Searching for the Sound

It wasn't rock music or jazz or blues, but some kind of genre-busting rainbow polka-dot hybrid mutation. . . or so says Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh in describing the band's trippy sound. Fortunately, narrator Nick Landrum, a musician himself, seems attuned to the same cosmic vibe, and the effect is as bracing as a motorcycle ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. Landrum's sardonic delivery matches Lesh's whimsical narrative perfectly. From the band's origins in the San Francisco Bay area to the drug-related tragedies that later claimed the lives of so many related to the band, Landrum pulls off a convincing portrayal. A long, strange trip indeed. J.S.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine