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For almost three decades, the Grateful Dead was America's most popular touring band. No Simple Highway is the first book to ask the simple question of why―and attempt to answer it. Drawing on new research, interviews, and a fresh supply of material from the Grateful Dead archives, author Peter Richardson vividly recounts the Dead's colorful history, adding new insight into everything from the Acid Tests to the band's formation of their own record label to their massive late career success, while probing the riddle of the Dead's vast and durable appeal.
Arguing that the band successfully tapped three powerful utopian ideals―for ecstasy, mobility, and community―it also shows how the Dead's lived experience with these ideals struck deep chords with two generations of American youth and continues today.
Routinely caricatured by the mainstream media, the Grateful Dead are often portrayed as grizzled hippy throwbacks with a cult following of burned-out stoners. No Simple Highway corrects that impression, revealing them to be one of the most popular, versatile, and resilient music ensembles in the second half of the twentieth century. The band's history has been well-documented by insiders, but its unique and sustained appeal has yet to be explored fully. At last, this legendary American musical institution is given the serious and entertaining examination it richly deserves.
- Sales Rank: #351150 in Books
- Published on: 2015-01-20
- Released on: 2015-01-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.48" h x 1.33" w x 6.38" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
Review
“Richardson writes with enthusiasm….He paints the Dead as a utopian experiment in a long American tradition.” ―Harper's Magazine
“While Dead devotees will revel in the wealth of biographical details here, every reader interested in music and its social repercussions will find Richardson's work both captivating and instructive.” ―Booklist
“[A] far-ranging look at the ultimate jam band in the acid-drenched context of their formative years.” ―Kirkus
“An exhaustively researched and entertaining cultural history of one of the most successful yet resolutely iconoclast musical groups ever.” ―Shelf Awareness
“The psycho-socio-musical experiment that was the Grateful Dead packed a unique complexity and sheer substantiality into their ongoing if occasionally bumbling attempts to recast the American dream. In No Simple Highway, Peter Richardson deftly applies a clear-eyed, insightful, and wide-ranging vision in explicating the reasons that a gaggle of stoned musicians was able to generate one of the most enduring communities in American social history.” ―Dennis McNally, G.D. historian and author, On Highway 61/Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom
“Training his eye through the telescope of cultural history, Peter Richardson's entertaining and well-researched No Simple Highway reveals the valleys, craters, and mountains of the moonscape that comprise the history of the Grateful Dead.” ―Peter Conners, author of Growing Up Dead and JAMerica
“No Simple Highway is a rare combination of excellent research and move-it-along readability. This is a book to return to, again and again.” ―Rosie McGee, Author/Photographer, Dancing with the Dead―A Photographic Memoir
About the Author
PETER RICHARDSON is an author and lecturer in the humanities department at San Francisco State University and outgoing chair of the California Studies Association. Before that, he was an editor at the Public Policy Institute of California, a think-tank based in San Francisco; a tenured English professor at the University of North Texas; and an acquisitions editor at Harper & Row, Publishers. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in San Francisco. His previous book, A Bomb in Every Issue, recounts the rise and fall of Ramparts magazine.
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
The Grateful Dead in the context of their times
By Kirk McElhearn
Deadology - or the study of the Grateful Dead - is a burgeoning industry. As the 50th anniversary of the band's creation arrives this year, a number of new books about them are being published. No Simple Highway: A Cultural History of the Grateful Dead, by Peter Richardson (Amazon.com, Amazon UK), differs from most of the existing books about the Dead by situating the band in the broader political and social context of their time.
Most books about the Grateful Dead - and about any popular musician - tend to be a series of anecdotes. There are plenty of good such books about the Grateful Dead, and one could say that the field doesn't need any more. But this book is different. Written not by a band member or insider, No Simple Highway is the first "scholarly" history of the band.
Don't let that term scare you away; the book isn't boring at all, it's quite well written and very interesting. But the author's approach is that of someone who, while he grew up in San Francisco, didn't really pay attention to the Dead until recently. Richardson looks at the band as a social phenomenon, rather than writing about the music and the people who make it. He spends a long time at the beginning of the book outlining the context of the period in which the Dead were formed, and then discusses how the counterculture that was active in San Francisco helped spawn this type of band. He examines the groups that were around the Grateful Dead - the Merry Pranksters, the Diggers, and others - that helped extend the Dead's ethos. And he discusses the effect of acid and other recreational drugs on the society that the Dead was a part of.
In essence, only about half of this book is about the Grateful Dead; the rest discusses political and social issues. This isn't a bad thing; quite the contrary. It's good to see how the Dead were part of their time - this band couldn't have existed as they did if they were formed in a different decade - and how they remained outside many of the social currents throughout their career.
Richardson looks at the defining events in the history of the Dead, from the festivals they played (or didn't play), to the social events that rocked California, such as the Manson murders and the Jim Jones mass suicide. He spends a lot of time discussing both Nixon and Reagan, and highlighting how these presidents, and their policies, had a strong effect on the Dead and the people who followed them, through the "war on drugs," as well as through other policies.
Richardson charts the Dead's trajectory through their first decade or so, and then gives a sketchy overview of the band's career. It's fair to say that after about 1978, the Grateful Dead didn't innovate much, and through the 80s and 90s were pretty much a concert machine, with little good new music. But there is probably more to say than to simply discuss Jerry Garcia's health problems during that period.
As a scholar, Richardson remains on the sidelines, only discussing his attendance at a Furthur show with some "age-appropriate psychoactivity" at the very end of the book. As such, he misses the whole point of the Grateful Dead. He tries to explain the band's importance like a sociologist, and even breaks his book into three sections, "Ecstasy," "Mobility," and "Community." But these sections don't really fit with the periods they cover. They seem like a scholarly attempt to define something that is ineffable, and he never explains why "there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert." He gives a lot of facts, and facts are useful, but it seems odd to read a book that treats the Grateful Dead as an object of cultural research, while some of its members are still alive and playing music. The passage from a living cultural entity to one that is studied in universities is strange, and is likely to lead to more books of this type, attempting to "explain" the Grateful Dead, whereas all we need to understand this band is a few tapes and a stereo.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Not groundbreaking, but solidly researched and entertaining
By P. J. Casey
This is a fairly interesting cultural history of the Dead and their times, but like the Dead itself (and most histories of the 60's counterculture) the author loses steam around 1978. The 80's and 90's are rushed through, and the critique of their music gives way to a uncritical historical timeline. There is no doubt that the first period of the Dead (until their break) and the counterculture is more colorful and it is clear that the author has done more research and spent more time weaving a cultural history of the first decade of the band, something that makes the latter part of the book drag a bit. That said, this stands as a comprehensive and fairly in-depth, if uncritical, history of the band. It breaks no new ground, but does offer a valuable snapshot of the band. Unfortunately, the cultural analysis seems bolted on at times, and the author draws some conclusions that seem rushed and not entirely correct.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Written with Insight and Care
By Erin Lee
Very well written. I like that the book is not only about the band. I am glad that there is a lot of historical information about the general state of the nation and the world at each time in the Deads history. Richardson also offers new insights and new stories. He really thought about the book rather than just spitting out a book to be sold. I think a lot of people can learn about our town and our nation and the band and its followers from Richardson.
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