Join us for the second of two author talks this semester celebrating the launch of a new book series from Duke University Press, Studies in the Grateful Dead, exploring the iconic rock band’s lasting impact on American culture and the “long strange trip” their music is still taking today.

The Grateful Dead were one of the most successful live acts of the rock era. Performing more than 2,300 shows between 1965 and 1995, the Grateful Dead’s reputation as a “live band” was—and continues to be—sustained by thousands of live concert recordings from every era of the group’s long and colorful career. 

In Live Dead, musicologist John Brackett examines how live recordings—from the group’s official releases to fan-produced tapes, bootlegs to “Betty Boards,” and Dick’s Picks to From the Vault—have shaped the general history and popular mythology of the Grateful Dead for more than fifty years. 

This is the second of two author talks celebrating the launch of the new Duke University Press series, Studies in the Grateful Dead. The first talk will take place February 2, featuring Michael Kaler, author of Get Shown the Light: Improvisation and Transcendence in the Music of the Grateful Dead.

Light refreshments will be served. Copies of the book will be available for purchase. Registration optional but encouraged to help estimate attendance.

About the Author

John Brackett is an independent scholar and author of John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression, and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches.

About the Book Series

Edited by Nicholas G. Merriweather, Executive Director of the Grateful Dead Studies Association and former Grateful Dead Archivist at the University of California–Santa Cruz, Studies in the Grateful Dead explores the musical and cultural significance, impact, and achievement of the Grateful Dead while reinventing the academic and popular discourse devoted to the band. 

Co-sponsored by Duke University Press, Duke University Libraries, and Duke Arts