The Grateful Dead

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  • Year:
    1994
  • Inducted by:
    Bruce Hornsby
  • Category:
    Performers

Introduction

No band embodied the psychedelic rock era's mind-expanding, counterculture vibe better than the Grateful Dead.

During marathon concerts marked by communal, peaceful atmospheres, the San Francisco troupe combined traditional genres such as folk, bluegrass and roots with experimental, freewheeling musical excursions.

Hall of Fame Essay

1994

Davin Seay

Evolution. Its a process measured in eons. But every so often, when a historic junc­ture is reached and critical mass achieved, evolution takes a breathtaking leap for­ward. In one moment, things are as they always were. In the next, they will never be the same again.

San Francisco. 1965. It was a time and place where the potent charge of rock & roll hotwired an epochal transformation, a gen­erational shift that set the world wobbling. Music was an express agent of that change, articulating and animating the social and spiritual convulsions shredding the air.

But as much as music was the midwife of sixties revolution, it was also being revolutionized, goosed up the  evolutionary lad­der by a once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of pilgrims and pioneers, staking out new frontiers of  consciousness along the rugged Western edge.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Program 1994
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The Dead has always been about artistic curiosity and freedom
Bruce Hornsby

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Collection

Tom Constanten Shirt, 1969

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Gallery

Photography: Kevin Mazur, WireImage