Musicians = The Grateful Dead

 Congratulations to the Grateful Dead on being named the 2025 MusiCares Persons of the Year! Since their formation in the Bay Area in the '60s, the group has remained a symbol of peace and love, and inspired generations with their genre-bending improvisational style. Coming together to develop and popularize a new genre of "jam rock," the Grateful Dead left an imprint on rock music forever and birthed a cultural jam rock revolution that is still "truckin" today.

Fronted by guitarist and lead singer Jerry Garcia, the group's popularity grew quickly from their roots in the hippie movement in San Francisco. Their fans formed a tight-knit community called Deadheads who followed the band all over the country. With a beloved repertoire of songs like “Sugar Magnolia,” “Touch of Grey,” and “Friend of the Devil,” the Grateful Dead are an inimitable treasure in the canon of American music.

My friends would go to their concerts and record the music onto their little tape recorders (Walkmans, etc) of that era. So getting good balance of the music was sometimes hard but I think this gives a bit of the setting, as well as their music.

Keep Truckin'

Go to Wikipedia for more:

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".

After Garcia's death in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as The Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and as The Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts in Santa Clara, California, and Chicago that were billed as their last performances together.

Like several other bands at the time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.

Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. 

Deadheads, particularly those who collected tapes, were known for keeping close records of the band's setlists and for comparing various live versions of the band's songs, as reflected in publications such as the various editions of "Deadbase" and "The Deadhead's Taping Compendium". This practice continues into the 21st century on digital forums and websites such as the Internet Archive, which features live recordings of nearly every available Grateful Dead show and allows users to discuss and review the site's shows.

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Peter BersaniDead and Company Tour Family on Facebook

Ive been looking on with great joy and not a little bemusement at the celebration of The Grateful Dead over these last few months. From The Kennedy Centre Honours, to the Grammys and Musicares it seems the world is awakening to what many of us have always known. The music, stories, scene and family that the band in all its iterations have perpetrated for nearly 60 years IS worth celebrating. More than 45 years since my first show the music continues to give me solace, comfort and great joy. Oh the places it's taken me and the friends Ive made.

It must have been the roses..

Jerry Garcia in front of the Grateful Dead's Infamous Wall of Sound.

The Wall of Sound was an enormous public address system designed specifically for the Grateful Dead’s live performances in 1974. It was the creation of audio engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley. The Grateful Dead gave the sneak peek of the Wall of Sound on February 9, 1973 at Stanford University’s Maples Pavilion but it was on March 23, 1974 when they debuted the completed system during their tour stop at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California.

Weighed over 70 tons, comprise dozens and then hundreds of amps, speakers, subwoofers, and tweeters, stand over three-stories tall and stretch nearly 100 feet wide. Its name could only be the “Wall of Sound”.

Drugs were part of their world, and at concerts (most rock concerts anyway) one didn't have to have

 their own - the amount of smoke in the air would let anyone get high, whether they wanted to or not!

Southern Highlands Craft Guild - three

 A final chapter of our visit. We then went downstairs to peruse the various craft wares in the shop. Here are some stunning pots. 

I have a bowl made by Joe Frank McKee, not pit fired or sager fired unfortunately, but beautiful still.

Martin Stankus did the lighter pink pots.

I didn't buy a thing this time!

I have made so many pieces with torn clay. But she got here first. And she applied gold leaf and gold composite to hers!

I loved this lamp, but it was already sold!

detail of the following...

detail for below...

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After we looked a bit at the shop downstairs of all the crafts that are currently being made by members, we sat at a picnic table outside in the sun, with a nice balmy temperature of 70 F.

The remaining stump from a nice old tree that used to shade the picnic table (out of the photo)

I was intrigued by the shades and shapes, as I think someone had had a fire in the stump.

In the mostly grey woods, a holly tree was bright green.

We had seen the cuts in the trees along the parkway (in distant background) but didn't realize the pipe nearby had been a light pole which had been snapped off at the base and was now lying on the hill going down to the parkway. There were high winds that also came through with Hurricane Helene.

Southern Highlands Craft Guild - two

 

Here ceramic ends up looking a lot like stone.

Here clay is wound around in coils within another shape, then given some nice glazing.

Looking at the back you can see all the colors of yarn that were cut for these beautiful patterns

I did not touch Edwina Bringle's lovely wool blanket...but I knew it would be soft. Her sister, Cynthia Bringle is a potter, and they both live at Penland School of Crafts. 

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The National Park Service also has a store in the Folk Art Center building.

You know how I like maps, and this topographic one was fun to look at.

A closer look including Black Mountain, and if you look directly up (north) going past Montreat, there's a mountain that is just a white spot. The ranger  said many people had touched it, so they rubbed off the ink, saying it is Mt. Mitchell, the highest peek east of the Rockies.

Ranger told me the parkway was mostly closed since the hurricane. Just open in the Asheville area and around Boone NC. None of the connections to any overlooks. I hope sometime in the spring they might have cleared debris, as well as repaired any washouts of the roads.

Southern Highlands Craft Guild - part one

 A recent visit to the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway was centered around the permanent collection of arts and crafts of the parent group, The Southern Highlands Craft Guild.

I enjoyed seeing these pieces, and only took photos of my favorites.

I really wanted this beautiful chest of drawers - anyone want to buy it for me?

But not all was woodworking...I got a kick out of Miss Goodrich

A detail of the huge quilt...I'm a sucker for paisley.

More tomorrow.