Fifty years ago today, the Warlocks plugged in their borrowed instruments at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park, California. But it wasn’t until December of that year—at one of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests—that they performed as the Grateful Dead.
None other than George R. R. Martin, the man behind the Game of Thrones juggernaut, has admitted to the band’s influence on his work; as for me, of I had to choose one album to listen to for the rest of my life, it’d be 1969’s Live/Dead. Mr. Martin and I aren’t alone in our admiration, either: tickets to the band’s upcoming Fare Thee Well concert, with Phish’s Trey Anastasio filling in for the late Jerry Garcia, sold out in minutes.
Meanwhile, David Browne, author of the just-released So Many Roads, has some thoughts on the Dead’s enduring “hippy cool.”
