The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968–1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971–1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971–1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972–1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979–1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990–1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, "[Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial". According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures.
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers of activity where fans could buy and sell anything from grilled cheese sandwiches to home-made t-shirts and recordings of Grateful Dead concerts.
In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music, and health care to all. It has been said that the band performed "more free concerts than any band in the history of music".
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts together, the Grateful Dead performed many concerts every year, from their formation in April 1965, until July 9, 1995. Initially all their shows were in California, principally in the San Francisco Bay Area and in or near Los Angeles. They also performed, in 1965 and 1966, with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as the house band for the Acid Tests. They toured nationally starting in June 1967 (their first foray to New York), with a few detours to Canada, Europe and three nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt in 1978. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Festival Express train tour across Canada in 1970. They were scheduled to appear as the final act at the infamous Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969 after the Rolling Stones but withdrew after security concerns. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play", staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event.
Their first UK performance was at the Hollywood Music Festival in 1970. Their largest concert audience came in 1973 when they played, along with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band, before an estimated 600,000 people at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. They played to an estimated total of 25 million people, more than any other band, with audiences of up to 80,000 attending a single show. Many of these concerts were preserved in the band's tape vault, and several dozen have since been released on CD and as downloads. The Dead were known for the tremendous variation in their setlists from night to night—the list of songs documented to have been played by the band exceeds 500. The band has released four concert videos under the name View from the Vault.
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia. In a 1991 PBS documentary, segment host Buck Henry attended an August 1991 concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and gleaned some information from some band members about the Grateful Dead phenomenon and its success. At the time, Jerry Garcia stated, "We didn't really invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead, you know what I mean? We were sort of standing in line, and uh, it's gone way past our expectations, way past, so it's, we've been going along with it to see what it's gonna do next." Furthermore, Mickey Hart stated, "This is one of the last places in America that you can really have this kind of fun, you know, considering the political climate and so forth." Hart also stated that "the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it's what it can do to your consciousness. We're more into transportation than we are into music, per se, I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation." One of the band's largest concerts took place just months before Garcia's death — at their outdoor show with Bob Dylan in Highgate, Vermont on June 15, 1995. The crowd was estimated to be over 90,000; overnight camping was allowed and about a third of the audience got in without having purchased a ticket.
Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended musical improvisations, having been described as having never played the same song the same way twice. Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next, often for more than three songs at a time.
Tapes
Like several other bands during this time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. "Dick's Picks" is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial contributor to increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
Row Jimmy
Grateful Dead Lyrics
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Come back stepping, like to walk on air
Get back home where you belong
And don't you run off no more
Don't hang your head, let the two time roll
Grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor
Ask the time, baby, I don't know
Come back later, gonna let it show
And I say row, Jimmy, row gonna get there?
I don't know seems a common way to go
Get down, row, row, row row row
Here's a half dollar if you dare
Double twist when you hit the air
Look at Julie, down below
The levee doing the do pas-o
And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there, I don't know
Seems a common way to go get down and row
Row, row, row, row
Broken heart don't feel so bad
You ain't got half of what
You thought you had
Rock you, baby, to and fro
Not too fast, and not too slow
And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there, I don't know
Seems a common way to go get down and row
Row, row, row, row
That's the way it's been in town
Ever since they tore the jukebox down
Two-bit piece don't buy no more
Not so much as it done before
And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there, I don't know
Seems a common way to go get down and row
Row, row, row, row
The lyrics of Grateful Dead's "Row Jimmy" take the form of a story being told by an observer, giving the listener a glimpse into a series of activities that occurred in a particular place and time. The first verse begins with Julie catching a rabbit by its hair and floating back home, seemingly carefree, and is urged by the singer not to run off anymore. The second verse describes the scene of a grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor, with someone asking for the time but receiving no answer. The chorus repeats the phrase "Row, Jimmy row" where the destination is unknown and a desire to get there is expressed.
The third verse speaks to someone with a broken heart, urging them to rock their baby back and forth and not too fast or too slow. Then the song veers back into the chorus, but with added lyrics about how life is different now that the jukebox has been torn down, and a two-bit piece no longer buys as much as before.
Some interpret "Row Jimmy" to be about the band's lyricist, Robert Hunter's, friend Jimmy, who was a rowing coach. Others see the song as a commentary on the human struggle to find a sense of belonging in one's environment. The singer of the story is observing the people and events but is unable to provide solutions or answers to their predicaments. The constant repetition of the phrase "Row, Jimmy, row," suggests that it is not the question of the destination that is important, but the act of rowing.
Line by Line Meaning
Julie catch a rabbit by his hair
Julie is catching a rabbit through ruthless measures.
Come back step, like to walk on air
Julie is very confident and graceful in her actions.
Get back home where you belong
And don't you run off no more
Stop running away and go back to where you fit in.
Don't hang your head, let the two-time roll
Don't be upset, keep moving forward and embrace this rhythm.
Grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor
A modest abode that is made with minimal resources.
Ask the time baby, I don't know
Come back later, gonna let it show
I am not sure what time it is, but wait and see what happens later.
And I say row, Jimmy row
Gonna get there, I don't know
Seems a common way to go
Get down and row, row, row, row, row
Keep rowing without knowing where you're going, since that seems to be the usual path.
Here's a half a dollar if you dare
Double twist when you hit the air
Look at Julie down below
The levee doin' the dopaso
Take this money as a reward if you can perform this difficult maneuver, as Julie dances below.
Broken heart, don't feel so bad
You ain't got half of what you thought you had
Rock your baby to and fro
Not too fast and not too slow
Heartbreak isn't as bad as it seems, because you never truly had as much as you thought you did. Take it easy.
That's the way it's been in town
Ever since they tore the juke box down
Two bit piece, don't buy no more
Not so much as it done before
Things have changed in town since the destruction of the jukebox. Two bits isn't worth as much anymore.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Adam Crary
“ Here’s a half-dollar if you dare
Double twist when you hit the air
Look at Julie down below, on the levee doin’ the do-paso”
stop and think about that… presumably, if the narrator is talking to one person not only is the guy/ gal he’s daring have to do a very hard dive, presumably off a bridge or cliff but he’s gotta be watching Julie dance also!? Or maybe she’s supposed to inspire him to take the dare… and maybe she’s gonna be impressed if he nails the double twist…? Who knows..? It’s evocative of another era. Of any songwriter, only Robert Hunter’s lyrics keep growing on me and revealing themselves in different ways as decades go by. There’s as much between the lines as in them generally.
“ Broken heart, don’t feel so bad
Ain’t got half of what you thought you had…”
…think on that for a while, if you dare😉
Grateful Dead
"When the Pittsburgh show from 7/8/90 was selected for release as the first View From The Vault, the excellent first set had a couple of major highlights from 1973's Wake Of The Flood: the set-closing Let It Grow, and this Row Jimmy from earlier in the set (to round out the Wake trio, they'd also play Eyes Of The World in the second set). Asked in an interview what was his favourite song to play with the Grateful Dead, Jerry replied Row Jimmy." - David Lemieux
Jimmy Nester
Donna helps this song and my name is Jimi so I have always loved this song so laid back! RIP Jerry Rock in Peace
Robert Brennan
@david r Donna always made Row Jimmy just exactly perfect!
William Smart
Please let it b
William Smart
Just want him BACK
TheHaidajoe
@david r I love donna in the closing of winterland!
I find she adds a certain depth
John Giarraputo
Jerry proclaimed this as one of his favorite songs and I would have to agree...just fantastic.
B B
Me too…although got prob top 17 at least
doubleT
@Dre' long lived in Richmond too,
Another local dude has ALTHEA as his. Also seen GDTRFB around the hood.
Always makes me smile
Mike Agent
@Dre' I had us bluz on my VW camper