Pretty good book about the band and the music. Leaves out the debauchery and drugs, although gives Jerry's demise an honest exmaination. A good read about the band for us deadheads who don't care to be out on the fringes with acid and Leary.

It wasn't so much that it was a bad book, it's just that nothing can do justice to the experience of being at a Dead show. RIP, Jerry.

A fine account of the Dead by an insider. It's full of detail, perhaps more so than a casual fan will want. Yet Heads may well find little new here. I read a bunch of Dead non-fiction about 8 years ago and this one stands out over some of the others (like Scully's), but the best is still Blair Jackson's biography of Jerry.

The experience of reading this book is not unlike experiencing the music of The GD. It's more about the overall vibe and feel of the read than the individual parts. All in All it was an entertaining read which made me understand the band that has become a staple of American culture and lore.

The author is the official historian for the Grateful Dead empire, so that fact needs to be considered on how the members are portrayed and what might have been left out.

I read this book concurrently with "Garcia: An American Life" by Blair Jackson (BJ hereafter), who is basically a Dead Head who decided to write books about them. It was interesting to see how the same events were portrayed in the two books; at times, the stories are not consistent.

This one does a pretty good job overall, although the audience for this book is probably pretty much limited to Dead Heads who might be well-versed in the lore already, such as the Merry Prankster and Haight scenes, all the Sixties hippie history he relates is ground well trodden by the average DH. Lots of context in relation to the other SF bands of the time here, in contrast to BJ.

Certainly the superlatives will make the occasional non-DH wonder at the level of objectivity used. McNally refers to himself in the third person as "Scrib" throughout the book; he was witness to various events yet he never uses the pronoun "I". He also intersperses the book with "Interludes", intended to give one a glimpse into various aspects of the Dead world as witnessed firsthand; these I found not very compelling and interrupted the flow of the book, so after a while I just skipped them.

Only the last 100 of the 620 pages covers the last half (15 years) of GD history. Is it coincidental that my personal concert experiences were 3 in that time frame, as opposed to the roughly 20 in the first half? Or that 80% of their original material was written in those first 15 years, and only 20% in those last 15? Much of the 80's and 90's chapters address the various drug problems that various members struggled with, and the last 8 years with the crippling fame and the often troubling DH scenes at concert venues. One can't help but wonder whether McNally consciously spares us of the grim realities of those years, especially those of Jerry Garcia's declining health. BJ's book relates his health problems in depressing detail.

Curiously, JG's long-time writing partner Robert Hunter disappears almost completely in those last 100 pages (they only wrote about a dozen tunes together in those last 15 years), as does Phil Lesh, one of the first founding members and a driving force in the early and middle years of the band's history. Of course, Lesh had some serious problems with alcohol, but there is really not a whole lot about that in this book (Phil's memoir is the place to go for insight).

I believe that this official historian really does not emphasize two really disturbing negative forces in JG's life, and thus the negative effects on the GD: John Kahn's role in encouraging JG's repeated returns to the use of opiates, and Deborah Koon, at the end of JG's life. Her behavior after his death makes one wonder at how many episodes of her anger occurred, and how many included violence. At the very least, she comes across as manipulative and just mean, and since McNally (like BJ) is loathe to get too negative with anyone, one really wonders.

It seems to me that the band's creativity was not adversely affected by ample use of psychedelics; but when cocaine, alcohol, and heroin entered the picture, the band experienced a serious and depressing decline. It's ironic that their greatest popularity occurred so long after their best work.

The reviewer "featherbear" does not remember what the Fillmore East was called previously -- it was the Village Theater, which was easily found via the excellent index in the book.

Great history of the Dead. Focuses much more on the music than any of the "other" stories. For the real fun stories, read Steve Parrish's book.

it was alright but the author put stuff very slow and i couldn't really connect with it so i stopped reading it i only got about one forth way through it. the reason i didn't really like the book is the author would take things way to slow then come up with something random i just couldn't comprehend. i am sure if i wasn't rushed to finish it like we are here i would be able to finish the book with a full understanding of it.i now know that the book i pick has to be at least under 300 pages for me to finish in the right amount of time. i will probably buy the book when im like 67 or something and read it and enjoy it like no other.

Whew. This was a long, rambling, occasionally enlightening but ultimately shambolic and overlong tome on one of the '60s counterculture's most enduring institutions. In this way, it's not unlike the band at its most aimless and self-indulgent. Granted, there's a lot of ground here to cover, from the band's freewheeling early days to the many financial missteps to the band's obsession with sound and fidelity to a full-on cultural phenomenon which garnered the regard of much straighter business entrepreneurs. But it unfortunately doesn't focus on any of these very well. In particular, it really misses an opportunity to craft a truly moving narrative around the book's most intriguing character, Jerry Garcia. Far from being the wise, bearded father figure of the freak nation, Garcia emerges from the brief biographical sketches as a deeply troubled victim of the Dead's success, silently slaughtered over the decades by the demands of countless hangers-on and audience members, resented by bandmates and categorically denied of any solace or chance to heal through love or music, each of which betrays him over time. It is utterly heartbreaking to acknowledge that the scion of a huge underground family should die alone in his sleep in a detox center after a lifetime of horrendous choices caught up with him. A more skilled biographer, or perhaps one not so intimately linked to the Dead (McNally served as their publicist.), could have crafted this into a very powerful, if difficult, object lesson for an entire community. As it stands, there's plenty of unique tidbits in here that make it important for anyone trying to understand why the Dead meant so much for so long to their audience, but hard to wade through if you're not a Deadhead.

How I spent the seventies.

A Deadhead’s dream! I thoroughly enjoyed all 30 hours of it!

This was an incredible retelling of the history and culture of the dead. It was written in such a way that the songs, atmosphere and people in this scene came to life. Cried multiple times and will read again

I can see that McNally tried to be objective but you can clearly see the disdain that he had for Rock Scully and Sam Cutler. I find that a bit unfair being that his idol Phil Lesh was quite the garbage head and he glossed over that fact. Otherwise, he wrote an interesting and insightful book. I have a little more respect for Bob Weir as a musician after reading this book. I have to read Steve Parish's book. I believe it will give me the needed balance between all the books I've read about the Grateful Dead so far. This book is an excellent piece of history. I've learned so much about America besides learning about the magical times that helped create the Grateful Dead. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.