Synopses & Reviews
The Grateful Deadand#8217;s long, strange trip has been the subject of countless booksand#151;but none like
So Many Roads. Drawing on new interviews with surviving members and people in their inner circle along with previously unknown details gleaned from the groupand#8217;s extensive archives, David Browne, acclaimed music journalist and contributing editor at
Rolling Stone, lends the Deadand#8217;s epic story the vivid feel of a novel. He sheds new light on the bandand#8217;s beginnings, music, dynamics, and struggles since Jerry Garciaand#8217;s death in 1995.
No longer dismissed as relics of the hippie era, a new generation has lionized the Dead for creating a culture that paved the way for social networking, free music swapping, and the uncompromising anti-corporate attitude of indie rock. Now, fifty years after the band first began changing rock and#8217;nand#8217; rolland#151;both sonically and psychicallyandmdash;So Many Roads paints the most vivid portrait yet of the Grateful Dead, one of the most enduring institutions in American music and culture.
Synopsis
The definitive, first truly complete narrative biography of the Grateful Dead, told with the cooperation of and based on new interviews with surviving band members
Synopsis
More than five decades after they first came together and changed the sound of rock 'n' roll, the Grateful Dead remain one of rock's most beloved bandsa musical and cultural phenomenon that spans generations and paved the way for everything from the world of jam bands and the idea of independently released music to social networking. First published in time for the band's 50th anniversary, So Many Roads is unlike any other book on the Dead it is, in the words of Eric Alterman in the Huffington Post, "the best narrative I've ever come across" of the Dead.
Drawing on new interviews with surviving members and those in their inner circlealong with access to the group's extensive archives and his own research from years of covering the grouplongtime music journalist and Rolling Stone contributing editor David Browne does more than merely delve into the Dead's saga. By way of an altogether unique structureeach chapter centered on a significant or pivotal day in their storyhe lends this epic musical and cultural story a you-are-there feel. The result is a remarkably detailed and cinematic book that paints a strikingly fresh portrait of one of rock's most enduring institutions and sheds new lightfor fans and newcomers alikeon the band's music, dynamics, and internal struggles.
With a new afterword by the author
"
About the Author
David Browne is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, and he is the author of Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970. He has also written biographies of Sonic Youth and Jeff and Tim Buckley as well as the ebook Spirit of '76: From Politics to Technology, the Year America Went Rock and Roll. He first wrote about the Grateful Dead for Rolling Stone in 1987 and has contributed numerous articles about the band to the magazine since. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, The New Republic, and other outlets. He lives in Manhattan.