I have to admit that I was not a big fan of "The Dead." They had a few songs I like a lot of course, but I was always more of a split personality music wise between folk and folk derivatives, and straight forward rock in the form of both the Southern Boys (Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Almond Brothers, the Georgia Satellites etc.) and a host of other regional sounds (Bachman Turner Overdrive, Three Dog Night, Styx, Little Feet etc). With regular forays with the Brits into everything from Pink Floyd, The Who and Ten Years After.
The Dead were, after all, a band best appreciated as a live performance group as each was a thing unto itself, something my cousins were always trying to impress upon me. The one thing, though, that you really had to admire about them was their "Wall of sound." Something matched only, if at all, by Pink Floyd when they played the King Dome in Seattle back in the eighties (defying the notorious bad acoustics to a degree not thought possible until then).
In any case, though, I celebrate their 50 year anniversary with the true "Dead Heads" everywhere if, for no other reason, than the fact that even ordinary rockers, or folk singer wanna-be's, appreciate pumping out the big sound, regardless of the genera behind it.
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