Live Dead: The Grateful Dead, Live Recordings, and the Ideology of Liveness

Brackett (John Zorn), a music instructor at Vance-Granville Community College, examines the ways in which “live recordings came to dominate the discourse of the Grateful Dead” in this lucid scholarly analysis. By the late 1960s, the Dead’s concerts had become the stuff of legend, according to Brackett, characterized by improvisation, endless jamming, and an ability to carefully calibrate a “balance of contrasting dynamics, varying moods, and deliberate pacing” for the audience. The band capitalized on this reputation by releasing live albums in 1969—starting with Live/Dead, which became their highest-charting album to that date. But as early as the mid-to-late-’60s, Deadheads had begun taping the live concerts, a practice that eventually grew so prevalent that “many fans had learned to hear” the tapes as “more authentic” than the band’s own live releases. Tracing the band’s history through the 1990s and 2000s (including reissue efforts of fan tapes now authorized as archival recordings), Brackett unpacks the Dead’s legacy while probing notions of liveness, the tape as a cultural artifact, and the “phantasmagoric power” of recorded sound to transport and transform. Brackett’s measured and thoughtful approach makes this worthwhile reading for both committed Deadheads and those interested in the study of live music. (Dec.)