Fare Thee Well

April 9, 2018
The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop music writer Selvin offers an exhaustive, warts-and-all story of how the Grateful Dead battled through the rough two decades following Jerry Garcia’s death. The narrative begins in 1995 with Garcia’s death and the surviving four Dead members trying to right their ungainly hippie enterprise. The messy relationships that had developed between the members of the quartet over the course of the previous three decades collapsed after losing the band’s “father figure.” Without Garcia’s nonconfrontational Zen attitude, bassist Phil Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir, and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann descended into a thicket of business disagreements and personal irritations. Each took to the road independently, playing to dedicated crowds of Deadheads, with constantly revolving lineups. The soap opera battles achieve epic heights in this telling, such as one night when Lesh’s “mean, deliberate power play” forces fans to choose between his band and Weir’s. The narrative pays microscopic attention to each concert and every argument, but Selvin livens it up in sunnily composed passages, such as the triumphant 50-year celebration at Chicago’s Soldier Field: “it was not the Grateful Dead, only an earnest facsimile. To the audience, however, it was enough.” This is an enthusiastic but clear-eyed and enjoyably gossipy piece of modern rock history.

May 15, 2018

This well-written if pedestrian account of the Grateful Dead's post-Jerry Garcia years starts with Garcia's death in 1995 and finishes with the Fare Thee Well reunion concerts in 2015. Selvin (Altamont; Summer of Love), a longtime journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, has covered the Dead nearly since their inception and did extensive research and interviewing for this book. The contributions of coauthor Turley are unclear. Perhaps the biggest drawback of the tale told here is that the story of the Dead after Garcia is less interesting than the story of the Dead with Garcia. This account is more about scattered individuals and a corporation dealing with a new business model than the evolution of a band. VERDICT For Deadheads only and not all will be interested. Better starting points would be Dennis McNally's definitive A Long Strange Trip, David Browne's So Many Roads; or Blair Jackson and David Gans's This Is All a Dream We Dreamed.--Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

What happened after the long, strange trip ended--and then continued.When Jerry Garcia, the legendary guitarist and de facto frontman of the Grateful Dead, died in 1995, the surviving band members chose to dissolve the band that had toured since 1965. Deadheads the world over were despondent, but it didn't take long for the "Core Four"--bassist Phil Lesh, rhythm guitar player Bob Weir, and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart--to resume playing in various configurations. In his latest book, San Francisco Chronicle pop music journalist Selvin (Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day, 2016, etc.) digs into the ups and downs of the 20 years following Garcia's death. Die-hard fans will know most of the stories, but the author does a credible job navigating the countless permutations (RatDog, Further, the Other Ones, Phil and Friends, The Dead) and the revolving door of musicians (Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby, Steve Kimock, Trey Anastasio, among others) who played with the remaining members from 1995 through the momentous Fare Thee Well 50th anniversary shows in 2015. Those shows set a record for a concert by a single band, bringing in more than $50 million, demonstrating the remarkable staying power of the Grateful Dead. Though Selvin is "no Deadhead," he has seen his fair share of shows, and his job at the Chronicle brought him into contact with the members numerous times across the decades. He has also done his homework, interviewing all of the major--and many minor--players involved in the band's history. Much of the narrative is a litany of endless bickering among the surviving members, rocky terrain that the author handles capably, albeit in workmanlike prose. The book lacks the grace of a Greil Marcus, but the pages turn quickly enough to engage readers intrigued by the Dead's mystique.For Deadheads, sure, but also rock fans who may wonder where the road led after Jerry died.

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