2: he continued changing the lyrics in concert when he performed it.
Speaker 2: What do those discarded lyrics reveal about his original conception
Speaker 2: of the song.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean he you know, listening to the
Speaker 1: early performances of the tune and looking at the lyrics
Speaker 1: and how they were changed. I mean, he treats it
Speaker 1: very much almost you know, like a folk troubadour singer,
Speaker 1: would you know, I mean I describe in the book.
Speaker 1: I mean when he would perform it be acoustic guitar
Speaker 1: with the harmonica around his neck. I mean, very Dylan esque.
Speaker 1: The tune itself has sections, but he treated it very fluidly.
Speaker 1: You know. He would kind of go verse choruses bridge
Speaker 1: as you know, I switch lyrics here and there. It
Speaker 1: was very much an open kind of a form. You
Speaker 1: would see changes to the lyrics throughout kind of the
Speaker 1: between nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty two. But in terms
Speaker 1: of kind of the overall shape of the song, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to kind of follow it from Hunter's perspective
Speaker 1: because it's it always seemed to be kind of a
Speaker 1: work in progress, you know, and maybe you know, there
Speaker 1: was no kind of kind of final idea what it
Speaker 1: would become, you know, and that definitely changed once the
Speaker 1: dead got their hands on it in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: Right the early version, the narrator sounds misanthropic, curmudgeonly responding
Speaker 2: to social decline, absurdity of what's going on around him,
Speaker 2: but he's responding with it's all right. Do you hear
Speaker 2: that phrases genuine reassurance, weary resignation, dark humor, or maybe
Speaker 2: some combination of all three, because Robert Hunter had that
Speaker 2: kind of personality precisely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all three. It's any interpretation you want to
Speaker 1: bring to it. I mean, yes, there is that kind
Speaker 1: of resigned, you know, sense of all right, Well, that's
Speaker 1: just how it is. You know, there's an ironic sense
Speaker 1: to it. There are all those senses to it, and
Speaker 1: even with when the dead take it over, it's still there.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny that the narrator of that song,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to pin down, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of what's happening, you know, why the reactions this way,
Speaker 1: But ultimately it doesn't matter, because you're right, it's all right.
Speaker 1: It just kind of returns to that. And I think
Speaker 1: that is also a very kind of dead lyric too,
Speaker 1: you know, standing in the face of any type of
Speaker 1: adversity or anything that's going on, or any absurdity, It's
Speaker 1: all right, you know, let the situation is in charge,
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 2: And going back to the we will survive part at
Speaker 2: the end, Hunter initially saying we can get on by,
Speaker 2: but Garcia changed it to the more personal I will
Speaker 2: get by before the song returned to we will survive
Speaker 2: at the end. How important was that movement from the
Speaker 2: individual to the collective in creating the song's emotional impact.
Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly important. I mean, it's the debut
Speaker 1: performance of Hunter doing it in nineteen eighty. You can
Speaker 1: listen to the live recording on Internet at archive, and
Speaker 1: you know, when he says we you hear a response
Speaker 1: from the audio, you know right away. You know there's
Speaker 1: a sense of you know, wanting to be involved, you know,
Speaker 1: And this is always something I think very much part
Speaker 1: of the Dead culture. Dead fans always kind of sensing
Speaker 1: this relationship, you know, imagining this kind of communal relationship
Speaker 1: to it. When the Dead took it over, I think
Speaker 1: they understood definitely the rhetorical impact of what that meant
Speaker 1: to the song and to the fans. You know, so
Speaker 1: I kind of trace, you know, how that section gets shifted.
Speaker 1: You know that we can get by, get on by.
Speaker 1: You know, Hunter would always kind of vary those texts
Speaker 1: a little bit, but you're right, as soon as it
Speaker 1: got with the band, I Will Survive, We Will Survive,
Speaker 1: you know, became a very kind of established form. But
Speaker 1: what I think is very interesting is understanding when that
Speaker 1: shift occurs, you know, in the song itself, because said
Speaker 1: it had been occurring earlier in performances, and it kind
Speaker 1: of took away from the dramatic impact of when that
Speaker 1: kind of really hits with the audience. And so by
Speaker 1: the end of nineteen eighty two, as the band continued
Speaker 1: to kind of mold it on the road, that's when
Speaker 1: they decided to wait for the We Will Survive to
Speaker 1: put it at the very end of the tune. So
Speaker 1: instead of just one more chorus, it now becomes a coda.
Speaker 1: It becomes this triumphant coda where you know, you can
Speaker 1: feel the expectation and the drive kind of building towards it,
Speaker 1: which is a much more dramatic musical, rhetorical effect than
Speaker 1: what was happening before, you know, when the shift took
Speaker 1: place earlier in the song and I.
Speaker 2: Love you could hear Jerry really hit the chords hard.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, definitely, you know, and it's interesting, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: hear it and he's hitting it hard. It's you know,
Speaker 1: you listen to some of these early performances, it's because
Speaker 1: they're still like figuring out the tune, you know, because
Speaker 1: the is continuing to change each night, you know, night
Speaker 1: to night it might change, and so I just imagine
Speaker 1: what it must have been like on stage, you know,
Speaker 1: being a musician and having performed you know, doing live improv.
Speaker 1: You know, not sure quite you know where this is
Speaker 1: going to happen. You know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of uncertainty in some of those early performances. You know,
Speaker 1: it's fun to listen to those, really.
Speaker 2: Is Yeah, that that extra you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: when he's hitting those cordially hard, it's like defiance or
Speaker 2: it's it's just something there's something in there that it
Speaker 2: was coming out of Jerrea at that moment. You could
Speaker 2: feel it. And they debuted it on September fifteen, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, Capital Center in Maryland, performed it for nearly
Speaker 2: five years before recording it. How did the song evolve
Speaker 2: during that period? How different was the first performance from
Speaker 2: the eventual studio version, not just lyrically, but the pace
Speaker 2: of it, Right, it's a little faster in their early only.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, what's interesting if you listen to some of
Speaker 1: the earliest recordings, and one of them was from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, there is a studio kind of recording. It's
Speaker 1: one of the earliest recordings of the tune, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot of the shape is there, most of
Speaker 1: the melody and the chords and stuff there. The form
Speaker 1: is there, you know, for from what we've become familiar
Speaker 1: with it. One of the main things that's very different
Speaker 1: about it is the song is has a halftime feel
Speaker 1: instead of you know, that strong snare drum on two
Speaker 1: and four, and it's more of this reggae feel that
Speaker 1: d d d dam dum dum, you know. So it
Speaker 1: has this kind of slower groove to it that kind
Speaker 1: of fits in with some of their more contemporary tunes
Speaker 1: that also kind of had, you know, this reggae type
Speaker 1: of feel, you know, Roe Jimmy and tunes like that, Right,
Speaker 1: But they got rid of that, you know, within a
Speaker 1: few months. Within a few months, they start playing it
Speaker 1: more with that driving backbeat with the snare drums on
Speaker 1: beats two and four, And once they start incorporating that,
Speaker 1: that's really when the tempo starts to pick up at
Speaker 1: that point, and yeah, it becomes, you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of this barn burner type of song on many occasions.
Speaker 1: But by the end of nineteen eighty two, until you know,
Speaker 1: really the end of their career, the arrangement stayed essentially
Speaker 1: the same, you know, in terms of the forms with
Speaker 1: this section, what comes next, the lyrics, et cetera, and
Speaker 1: all that. The instrumentation, though, is going to change a
Speaker 1: little bit once they go into the recording studio in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven and start kind of experimenting with some
Speaker 1: of the arrangement at that point.
Speaker 2: Was it Phil Lesh that inspired that coda ending because
Speaker 2: he thought that the original ending sounded clumsy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you listen to that early recording, that didn't
Speaker 1: quite no, So you know, how to end it? And
Speaker 1: Jerry's the one who says, yeah, I've got to figure
Speaker 1: out some way to end it. It's an interesting what
Speaker 1: you can hear Lesh saying, and this is on the
Speaker 1: expanded edition of in the Dark that was originally included
Speaker 1: on the Beyond Description box that came out. You can
Speaker 1: hear Phil Lesh at the very end saying that it
Speaker 1: sounds like a song that we can get excited about,
Speaker 1: you know, which is you know, somewhat prophetic, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's very interesting. You listen to the recording and
Speaker 1: it kind of fades out right at that moment, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very kind of dramatic thing. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a song they're working on. They were expanding the
Speaker 1: repertoire at that time. West La Fadeaway was entering the
Speaker 1: repertoire at that time. Keep Your Day Job was another
Speaker 1: one too, So at the time, really it was just
Speaker 1: one of a bunch of tunes that they were, you know,
Speaker 1: adding to the live repertoire beginning in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the recording of it, we mentioned
Speaker 2: Jerry's coleman in nineteen eighty six that forced the Dead
Speaker 2: to cancel their faults at a time when the organization
Speaker 2: depended heavily on concert revenue. The operating expenses around two
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a month. How bad
Speaker 2: was the band's financial state at that point, and why
Speaker 2: did recording a new album become part of this solution.
Speaker 1: There is a breakdown, financial breakdown from July of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, and it kind of shows the you know,
Speaker 1: the overhead, you know that they're paying the two hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five thousand. Then it shows expected income, you know,
Speaker 1: and what they might expect to make from live shows.
Speaker 1: And you would see these financial breakdowns, you know, throughout
Speaker 1: the band's career. But what's interesting about this one is
Speaker 1: that it says, you know, at the very bottom of
Speaker 1: it the details, you know, what happens if Jerry doesn't
Speaker 1: get any better, you know, by the time that they
Speaker 1: can get on the road. And so so there are
Speaker 1: two very different figures, you know, on the sheets, you know,
Speaker 1: just depending upon how things go. And so they very
Speaker 1: much knew that they kind of had to change. You know,
Speaker 1: they'd been living on the road for a long time
Speaker 1: getting money by touring again. It was going to take
Speaker 1: a while, you know, they needed they would it's in
Speaker 1: terms of when they would get paid from these gigs
Speaker 1: and even not knowing when they would get back up
Speaker 1: on the road making a record. However, it's the possibility
Speaker 1: of making some money up front through advances, especially through
Speaker 1: the label, would be one way, finding a way to
Speaker 1: tide themselves over in the meantime until they could return
Speaker 1: to the road and until the record would come out.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, studio albums, you know, within the
Speaker 1: Dead kind of history are always not always, but the
Speaker 1: Dead's always perceived as a live band, sure, right, the
Speaker 1: records we always hear never really were able to capture
Speaker 1: what the Dead were all about. You know, we've heard
Speaker 1: that story. I talk about that a lot in a
Speaker 1: previous book I did on the Dead called Live Dead.
Speaker 1: So the idea of a studio album was interesting because
Speaker 1: most fans would not look upon the studio albums. It's like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is what we're looking for, this is
Speaker 1: what we're anticipating. But we weren't sure if the Dead
Speaker 1: were going to be back on the road again to
Speaker 1: record a live album, studio album was going to be
Speaker 1: the way to do it in the meantime. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: in January of nineteen eighty seven, shortly after those shows
Speaker 1: in Oakland where Jerry returned, the band convened and started
Speaker 1: laying down basic tracks in marine vettes for about two
Speaker 1: two and a half weeks, and then through the spring
Speaker 1: worked on overdubs for the record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they recorded the basic tracks live on stage at
Speaker 2: the Marren Vettman's Memori Laudatorium that setting. Why was that
Speaker 2: so effective in capturing the studio performance?
Speaker 1: John Cutler, the producer for that record, probably recommended that
Speaker 1: this would be a really good way to kind of
Speaker 1: get that type of energy in these recorded performances. And
Speaker 1: they knew the hall very well, and they had recorded
Speaker 1: in the hall and had gotten some really good recordings
Speaker 1: there a couple of years earlier, and so they were,
Speaker 1: you know, based upon the experience of some recordings they
Speaker 1: did in nineteen eighty five, they decided to return there.
Speaker 1: They brought along Gheech, Charbonneau and Lmobile, one of the
Speaker 1: kind of premiere mobile recording studios at the time, set
Speaker 1: up outside and Yeah, had them set up on stage
Speaker 1: in morin vets empty playing through tunes. They had a
Speaker 1: very you know, established set list a cent the songs
Speaker 1: that you see on in the dark were the songs
Speaker 1: that they recorded and that they worked on. You know,
Speaker 1: they didn't really have time to fool around and try
Speaker 1: out different stuff and set up on stage as they
Speaker 1: normally would, played through the tracks. Oftentimes Jerry would then
Speaker 1: run out to the truck and listen to the performances,
Speaker 1: and ultimately it was Jerry who would decide, you know,
Speaker 1: which of the kind of recorded performances of the BA
Speaker 1: would be used as the basic tracks for the tunes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the one that called it a largely unsuccessful
Speaker 2: song looking for its right approach. So he's the one
Speaker 2: that thought it needed to be slowed down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. In an interview with Blair Jackson in
Speaker 1: The Golden Road, he talks about that, Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: quote you just said, yeah, that you know, for years
Speaker 1: he just didn't feel right, you know, and that we
Speaker 1: just needed to slow it down. Well, he says that,
Speaker 1: but it's really not that much slower than you know,
Speaker 1: performances that you know were happening, you know live. It
Speaker 1: was slower than some of the more recent live performances.
Speaker 1: There's a performance from rich Stadium in nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: that is just blistering. It's on fire, it is so fast.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely slower than that. But by the time
Speaker 1: they get back out onto the road in the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven and start playing it again, the
Speaker 1: tempo creeps back up again.
Speaker 2: So well, I think the temple's perfect because of the
Speaker 2: lyric when you think I will get by, I will
Speaker 2: survive and it's all right part because it's it's very
Speaker 2: laid back, It's like it's okay, we'll get by. It
Speaker 2: kind of fits the vibe of the lyrics, right, I.
Speaker 1: Think so without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, it has an
Speaker 1: easy feel to it. You know, it has a quicker tempo,
Speaker 1: but you know, it just has this kind of easy
Speaker 1: kind of pace and feel to it that it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound and rushed, you know. And the way that the
Speaker 1: arrangement of the song works too, it's not very full either,
Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of space within the tune.
Speaker 1: And while it has this underlying kind of you know,
Speaker 1: propulsive current to it, the surface, just like so many
Speaker 1: other Dead tunes, just is kind of going along at
Speaker 1: a much kind of you know, more you know, slow tempo.
Speaker 2: John Brackett, the author of Touch of Gray or How
Speaker 2: the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars. So Jerry credited Brent
Speaker 2: Midland as the father of the new arrangement. What did
Speaker 2: he bring to Touch of Gray that transformed its identity
Speaker 2: and helped unlock its commercial potential.
Speaker 1: That main musical motive that you hear at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the tune on the keyboard. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: the synthesizer. This was a musical idea. If you go
Speaker 1: back and listen to the tune, it's one of the
Speaker 1: first things you're going to hear is that motive starts
Speaker 1: off with that long sustained note at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: then this kind of nice cascading figure down that he
Speaker 1: played on the organ. I think it was within the
Speaker 1: basic tracks recording the basic tracks at marin Vents, and
Speaker 1: when they started doing overdubs, seemed like the band kind
Speaker 1: of picked up on this new idea, this new musical
Speaker 1: you know, motive, and started kind of playing around with it.
Speaker 1: And while he originally played it on the on the Hammond,
Speaker 1: by the time they get into the studio owner are
Speaker 1: doing overdubs. Brand is going to be working with some synthesizers,
Speaker 1: and he's also working with a guy named Bob bray Love.
Speaker 1: You know, bray Love is an incredibly you know, important
Speaker 1: figure in this story because basically he's the one who programmed.
Speaker 2: That sound, who was Bob Brailove.
Speaker 1: His background, bray Love, I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 1: his you know, his full background. I'll start off by
Speaker 1: saying I was lucky enough to play with him a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago at a show that I did
Speaker 1: in a book event that I did in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Got a chance to play with him and David Gans
Speaker 1: as well, and you know, spoke with them a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's just it was really great because, as most people know,
Speaker 1: he becomes an integral part of the band beginning in
Speaker 1: the late eighties, but leading up to that he was
Speaker 1: working with Stevie Wonder. He was programming since for Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonder Live and in the studio. He helped to program
Speaker 1: and organize this wonderful Synthesizer summit that was done at
Speaker 1: the Grammy Awards in nineteen eighty five. People who are
Speaker 1: watching please find that online because it's super cool. It
Speaker 1: features I know, I'm gonna forget somebody here, but I
Speaker 1: know it features Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, and I forget
Speaker 1: totally spacing on some of well. I think Steeah Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonder is there as well, and bray Love helped to
Speaker 1: get all the instruments to talk. Bray Love was an
Speaker 1: early ex bert in MIDI technology, and he was able
Speaker 1: to introduce a lot of these new digital technologies into
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonders live in studios rigs.
Speaker 2: And he introduces a distinctive synthesizer sound to Touch of Gray.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah. The sound that eventually we end uppearing
Speaker 1: on the record was created by a version of the
Speaker 1: Yamaha d X seven synthesizer, which for people who kind
Speaker 1: of grew up around at the time that Eric and
Speaker 1: I did, probably will recognize this as one of the
Speaker 1: most ubiquitous synthesizer tambers of the early eighties. You know,
Speaker 1: so many top ten pop hits of that era utilized
Speaker 1: these distinctive sounds that could be created on the Yamaha synthesizer.
Speaker 1: The DX seven was different than a lot of the
Speaker 1: other commercial synthesizers at the time. It was digital, but
Speaker 1: it created sounds through frequency modulation, which results in these
Speaker 1: very unique kind of crystalline, you know, bell like sounds.
Speaker 1: And as soon as you hear you know it on
Speaker 1: you know, AHA's take on me or you know this,
Speaker 1: what's love got to do with it? I mean, take
Speaker 1: your pick of whatever eighties hit it was. I mean
Speaker 1: the d X seven appeared on it, and that was
Speaker 1: the tambre that bray Love synthesized and that Midland played,
Speaker 1: And so you get this new motive added to the song.
Speaker 1: But then you get this tambre, this synthesizer sound that
Speaker 1: would have been so familiar to listeners at that time
Speaker 1: as being recognizable from this song and this other song.
Speaker 1: And so that you know, through that new arrangement, and this,
Speaker 1: I think is what Jerry was talking about as Brent
Speaker 1: being the father of this new arrangement was really introducing
Speaker 1: this more kind of a modern synthesizer sound. I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the book. Yeah, it's the song transformed
Speaker 1: from being kind of this guitar based rock tune to
Speaker 1: being kind of a synth tune, you know, once it
Speaker 1: got recorded for in the Dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just that sound alone, it sounds at home
Speaker 2: on pop radio in nineteen eighty seven, just enough, but
Speaker 2: it's still the dead, but it's enough for like you say,
Speaker 2: people will recognize it, they feel comfortable with it, they
Speaker 2: know it, and that's a huge difference maker there, I think.
Speaker 2: So in terms of it being your hit top ten single, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar, right, I mean, you know for audiences
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, you know, you you know you
Speaker 1: maybe you remember the Dead from the sixties, maybe you
Speaker 1: never even heard of the Dead, you know at that time,
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden this comes on the radio,
Speaker 1: and you know, the one thing that you can latch onto.
Speaker 1: You know, if you haven't heard the Dead in years,
Speaker 1: or if you've never heard them, is that sound, you know,
Speaker 1: And really so much about the record itself. It's a
Speaker 1: very clear recording. You know, there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: noise on that record. You know, you can very clearly
Speaker 1: hear all of the instrumental parts and spaces. It just
Speaker 1: fits very well into the field. And that's a real
Speaker 1: credit to Cutler and some of the other kind of
Speaker 1: technological things that they were doing with that record.
Speaker 2: So the nearly six minute recording still needed to be
Speaker 2: edited for radio, packaged across several formats, and supported by
Speaker 2: a video. When did Touch of Gray stop being another
Speaker 2: track on an album and become an obvious vehicle for
Speaker 2: taking the Dead into the mainstream.
Speaker 1: That's a really good question, because you know, you have,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, the Dead playing live. You know,
Speaker 1: once they return to the road in eighty seven alongside
Speaker 1: this building momentum that's going on with the single. So
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you have this incredible momentum going
Speaker 1: on with touch of both on rock radio at first,
Speaker 1: it soon crosses over into top forty radio, goes onto
Speaker 1: adult contemporary, you know, it goes on to college rock radio. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the video is also taking off throughout the summer. But
Speaker 1: then you have the band playing live and often they
Speaker 1: wouldn't even play the song, you know, and this was
Speaker 1: part of their what they do. You know, they very
Speaker 1: much kind of treated kind of what they did live.
Speaker 1: They did not feel like they had to play that
Speaker 1: song live. Yeah, that's com built the audience is right.
Speaker 2: And that's where I'm going too, is at what point
Speaker 2: does Arista hear the song. Do they have a fan
Speaker 2: at the label who's watching them, seeing them perform live
Speaker 2: and say, boy, that's a song that's going to be hit.
Speaker 2: Or is it once they start forming the song that
Speaker 2: somebody now realizes like, who, I think we're onto something here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, actually it's it's I think if I'm getting.
Speaker 2: Bringing God Bray Love in, you know, bringing him in
Speaker 2: would tell you that at some point before recording it,
Speaker 2: maybe they thought we could do something with this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he was brought in, you know. Also he
Speaker 1: did with Midland, also worked with the percussionists as well,
Speaker 1: and he had worked with The Dead a little bit before,
Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier. When yeah, that's important, So
Speaker 1: he wasn't just brought it so no, no, no, he
Speaker 1: was familiar to them. He had helped them work on
Speaker 1: with the reboot of The Twilight Zone. Yeah, yes, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. Yeah, Nicky Hart and some of the other
Speaker 1: folks in the band were making sounds and noises and
Speaker 1: you know stuff for that and he had been brought
Speaker 1: in to kind of assist with that. So if anything,
Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty six, eighty seven, you know, he was
Speaker 1: brought in because they were familiar, they knew what he
Speaker 1: could do. And at that time, yeah, it was getting
Speaker 1: the drummers, you know, doing some Midi stuff with them,
Speaker 1: and then really getting Brailev up to speed because I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: getting Midland up to speed because he was accumulating a
Speaker 1: lot of the you know, new synthesizers at the time,
Speaker 1: and bray Love was you know, helping him learn you
Speaker 1: know what some of these would do. But to go
Speaker 1: back to your question, your your point about like when
Speaker 1: did this song become kind of when did people start recognizing, oh,
Speaker 1: this is something maybe bigger. You know, it took place
Speaker 1: much later, I think, And it actually happened when they
Speaker 1: were getting ready to make the video, and by February
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven, Garcia had reached out to Gary
Speaker 1: Gutierrez to direct the video. For people who don't know
Speaker 1: Gary Gutierrez was at that time, he was a co
Speaker 1: founder of a production company called Colossal Pictures, but he
Speaker 1: had worked with Jerry earlier in nineteen seventy six and
Speaker 1: seventy seven. He is and his production team had worked
Speaker 1: on the animation sequence that opens up the Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: movie and if you haven't seen that, please go and
Speaker 1: see that. Jerry reaches out to him a decade later
Speaker 1: because he knows that Gary is very familiar with the
Speaker 1: iconography of the band, the band's relationship to the fans
Speaker 1: and things like that. So yeah, he sends a cassette.
Speaker 1: Jerry sends a cassette to Gary Gutierrez in February of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven with like five songs on it, three
Speaker 1: or five songs. He says, these are the songs that
Speaker 1: we're considering for the next single. So by February of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, the band and Arista had still not
Speaker 1: decided yet on what was going to be the first
Speaker 1: single for this new record. They had already done the
Speaker 1: basic tracks, they were in the midst of doing overdubs
Speaker 1: at the time, but they still had no idea. A
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, by early March, there's a document
Speaker 1: in the Grateful Dead archive that you see Santa Cruz
Speaker 1: of the facts or a letter that was sent from
Speaker 1: Colossal Pictures to representatives at Arista, and it includes an
Speaker 1: early outline for the video, and in the accompanying letter
Speaker 1: it says, you know, while Gary you know, wrote this
Speaker 1: two Touch of Gray, we feel like, you know, this
Speaker 1: idea of the skeleton marionettes would work well for any
Speaker 1: of the songs that we have heard. They still didn't know.
Speaker 1: They still hadn't decided yet, you know, But Gary Gutierrez
Speaker 1: had you know, done the outline for Touch of Gray
Speaker 1: with the lyrics and had some notes for it, and
Speaker 1: that's what he sent us the outline. So probably in
Speaker 1: many ways, Gary Gutierrez, the director of the videos the
Speaker 1: person who probably steered the s yep towards Touch of
Speaker 1: Gray as being the first single from in the Dark
Speaker 1: more than anybody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the guy. That's the moment where the song
Speaker 2: now takes a different direction and we see it go
Speaker 2: up the charts. Up was it seven or eight on
Speaker 2: the charts?
Speaker 1: Nine? Nine?
Speaker 2: It was peaked, ye, peaked at nine. So yeah, the
Speaker 2: polished Touch of Gray video. Also the informal Dead Ringers
Speaker 2: documentary and Len Delamico's Experimental So Far presented three very
Speaker 2: different versions of the band. Talk about those films. What
Speaker 2: did they communicate about who the Dead had been, who
Speaker 2: they were becoming, and how they wanted new audiences to
Speaker 2: perceive them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot there, because, as you point out,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of films and videos in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, and this is an important point because the
Speaker 1: Dead were not strangers, were no strangers to combining film,
Speaker 1: moving images, and music, you know, going back to the
Speaker 1: Dead movie. A bunch of projects around in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: you know, with their fifteenth anniversary. So by nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: Jerry was head of a committee that was in charge
Speaker 1: of preserving and organizing the Dead's video faults as well.
Speaker 1: They're thinking about video throughout the eighties. However, what they're
Speaker 1: not thinking about is MTV. They never were really interested
Speaker 1: in MTV. In fact, they actively resisted any exposure on MTV.
Speaker 1: There's from meeting minutes from a meeting in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: there's some threat from one of the Dead's legal representatives
Speaker 1: to MTV. Right if you show any clips author clips
Speaker 1: of the Dead on MTV, you know, there will be
Speaker 1: serious trouble, you know. But this all changes, obviously once
Speaker 1: we get into you know, nineteen eighty seven. They know
Speaker 1: they have to make a video. They also are very
Speaker 1: much aware that their fans are going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit nervous, maybe a bit skeptical, uh, and definitely trepidacious,
Speaker 1: little trepidation in there about the Dead now appearing on MTV.
Speaker 1: You know, for a group like the Dead, you know this,
Speaker 1: you know, existing outside of the mainstream, you know, was
Speaker 1: a very very important thing, and this was very much
Speaker 1: true for the dead Heads as well. You know that
Speaker 1: there was this community, this thriving community that existed outside
Speaker 1: of the musical mainstream. MTV, for many people represented the
Speaker 1: mainstream of the mainstream, and so on. You know, it
Speaker 1: came time for the Dead to make a video, they
Speaker 1: were very careful. You know, they kept it in house.
Speaker 1: You know Gary Gutierrez that you know, with somebody that
Speaker 1: people knew and they were familiar with, so okay, they
Speaker 1: could expect something that was kind of approved by the band,
Speaker 1: but they still had to convince them a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where the Dead ringers the making
Speaker 1: of video kind of comes into play. And whereas you know,
Speaker 1: the video is you know in heavy rotation on MTV
Speaker 1: and Friday Night videos and things like that. The Dead
Speaker 1: also produced a standalone making a video and it was
Speaker 1: directed by Justin Kreutzman, the son of Bill Kreutzman, and
Speaker 1: in it you get about a half an hour of
Speaker 1: you know, behind the scenes footage and interviews with the band,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes kind of scenes of making the marionette.
Speaker 1: The production of the videos, well, I mean it's very
Speaker 1: much in line with so many of the other making
Speaker 1: of videos from that era.
Speaker 2: They brought in real fans, right Oh yeah, that's the
Speaker 2: thing that you could pick up on that it's a
Speaker 2: genuine part of that video. It's which in that area
Speaker 2: you could very easily there are a lot of videos
Speaker 2: like that where you just see people in the audience.
Speaker 1: Like these are these brilliant fans, but they were No, definitely, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was the other when they produced the video,
Speaker 1: they were originally going to use cutaway footage of the
Speaker 1: audience from the Grateful Dead movie. Now that was filmed
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, and so.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't well, of course, you know, I believe they call
Speaker 2: that a continuity error. Maybe is that what they called?
Speaker 1: I think so? And so, you know, quite quickly somebody
Speaker 1: was like, we cannot do that, and so by the
Speaker 1: middle of March, end of March, they had decided that
Speaker 1: they were going to film significant portions of the video
Speaker 1: in front of a live audience in between two shows.
Speaker 1: Two concerts at Laguna Seca in Monterey, and on May ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, the Rycooter Bruce Hornsby in the Range
Speaker 1: and the Dead played a show in the afternoon. By
Speaker 1: the early evening the show was done, fans started heading
Speaker 1: back to the campgrounds. Meanwhile, they started setting up the
Speaker 1: stage for the producing the video. A little bit later,
Speaker 1: they go over to the campground people who are working
Speaker 1: on the video. At some of the deads. People start
Speaker 1: bringing fans back to the stage area asking them to
Speaker 1: if they, you know, want to be part of the video.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when you watch the video, they cutaway shots
Speaker 1: were filmed overnight at lagun Seka and those were the
Speaker 1: people who were at the show. And it's great. I
Speaker 1: was had an interview with Monterey Paper, going to be
Speaker 1: doing an event in Monterey in a few weeks, and
Speaker 1: the person who was interviewing me, remember that, and he
Speaker 1: was had, you know, one thing I remember about the
Speaker 1: video that really stands out is that, you know, some
Speaker 1: people were actually singing along to the song and I
Speaker 1: was like, but but this is a new song, how
Speaker 1: could you possibly know the words to this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And so it's it's very interesting because one of the
Speaker 1: the important components of that video was to show that
Speaker 1: connection between the band and the audience, you know, and
Speaker 1: to have the audience there, you know, singing along, whether
Speaker 1: it was the band lip syncing or it was the
Speaker 1: marionette's on the stage, you know, that's what you hear.
Speaker 1: You know, if you watch the video, there are moments
Speaker 1: where you can hear the audience. Soundtrack kind of blended
Speaker 1: in to the performance as well, and Yeah, Like I said,
Speaker 1: this was a kind of a key component of you know,
Speaker 1: getting the fans involved. But that Dead Ringers video, I
Speaker 1: think a significant part of that was kind of to
Speaker 1: kind of make sure that fans knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: this was, you know, just a one off thing, you know,
Speaker 1: that what was going on with a touch of gray video.
Speaker 1: I think Phil Lesh and the Dead Ringers video said
Speaker 1: you know, we'll do one and then we're done with it.
Speaker 1: But they did Hell in a Bucket right, well, they
Speaker 1: did Hell in a Bucket. Yeah, they also did Throwing
Speaker 1: Stones as well.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever seen that one.
Speaker 1: Yep, check that one. Both of those latter two were
Speaker 1: directed by Len Delamico and yeah, the same person who
Speaker 1: also did the so Far video. Now that's so Far
Speaker 1: video that dates back to nineteen eighty five that includes
Speaker 1: footage of the band playing on stage at Marin Vets
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, those same sessions that Cutler remembered
Speaker 1: and thought, okay, these were very well before, let's do
Speaker 1: them again. So that footage, along with some live footage
Speaker 1: from later in eighty five, is what kind of makes
Speaker 1: up the bulk of the so Far video. It's kind
Speaker 1: of repurposed quickly, you know, following you know, a touch
Speaker 1: of gray and in the dark, but tied in to,
Speaker 1: you know, things that were going on at the label.
Speaker 1: That's where this is all going at this point. You know,
Speaker 1: the Dead Ringers making of and then so far we're
Speaker 1: the first two videos of Arista's video division West six,
Speaker 1: and so there's this close connection, you know, between what
Speaker 1: the Dead are doing and you know, the ability to
Speaker 1: continue to make videos but also market those videos in
Speaker 1: different ways as well, but still closely connected with what
Speaker 1: was going on at the label too.
Speaker 2: Find the bookdown Rock website at booked on rock dot com.
Speaker 2: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
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Speaker 2: There's this myth that all of this is an accidental
Speaker 2: success story like Jerry's, the one that insisted that the
Speaker 2: success wasn't planned and just worked out that way. Why
Speaker 2: has that mythology of accidental success remained so powerful? Do
Speaker 2: we Dead fans not want to think of the Dead
Speaker 2: in a way where you've got this coordinated campaign. It's
Speaker 2: got the radio, the MTV, the tell television, to print media,
Speaker 2: the summer tour, it's all packaged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do believe that. I do believe there's you
Speaker 1: know that we don't want to believe it, you know
Speaker 1: that we want to believe that this just was serendipitous
Speaker 1: and then it just kind of happened, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: Jerry may have said that, but you know it's Dennis.
Speaker 1: You know McNally writes in the you know, the Biography
Speaker 1: of the Dead, that big thick one. You know, John
Speaker 1: Cutler supposedly at that time was walking around wearing shirts
Speaker 1: that said think Platinum. So you know, there's some conflicting,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of reports about what's going on there,
Speaker 1: and you know this is not new in the Dead.
Speaker 1: There's lots of conflicting reports and so yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think about because, yeah, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of coordination. You know, there's a lot of savvy planning.
Speaker 1: You know, when the they started testing the song, it
Speaker 1: didn't really test well with younger listeners team magors or
Speaker 1: adult women. Quite quickly, you see Arista start. You know,
Speaker 1: they're putting something on the Dead in Spin magazine. You know,
Speaker 1: this is something that is designed specifically to get younger listeners.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a magazine that's not rolling Stone,
Speaker 1: this is covering new stuff. Even MTV. They'd been planned.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a Day of the Dead special
Speaker 1: on MTV in August, and that had been planned in May.
Speaker 1: You know, they had been coordinating that in May. And
Speaker 1: so if you do start looking at the documents, you
Speaker 1: do see that, yes, this is a very coordinated, methodical rollout.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is how hits are made. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the executives at Aristis said,
Speaker 1: you know, basically, we're doing what we're doing with the
Speaker 1: Dead is what we did with Whitney Houston. Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's dim impressed that they made a band
Speaker 2: that existed for more than twenty years feel suddenly current,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean that's not an easy thing to
Speaker 2: do and let's not forget.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, okay, maybe all of this happened,
Speaker 1: you know, and that there was this coordination, but in
Speaker 1: many ways, you know, the deads were able to kind
Speaker 1: of continue to maintain that integrity, you know, in a
Speaker 1: certain way. You know, they were still able to kind
Speaker 1: of do it their own way. And although they reached
Speaker 1: this kind of commercial potential and it had this you know,
Speaker 1: very methodical and planned distribution and promotion, the Dead did
Speaker 1: it in such a way that it never really felt slimy,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. You know, it did
Speaker 1: feel organic, and much of it probably, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a significant amount of organic. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, there was some resentment among you know, older
Speaker 1: fans towards what was going on. The scene was changing.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt, the influx of touchheads.
Speaker 1: Got that that was the name. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: the fact the fact that Dead.
Speaker 2: Fans knew that this song had been around for a
Speaker 2: long time certainly helped. It wasn't a song that was
Speaker 2: just manufactured out of nowhere, like we need a hit
Speaker 2: single precisely, you know, Yeah, let's let's have somebody, let's
Speaker 2: have an outside song. When to come in and right,
Speaker 2: it's a hit single. So I think that went a
Speaker 2: long way.
Speaker 1: No, And I think that's an important point you bring
Speaker 1: up there, that yeah, this wasn't something that was manufactured. Maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, all of this stuff with the label is justified,
Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter was is that, all right,
Speaker 1: this is a song we all know, and this isn't
Speaker 1: some newly crafted song that's supposed to kind of you know,
Speaker 1: appeal to the pop audience is necessarily.
Speaker 2: The influx of touch heads. Okay, so now you've got
Speaker 2: a whole new new visibility that I guess both validating
Speaker 2: but unsettling, because you've got these opportunistic vendors, you've got drugs,
Speaker 2: gate crashers, increased police attention at the concert scene. The
Speaker 2: culture of the show's changed, particularly in the parking lot,
Speaker 2: known by Dead fans as the lot. So talk about
Speaker 2: that change, how it affected Dead culture in a I
Speaker 2: guess in a positive way, in a negative way, but
Speaker 2: there was certainly the negative. Yeah, the band had to
Speaker 2: make adjustments.
Speaker 1: Now, without a doubt. You know, the lot itself, you know,
Speaker 1: had existed for a while before that, and you know
Speaker 1: it was generally pretty calm. You know, there were always issues.
Speaker 1: You know, John Sheer, when the Dead's promoter was constantly sending,
Speaker 1: you know, notes to concert venues saying, listen, we know
Speaker 1: how you know the reputation of the Dead. You know,
Speaker 1: we need your help and you know, kind of having
Speaker 1: an orderly concert experiencevarience so venues and operators. By nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, you know, knew what to expect with Dead
Speaker 1: audiences and the scene around the lot. But by nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, it really it all changed. As you said,
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunistic vendors coming in, a lot of
Speaker 1: trademark infringement, a lot of drugs being sold, a lot
Speaker 1: of public consumption of drugs and alcohol led to increased
Speaker 1: undercover agents there. It was often of kind of a
Speaker 1: very dark scene. It could be a dark scene out there,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting you looking through the Dead archive, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of notes too. Members of the organization would
Speaker 1: often walk through the lot and take notes about what
Speaker 1: they were seeing at the time, and we're trying to
Speaker 1: come up with, you know, solutions to how we could
Speaker 1: make this better. You know, it was all it's all
Speaker 1: very difficult because the Dead and their organization were always
Speaker 1: very reluctant to make hard and fast decisions about how
Speaker 1: they were kind of kind of going to work with
Speaker 1: their fans. They always kind of wanted to let the
Speaker 1: scene take care of itself. But by nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: and definitely by nineteen eighty eight, this was really untenable,
Speaker 1: you know, with what was going on in a lot.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, the concerts themselves. Gate crashing became
Speaker 1: pretty common as well, and you start getting that and
Speaker 1: you you know, you're not going to get booked at places.
Speaker 1: You know, Towns aren't going to want you in their
Speaker 1: cities aren't going to watch you. Venues aren't going to
Speaker 1: want you, and so you know, you're at this spot
Speaker 1: where you might be at the top of your game,
Speaker 1: but you can't get gigs, and so it was tough.
Speaker 1: It was tough for them. There was there's a note
Speaker 1: when the Dead were getting ready to review their their
Speaker 1: contract with their looking over the terms of the new contract,
Speaker 1: and one of the terms was that the Gravel Dad
Speaker 1: will perform you know, three full length concerts, you know, tours,
Speaker 1: you know, per year to support these records, you know,
Speaker 1: And in the margins of the draft of this contract,
Speaker 1: the band's lawyer, Hal can't says, is this possible or
Speaker 1: something to that effect. Are we able to do this still?
Speaker 1: You know, and this was nineteen eighty eight. They were
Speaker 1: really unsure of what the future was going to hold
Speaker 1: for these live shows, just given you know, kind of
Speaker 1: how you know the scene had changed during that time.
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Speaker 2: to the show. It did give the band enormous leverage
Speaker 2: in its new agreement with Aristas. Let's talk about that,
Speaker 2: because they got control over commercially releasing recordings from the fault.
Speaker 2: How else did that agreement help transform The Dead from
Speaker 2: a touring band into a cultural institution capable of sustaining
Speaker 2: itself long after Jerry's death, as we obviously can see.
Speaker 2: I mean, they still have a huge following.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, you know, as I talked about earlier, Dead
Speaker 1: hadn't released full length album, you know, in six years.
Speaker 1: When in the Dark came out in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: It was the last album that they owe to Arista
Speaker 1: for the terms of the contract that they had originally
Speaker 1: signed in nineteen seventy six. They had finally fulfilled the
Speaker 1: terms of that contract, and what a better way to
Speaker 1: do it than Within the Dark. You know. By October
Speaker 1: of eighty seven, it was platinum. You know, the band
Speaker 1: was now playing stadiums regularly, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: just only going to get bigger and bigger for the
Speaker 1: next few months. So they really kind of you know,
Speaker 1: held all the cards, you know, when it came time
Speaker 1: to negotiate, you know, with Arista in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and yeah, a lot of great rates for CDs and
Speaker 1: LPs and cassettes. At that time. They were also granted
Speaker 1: permission to release recordings with Dylan from some of the
Speaker 1: Dylan and the Dead performances, those would be coming out
Speaker 1: on CBS. But as you mentioned, yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Arista agreed to is that the band would
Speaker 1: be allowed to produce and distribute recording from their vault,
Speaker 1: live recordings, unreleased recordings from the band's fault. And at
Speaker 1: this point, by nineteen eighty seven, it's massive, you know,
Speaker 1: this is has recordings on all variety of formats, you know,
Speaker 1: dating back really to the late sixties. And as most
Speaker 1: people know, this is kind of you know, what are
Speaker 1: the these kind of holy places, you know, the Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead vaults, you know, with all of these recordings.
Speaker 2: The Dix picks is that that's not Arista though, is it?
Speaker 1: No? No, And this is what ends up happening is
Speaker 1: that with this new agreement with Arista, the Dead now
Speaker 1: granted permission to produce and distribute their own archival recordings
Speaker 1: themselves through Grateful Dead Productions. And this was something that
Speaker 1: the band had been thinking about for more than a decade.
Speaker 1: Shortly before they signed to Arista, they were thinking about
Speaker 1: forming an archival label called Ground Records. The time, this
Speaker 1: was when the band had their own label, Grateful Dead Records.
Speaker 1: But this was right at the moment when that label
Speaker 1: was about to fold. So when the Dead signed with
Speaker 1: Arista in nineteen seventy six, one of the clauses that
Speaker 1: Arista put into that contract was that the Dead would
Speaker 1: not be able to release recordings from their vault throughout
Speaker 1: the term of the contract. Clive Davis, execs Arista wanted
Speaker 1: the Dead to focus on making studio albums and playing live.
Speaker 1: They didn't want them kind of doing any sort of
Speaker 1: side projects at that time. So by the time we
Speaker 1: get to nineteen eighty seven, this is an idea that's
Speaker 1: been percolating for a long time because the Dead understand
Speaker 1: the need, not really the need, but just the value
Speaker 1: of these recordings, but also just the fans want them, right.
Speaker 1: I mean these they have access to the audience recordings,
Speaker 1: but to have access to the Dead soundboards, you know,
Speaker 1: the demand is the demand for those recordings are great
Speaker 1: among fans, and so this is one of the major
Speaker 1: things that Arista agrees to let the band do as
Speaker 1: part of the new contract. It would take them a
Speaker 1: few years before they started doing it. Nineteen ninety one
Speaker 1: would be the first archival release and it was called
Speaker 1: One from the Vault. It was a show from San
Speaker 1: Francisco in nineteen seventy five the Great American Music Hall.
Speaker 1: The Dix Picks series started in the following year, and
Speaker 1: this is, along with the one from the Vault, is
Speaker 1: really where we start seeing, you know, these archival releases
Speaker 1: that are being distributed directly to fans by the Dead,
Speaker 1: no relationship to any sort of you know, major label
Speaker 1: Arista is not involved at this point. You know, this
Speaker 1: is an enterprise that the Dead were pursuing on their own.
Speaker 1: All the market is and production costs they are doing.
Speaker 1: But as we as many of us know, and if
Speaker 1: you still follow the Dead now, these archival recordings still
Speaker 1: continue to be, you know, one of the most lucrative
Speaker 1: you know, well maybe not the most lucrative, but one
Speaker 1: of the most important ways that the Dead Rhino records
Speaker 1: are able to kind of still connect with fans.
Speaker 2: You just put out a new one from ninety one,
Speaker 2: I think, right.
Speaker 1: They're yeah, they're coming out all the time. They're still
Speaker 1: you know, releasing you know, the box sets. I think
Speaker 1: they have a twenty disc set of shows coming out
Speaker 1: later this year from nineteen eighty five. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: Dave's Picks series, just what you're talking about yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they're up to number fifty nine now with Bob
Speaker 1: we are gone.
Speaker 2: Who makes the decision? Wasn't he the one making the
Speaker 2: decisions with with Mickey Hart and Kreutzman or no.
Speaker 1: As far as you know, to my knowledge, what is
Speaker 1: being released as part of these archival series, much of
Speaker 1: it is up to, if not all of it is
Speaker 1: probably up to the final decision making of a person
Speaker 1: named Dave Lemieux. Oh, yes, Yes, who's the Dead's archivist
Speaker 1: and legacy manager.
Speaker 2: He's on Serious XM channel, the Dead Channel. Yes, several
Speaker 2: channels now, they have the studio songs Live Dead. I
Speaker 2: think they have three different channels there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's most recently the play Dead app as well,
Speaker 1: which I think is uh. I haven't checked it out yet,
Speaker 1: but it probably will pretty soon.
Speaker 2: But I hear him often on there.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he's the one I would get who probably is,
Speaker 1: you know, choosing it? Probably has the final say at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, I'm not sure how much input
Speaker 1: you know, Kreutzman or Heart you know would have early
Speaker 1: on in the process, though Phil Lesh of the band
Speaker 1: Phil Lesh was the one who had been most involved,
Speaker 1: especially with the early Dix Picks series, but in terms
Speaker 1: of the more recent ones, I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: band's involvement is or.
Speaker 2: Was when you consider the financial security and the lasting
Speaker 2: legacy alongside the deterioration of the concert scene. Was the
Speaker 2: success of Touch of Gray ultimately a gift, a burden
Speaker 2: or something that the Gravel that could never have received
Speaker 2: without getting both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of both again. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about it at the very beginning.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is a difficult moment for
Speaker 1: some people. You know, things still change, and I talk
Speaker 1: about it through the book. You know, what does this
Speaker 1: moment mean for different generations of listeners? You know, but
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately it's i mean, we're still talking about
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead sixty years later. You know, this is remarkable,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, the fan base now seems bigger
Speaker 1: than it's ever been and all ages. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just remarkable to see, you know, who is listening to
Speaker 1: the Dead now at the same time, you know, the Dead,
Speaker 1: how they're influencing other bands as well, you know, and
Speaker 1: just kind of listening to what is happening, not even
Speaker 1: just with the jam band scene, but just how you know,
Speaker 1: people like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are kind of reimagining,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these Dead tunes as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: they've really created a body of music that so many
Speaker 1: different artists and musicians can kind of tap into. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about that visibility, you know, I mean, would
Speaker 1: that visibility, you know, be different? You know, would the
Speaker 1: Dead's legacy be different if this song hadn't hit? You
Speaker 1: know what if circumstances had been different in eighty six,
Speaker 1: you know what if Jerry didn't get sick and they
Speaker 1: just kind of continued to be you know, kind of
Speaker 1: plot along. They were playing arenas and they had this
Speaker 1: kind of core, you know, constituency. You know, they could
Speaker 1: have existed, you know, but would we still be talking
Speaker 1: about them sixty years later? You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but you can't deny that, you know, a lot changed
Speaker 1: in this moment, A lot really changed for better for worse.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know. History will tell us.
Speaker 2: The book Down Rock Podcast is part of the Boneless
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Speaker 2: want to be Listen with confidence, touch of Gray or
Speaker 2: how the Grateful Dead became pop Stars. It's officially out now.
Speaker 2: I think it came out on the day we're recording
Speaker 2: this August fourteen, right, actually came out just last week.
Speaker 2: Last week. He came out, Okay, yeah, August four And
Speaker 2: this is a special time in Dead history. Jerry was
Speaker 2: born August first, nineteen forty two. He passed in August ninth,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five. So this is a special It's a
Speaker 2: bittersweet time for Dead fans. We celebrate all that great
Speaker 2: music and the community lives on, for sure. I went
Speaker 2: to a tribute show two three weeks ago here in
Speaker 2: my hometown and lo and behold me. It's mostly older
Speaker 2: people fifty sixty, seventy, some even maybe older. But get
Speaker 2: you get a couple twenty some things in there, and
Speaker 2: they're dancing and they're love it. They're having a great time,
Speaker 2: and I always love seeing that, and I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that's going to continue. I think Bob Weir's his mission,
Speaker 2: his vision for what was going to because even Jerry's
Speaker 2: too back then, it was going to go beyond the
Speaker 2: members themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean one of the things that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I spoke with David Gans a couple of times
Speaker 1: and when I played with him, you know, he always
Speaker 1: talks about, you know, that they're playing Grateful Dead music.
Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like a genre in and of itself.
Speaker 1: You know, we're no longer really just talking about the band,
Speaker 1: you know, anymore, We're really just talking about a much
Speaker 1: kind of larger phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Yep. Where can people find you online?
Speaker 1: John? You can check me out at dead scholar dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find some links to some of my other
Speaker 1: writings there, and also some of the events book events
Speaker 1: that I've got coming up beginning in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks through October. And I also have a substack account
Speaker 1: too called Grateful Documents that I will kind of do
Speaker 1: shorter essays. I'll look at some archival documents that, you know,
Speaker 1: if I've examined, you know, throughout the years, and just
Speaker 1: talk about them a little bit, why they're significant, what
Speaker 1: they show us, and what they talk about. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: those are kind of the two primary ways of seeing
Speaker 1: what's going on.
Speaker 2: That's great. This is one of my favorite reads this summer. John,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for writing about this particular song. Again.
Speaker 2: The story is fascinating. It's got so many angles to
Speaker 2: it and such a history to it, and there's more.
Speaker 2: It's much more than just a song that they needed
Speaker 2: to hit and they recorded it. I mean, it goes
Speaker 2: back so far and it continues to this day and
Speaker 2: I can't stop listening to it. I love it. I
Speaker 2: don't care, I don't have I'm not embarrassed to say
Speaker 2: I love that, and I tell you I love and
Speaker 2: I know it didn't do as well, foolish heart, I
Speaker 2: love it, you know, yeah, you know that's that's it.
Speaker 2: I'm proud to say that. All right, John, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: This was this is great. I'd love I'd love to
Speaker 2: have you back on again down the line, maybe for
Speaker 2: that previous dead book or whatever you got coming in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 1: No, i'd love to. Yeah. I had a great time.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That's it. It's in the books.