Origin of a Deadhead

NPR is doing a series of podcasts and stories on Deadheads: Legacy and Future of the Grateful Dead fandom

I wrote a script and recorded a voice memo and submitted it to them. I doubt they’ll use it, but I had fun writing it and recording it. I’m sharing it here:

I’m Scott, from Atlanta, Georgia.

I became a Deadhead in St. Louis in the late 1970s. I knew the hits, but the Grateful Dead weren’t one of my top 10 bands.

Then I heard a local cover band, Jake’s Leg, play “Not Fade Away” into “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad.”

Hearing those songs flow together, almost becoming one piece of music, changed something for me. That was the hook, the transitions: always a little different, always fascinating, and almost always seamless.

I saw the Dead 23 times before Jerry’s death in 1995, without ever seeing a bad show or hearing the same set list twice.

I also got into tape trading. We exchanged lists and mailed recordings, but what I remember most was the generosity. If you asked kindly and covered postage, someone might send you a show just to keep the music moving. We called that “turning the wheel” — an early version of paying it forward.

For Christmas 2024, my wife, definitely not a Deadhead, gave me tickets to see Dead & Company at the Sphere. We went in May 25. She says she could have died peacefully without ever experiencing “Drums and Space,” but she had a great time. We still cherish the memory, and wear the swag.

I don’t know where this music goes next. But it has always found a way to move from one song, one show, and one generation into the next.

When it finds its next transition, I’ll be there.

Here’s the voice memo I recorded: