I've been listening a lot to SirusXM's Grateful Dead channel lately, and I remembered seeing them on UHF ages ago on Hugh Hefner's "Playboy After Dark". Hef asks Jerry if they can "do a number", and they oblige with two of the most lyrical pieces they ever produced. Jerry in his serape, Hef in tux and pipe, but it was good exposure and where else did you see the Dead on TV in 1969? Was that Barbi Benton with Hef? He tried to promote her as a country singer a few years later.
Except for the very first album, I bought them through "American Beauty". I was not a Deadhead who hit the pause button on life to follow a tour, and I was not enamored of 45-minute jams in the middle of songs. Their longevity was amazing considering all that they did to themselves over the years.
Recently I read an opinion that said their 1980's resurgence served as a counterpoint to the Reagan Years. That may well be so; interesting since the band came out of the time when Reagan was governor of California.
It will indeed be an end of an era when the surviving band members bring the curtain down with dignity this weekend. The Stones roll on, even with personnel changes, half of the Who is gone, but there are tours. But it is all about the music, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx6OAfvlxTs
Except for the very first album, I bought them through "American Beauty". I was not a Deadhead who hit the pause button on life to follow a tour, and I was not enamored of 45-minute jams in the middle of songs. Their longevity was amazing considering all that they did to themselves over the years.
Recently I read an opinion that said their 1980's resurgence served as a counterpoint to the Reagan Years. That may well be so; interesting since the band came out of the time when Reagan was governor of California.
It will indeed be an end of an era when the surviving band members bring the curtain down with dignity this weekend. The Stones roll on, even with personnel changes, half of the Who is gone, but there are tours. But it is all about the music, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx6OAfvlxTs
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