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Live among the dead

Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead, ca. 1980 (L-R): Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir
Background information
Also known as	The Warlocks, The Dead
Origin	San Francisco, California, USA
Genre(s)	Rock, folk rock, country rock, R&B, blues, rock and roll, psychedelic rock, jam
Years active	1965–1995
Label(s)	Warner Bros. (1966–1972) Grateful Dead (1973–1976) Arista (1977–1989) Rhino (Remasters) (2001–present)
Associated acts	Jerry Garcia Band Phil Lesh and Friends Ratdog The Other Ones The Dead Rhythm Devils New Riders of the Purple Sage Bobby and the Midnites Legion of Mary
Website	Dead.net
Former members
Jerry Garcia Bob Weir Phil Lesh Bill Kreutzmann Ron "Pigpen" McKernan Mickey Hart Tom Constanten Keith Godchaux Donna Godchaux Brent Mydland Vince Welnick

Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco, California. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, country, jazz, psychedelia, space music and gospel—and for live performances of long musical improvisation. In particular, the band frequently made use of "long jams"—whereby Jerry Garcia would spend lengthy periods engaging in rock lead guitar solos that evoked various "depth moods." Other bands utilized long improvisational jams, but "The Dead" took it to extremes. "Their music," Lenny Kaye wrote, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists."

The Grateful Dead's fans, some of whom followed the band from concert to concert for years, were known as Deadheads and were renowned for their dedication to the band's music. Many followers referred to the band simply as "the Dead".

Their musical influences varied widely, and in concert or on record album one can hear psychedelic rock (in the late sixties), the blues, rock nuggets, country-western, bluegrass, country-rock, and although they rarely played jazz music, the band certainly borrowed for their music the kind of long improvisatory sequences that jazz artists such as Charles Mingus and John Coltrane perfected in the 1950s. These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world."