Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of Mc, Kernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band remained together for its entire 30-year history. The other main members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 19681970), John Perry Barlow (non-performing lyricist; 19711995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards, occasional vocals; 19711979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 19721979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 19791990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 19901995).
After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, in addition to other artists, visited 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 efficiencies together.
Formation (19651966) [edit] The Grateful Dead in 1980. Delegated right: Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Dam, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh. Not visualized: I Found This Interesting . The Grateful Dead began their career as The Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother Mc, Cree's Uptown Container Champions.
They continued playing bar shows, like Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go in Hayward and, importantly, 5 sets a night, 5 nights a week, for six weeks, at the In Space in Belmont as the Warlocks, but rapidly changed the band's name after learning that a various band called The Warlocks had put out a record under the same name.
Previously demo tapes have made it through, however the very first of over 2,000 concerts known to have actually been tape-recorded by the band's fans was a program at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on January 8, 1966. Later that month, the Grateful Dead played at the Trips Celebration, a three-day psychedelic rock weekend party/event produced by Ken Kesey, Stewart Brand name, and Ramon Sender, that, in combination with the Merry Pranksters, brought together the nascent hippie movement for the very first time.
According to Phil Lesh," [Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... Because silvery elf-voice he stated to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing appreciation to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial".