Living with the Dead : Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead's manager provides an eyewitness account of the band's history, from the writing of their greatest songs and their encounters with other celebrities to their emergence as cultural icons. From the first Acid Tests in 1965, Rock Scully was "on the bus" with the Grateful Dead. As manager, confidant, and co-conspirator, he was a linchpin of the Dead family and privy to their every deed. Now, for the first time, he gives us the full rambunctious story of rock's longest-running road show. Starting amid the mayhem of Haight-Ashbury, he tells of rehearsals in Owsley's acid factory, Jerry Garcia's musical mastery, the band's evolution from folk revivalists to lysergic journeymen, the creation of their signature songs, decades of tours through the U.S. and Europe - the whole amazing story is here, up through Scully's departure from the band in 1985 and Garcia's tragic death. It's a magnificent trip, in the inspiring company of Neal Cassady, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley III, Janis Joplin, and the band's many fellow travelers. Scully gives intimate portraits of Pigpen, a founding spirit who lost his way; of Bob Weir's unlikely partnership with Garcia and his iron will; of Phil Lesh's endless experimentalism; of the powerful drumming team of Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart; plus sketches of Tom Constanten, Keith and Donna Godchaux, and other members of the Dead family. The center of the memoir, of course, is Jerry Garcia, the musical genius who was the band's true soul. Living with the Dead captures his endless inventiveness, vision, and contrary humor - at the same time that it chronicles his harrowing descent into drug addiction. It's a revealing and powerful picture that could be drawn only by one who was with him, day and night, through decades.

This memoir chronicles the Dead's seminal years: 1965-1985.

Publishers Weekly

When Scully first saw the Grateful Dead perform, in San Francisco in 1965, he thought they were the ``world's ugliest band.'' He promptly signed on as their manager and lived with them for the next 20 years; in 1985, fresh from a heroin detox clinic, he quit or was fired amid charges (all false, says he) of misusing the band's money. His account of those years, written with the coauthor of Marianne Faithfull's autobiography, is not addressed exclusively to an audience of Deadheads. In fact, they may be disappointed by the low profile Jerry Garcia keeps in Scully's memories. He does remember the LSD and the drugs and the hazy high jinks: the souring Haight-Ashbury scene, Woodstock and Altamont, the ``endless party rolling down the road.'' He describes Garcia as ``magnetic, affable, inquisitive, approachable and infinitely benign,'' and that's about as deep as it gets. A few of the albums, especially early ones, get some attention, but Scully is more interested in the Dead as a social phenomenon. And after 20 years, with Garcia getting ever deeper into drugs and isolation, the group, he says, became both a self-parody and a ``cash cow.'' Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)

As a manager for the Grateful Dead, Rock Scully was with the band from its early days in San Francisco to the years it spent touring the globe as one of the most enduring legends in music history. In Living with the Dead , Scully gives a complete account of his outrageous experiences with the band, during years that saw the Grateful Dead transform from a folksy revivalist band to psychedelic explorers of outer space. In addition to close-up portraits of band members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Pigpen, Phil Lesh, Micky Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, Scully brings into the story many of the people the Dead encountered in their journeys across America's musical landscape, including Ken Kesey, Janis Joplin, Etta James, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and the Jefferson Airplane. Scully tells the story of the band with genuine feeling; the tour disasters, acid trips, and burnouts, but most importantly the exaltation of delivering fantastic music. 1 The World's Biggest Crystal 3 -- 2 The Octagon is in Place 8 -- 3 Plaid Iguanas 21 -- 4 Acid Rain 36 -- 5 710 Ashbury 51 -- 6 The Gathering of the Tribes 76 -- 7 High Noon in the Haight 97 -- 8 Anthem of the Sun 113 -- 9 Whores, Wars, Weed and the Wild, Wild Northwest 135 -- 10 This Darkness Got to Give 162 -- 11 Two for the Road 186 -- 12 Box of Rain 199 -- 13 We're All Bozos on This Bus 216 -- 14 Ship of Fools 227 -- 15 Barbarians in Europe 235 -- 16 Blues for Allah 253 -- 17 Zeno's Lullaby 264 -- 18 Trouble Behind 278 -- 19 A Terrapin on Shakedown Street 298 -- 20 Up in Smoke 312 -- 21 Before I Get Old 337 -- 22 Chief Smoking Moccasin 353 -- Afterword: Adios, Black Jack 367.