On May 8th, 1977, the Grateful Dead played what many consider, one of their best shows ever. It’s certainly is one of their most famous, that being their show at Barton Hall at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Why the big…
As a music nerd I always got a kick when a musician you love and admire plays with another one of your musical heroes. It’s especially cool when it actually sounds as good as you hoped it would. Such is…
This is not the first time I’ve talked about the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast (see https://roymusicusa.com/2020/10/12/playing-to-the-tide-the-good-ol-grateful-deadcast-deep-dive-into-workingmans-dead/ and https://roymusicusa.com/2021/06/13/skull-roses-the-grateful-dead-as-we-know-them-today/) but the two recent episodes below hit a particularly special note with me (pun intended). They talk about the Grateful Dead as…
I have written previously about The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, the official Grateful Dead podcast (see https://roymusicusa.com/2020/10/12/playing-to-the-tide-the-good-ol-grateful-deadcast-deep-dive-into-workingmans-dead/). The first two seasons went into deep dives of the classic Grateful Dead albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty respectively. For season three,…
On Christmas Day, 2020, guitarist Tony Rice passed away at the age of 69. Rice was a pivotal figure in bluegrass guitar. His music spanned from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New Acoustic music to songwriter-oriented folk. I first became aware…
Happy Holidays everyone, we made it through a year in hell. Weeping Willow Guitar Lessons is an excellent YouTube channel for Deadhead/ABB fan guitarists (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSqUU4fjNPVq6NvKtNIWKOQ). He’s been putting out some serious high quality content: solo transcriptions, breakdown of guitar parts…
As a musician and as a Deadhead, I have had on more than one occasion a conversation with non-Deadhead musicians who dismiss Jerry Garcia as someone who just plays scales up and down, someone who “noodles”. This pisses off Deadhead…
I had lunch the other day with my old friend Errol. Errol is an excellent guitarist and we have been in bands together on and off for about forty years. Errol is currently in an excellent Jam band based in…
This is a call back to a previous post (https://roymusicusa.com/2019/05/25/pictures-from-an-exhibition-the-instruments-of-rock-roll-at-the-met-part-iii/) where I talked about the custom made guitars of Jerry Garcia. Just recently while Dead & Company were playing here in NYC at Citi Field, John Mayer played Jerry Garcia’s…