Millionaire” (a pun on a newspaper headline after Owsley, the band’s sound man and resident chemist, was busted) amid R&B-party favors (the Olympics’ 1960 hit “Big Boy Pete”) and future cover staples including the traditional “I Know You Rider” and John Phillips’ “Me and My Uncle.” In a spirited thrashing of “New Minglewood Blues,” guitarist Bob Weir sings like a hip, brash kid, which he was (Weir had recently turned 19). ![]() ![]() These three sets at the Matrix – a club founded by Jefferson Airplane‘s Marty Balin – catch the original quintet in primal, exuberant form, slipping early originals such as “Alice D. In late 1966, more than a year into their evolution, the Grateful Dead were still in the early stages of their psychedelia: an acid-dance band with bar-band aggression, tripping in its jams but just starting to write and largely reliant on folk and blues covers. This story was first published in the special Rolling Stone edition Grateful Dead: The Ultimate Guide These 20 shows are genuinely essential in at least one way: If I had no other live Dead in my collection, I would be happy and fulfilled with this. This list jumps and dances through the story, but it’s not a bad place to start, if you’re not in deep already: more than 40 hours of performance from key runs and one-nighters in every decade, drawn from archival releases, the vast amount of circulating recordings and my own good times with the music. That long, strange trip was a continually unfolding tale of highs and trials, dedicated evolution and surrender to the moment, often caught vividly in the recording studio but told most immediately each night (or day) onstage. In fact, there is only one definitive list of the Dead’s greatest concerts - and it includes every show they played, in every lineup, from their pizza-parlor-gig days as the Warlocks in 1965 until guitarist Jerry Garcia‘s death in 1995. Endless debate over set-list minutiae is inevitable. Passionate challenge from fans, especially hardcore Deadheads and veteran tape traders, is guaranteed. From there, Deadheads began creating their own merchandise featuring the dancing bears including bootleg stickers and shirts to name a few, and the symbol was forevermore associated with the Dead.Choosing and justifying a list of essential Grateful Dead shows - 20, 200, or even 2,000 - is treacherous work. Because the bears were featured on the album art as well as within the social sphere of communal drug use at the band’s live performances, they quickly became a symbol deeply entwined with the culture of listening to the Grateful Dead. What does this have to do with the dancing bears you ask?Īctually a lot! Following the release of the Dead’s album, the bears motif began appearing on Stanley’s LSD blotter art, which also just so happened to be widely circulated at most Grateful Dead concerts at the time. In addition to being the band’s sound engineer, Owsley Stanley was also one of the world’s first private LSD manufacturers. The Bears originally appeared on the back cover of the Grateful Dead’s Bear’s Choice album launching the design into the public eye, but this album circulation only accounted for a portion of the rapid fame attributed to the bears. ![]() The actual principal design for the style of bear we now commonly associate with the Grateful Dead was born from a 36-point lead type slug featuring a generic bear print that Thomas found and used as his primary artistic inspiration. ![]() There is also speculation that the moniker “Dancing Bear” was attributed to Stanley in reference to his peculiar choice of dance moves at concerts while high on acid. The choice to create a symbol using bears as the focal point stems from Owsley Stanley’s nickname “Bear” given to him by childhood friends as a result of his excessive chest hair. In addition to these ubiquitous graphics, Thomas also designed the art for the The Dead’s Steal Your Face and Live Dead as well as the logo for Alembic, an American manufacturer of high-end electric guitars, basses and preamps started by Owsley Stanley, the Grateful Dead’s sound engineer. Thomas actually has a long history tied with The Dead having co-designed the band’s iconic “Lightning Bolt” logo with Owsley Stanley in 1969 as a means of keeping track of the band’s equipment while on tour. The dancing bear design was originally created by artist and renaissance man Bob Thomas for use on the back of the Grateful Dead’s 1973 album The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice). A Design Born from Artistic Collaboration
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