- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (3 July 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0349109206
- ISBN-13: 978-0349109206
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.7 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 988,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
This biography of The Grateful Dead is written by the band's manager of 20 years. His account of the band's evolution and excesses covers the life on the road and in concert, describing their appearance at Woodstock, complicated relationships, drug addictions and police busts.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rock Scully was a member of the Grateful Dead family almost from the beginning. Picked to manage them by their financier, Owsley Stanley, the LSD king, he rode the bus until he was gracelessly sacked for getting too involved with Jerry Garcia's escalating heroin addiction in 1982. This book is the only insider biography of the Dead I have seen - there are lots of outside ones - and makes fascinating reading. I was egotistically gratified to find that Scully agrees with me about the disposable nature of the Dead's first three albums - terribly produced as a result of being completely out of their nuts at the time. The bittersweet decline of Garcia, using Persian smoke as a way to keep his eye fixed steadily on the music and avoid the harsh realities of the rest of the world, will bring a tear to your eye as you realise that the battle-hardened band were incapable of (or uninterested in) really looking after each other.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Rock Scully was involved with the Dead from 1965 to 1985,with the exception of a prison sentance in the 1970s for trying to smuggle weed into the States-described in the book.He was sacked in 1985 for supposedly being a bad influence on jerry Garcia.
We all know Garcia was far from a neophyte when it come to drug use,but the latter half of the book,from 1976 onwards,when he falls ever deeper into heroin dependence,along with Scully,is an eye-opener,as well as being an indictment of the other band members.Both Garcia and the others could see they were in a rut creatively,that they were one long party for the Deadheads rather than innovating,and their having to come to terms with failure-from the Summer Of Love,when all appeared possible,to the grim reality of Reagan's America("Greed is Good")-all contributed to the band's descent into the trap of drugs,as well as their collective refusal to face up to to the above-mentioned problems.
The stories from the earlier years are funny and warm-hearted,and all the talk of the Dead's studio output shows the role of drugs in stifling their creativity,whereas the live shows seemed to liberate it.Being in a band with a leader who refused to lead-and face it,Garcia WAS the Dead-couldn't have been much fun for anyone in and around the band.
Well worth a read,and better than Scrib McInally's tome,which tries to evade contemplating the less-noble side of the band.
We all know Garcia was far from a neophyte when it come to drug use,but the latter half of the book,from 1976 onwards,when he falls ever deeper into heroin dependence,along with Scully,is an eye-opener,as well as being an indictment of the other band members.Both Garcia and the others could see they were in a rut creatively,that they were one long party for the Deadheads rather than innovating,and their having to come to terms with failure-from the Summer Of Love,when all appeared possible,to the grim reality of Reagan's America("Greed is Good")-all contributed to the band's descent into the trap of drugs,as well as their collective refusal to face up to to the above-mentioned problems.
The stories from the earlier years are funny and warm-hearted,and all the talk of the Dead's studio output shows the role of drugs in stifling their creativity,whereas the live shows seemed to liberate it.Being in a band with a leader who refused to lead-and face it,Garcia WAS the Dead-couldn't have been much fun for anyone in and around the band.
Well worth a read,and better than Scrib McInally's tome,which tries to evade contemplating the less-noble side of the band.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
44 reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Read this one first...
12 Feb 2006
Format:Hardcover
If you are wanting to read the "back story" behind the music and are just now starting your homework, let me suggest you start here. Why? Why here, when this is obviously a flawed, overly subjective work seen through a prism of chemical distortions, bringing us what are probably broken and incorrectly reassembled memories? Because this is a book you will finish. You will read this from cover to cover and most likely love it, and because this book is (more than any other out there) about the FUN of the Grateful Dead. That part gets left out - a lot.
Other reviewers are not wrong - the last half of this book is largely about Scully and Garcia's drug addiction. But it isn't, as is made clear, like everyone else was a health food nut. (Well, Bobby was, but that's beside the point.) And there is also a ton of history going on during this time, too. (For one thing, we learn some of the reasons that Bob Dylan was so devoted to Jerry and said such gracious things about him later.) But what made it all work, the glue that held it together, was the fact that this music was just so much more fun than anything else going on. This book is about that fun, and this book is fun to read. There aren't many books that have made me laugh harder.
Where you go after this is your own business: if you want to read a superb biography and perhaps the most important book of the whole genre, read the Garcia biography. "Dark Star" is heartbreaking but very insightful, and much of it makes "Living With The Dead" seem tame by comparison, as it is all first person interviews of persons involved. The McNally book is probably the completest, but is often as dry as toast and completely disengaged from the joy this band dispensed. So start here for fun, and to get a taste for what the life was like, and put a little color in the cheeks of all those black and white photographs.
And as to why this book doesn't get much into the music, it's because no book could get in to the music and talk about anthing else. Scully was not a Dead head - he would probably rather have seen a Stones concert any night. He worked for the band, he didn't follow them for love of the music. If you want to get inside the actual music, that's a whole separate library you need to read. We aren't talking about the songs, we're talking about the band, and this is as good a place as any to meet them, and better than most.
Other reviewers are not wrong - the last half of this book is largely about Scully and Garcia's drug addiction. But it isn't, as is made clear, like everyone else was a health food nut. (Well, Bobby was, but that's beside the point.) And there is also a ton of history going on during this time, too. (For one thing, we learn some of the reasons that Bob Dylan was so devoted to Jerry and said such gracious things about him later.) But what made it all work, the glue that held it together, was the fact that this music was just so much more fun than anything else going on. This book is about that fun, and this book is fun to read. There aren't many books that have made me laugh harder.
Where you go after this is your own business: if you want to read a superb biography and perhaps the most important book of the whole genre, read the Garcia biography. "Dark Star" is heartbreaking but very insightful, and much of it makes "Living With The Dead" seem tame by comparison, as it is all first person interviews of persons involved. The McNally book is probably the completest, but is often as dry as toast and completely disengaged from the joy this band dispensed. So start here for fun, and to get a taste for what the life was like, and put a little color in the cheeks of all those black and white photographs.
And as to why this book doesn't get much into the music, it's because no book could get in to the music and talk about anthing else. Scully was not a Dead head - he would probably rather have seen a Stones concert any night. He worked for the band, he didn't follow them for love of the music. If you want to get inside the actual music, that's a whole separate library you need to read. We aren't talking about the songs, we're talking about the band, and this is as good a place as any to meet them, and better than most.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
More Dead, not as much Garcia
19 Jan 2001
Format:Hardcover
I've read a ton of books on the Dead and this is my favorite so far in that it's more about the band than Garcia. Granted, there's a lot more about Garcia, but it's not as bad as some of the other books. I was thinking that I'd love to see a book written by Donna -- or any of the other members of the Dead. Hell, a quick essay by Tom Constantine would be great too! Scully tends to write more about the party atmosphere of the Grateful Dead. Great anecdotes and personal stories that you don't really find anywhere else. Things like "The Bobby Problem" had me giggling as I read... it's funny and chock full of good info. I definitely recommend it. The only thing this book is missing is more discussion of the music. Blair Jackson's "Garcia" handles this better, but there's still room for improvement. Overall, I've loved reading this book. A real pleasure for any fan of the Dead
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
What was it...If you can remember the sixties then you...
29 Aug 2003
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an immensely readable swashbuckling tale by the first mate on the good ship Grateful Dead for some years at least. The reader is transfixed by the gory tales of drug use and abuse of sex and life on the rock 'n' rollroad. You are mesmerized by tales of dosing everyone who came within reach with LSD and standing back and watching the reactions. With each page there is new excess and with every other page the narrator recounts some contact with the authorities or other and escapades of derring-do and close shaves.
What a long, strange trip indeed. Of course, the writers' credibility must be in question to some degree. Given his early confession of consuming many tabs of acid much of which of the strength and purity that only Owsley Stanley could muster, the exact occurrences must have some dubious quality about them.
As Joni Mitchell has pointed out sex sells along with lurid tales of goings on in the rock and roll universe. In this case the many references to under age sex with band members throughout the book are some of the obvious sensationalist traps used to entice the unwary reader.
The trouble is that it is so easy to read dammit and so many of us want to know more about what our anti-heroes get up to. And it must be true too because, you know, he was there when it all went down. Well there is that side of things but then how can you believe everything that you read?
My fascination with the Grateful Dead came about through listening to their music, on record and in performance. Whether I got to know anything about their private lives really had nothing to do with my enjoying their sounds. Sure they became celebrities and they got big and sure they as musicians were exposed to things that most people do not. But there is nothing new in that and they were not the first or will be the last to meet ferryman through drug use. The fact remains that most of the people who enjoyed the Dead enjoyed their music first and foremost even if they did like to party to it.
When I finally put this down I felt revulsion about how someone so close to his hero Jerry Garcia could lay bare his humanity so cruelly for all the world to see. Garcia may not have been a saint but did he have to see his dignity destroyed by one who purported to be his friend.
What is missing most from this book is the music and the relationships involved. If you want sensationalist stories dripping with lurid day-glo details then get this book now. If you want to know more about the man, men and their music read something else.
Rock Scully was an integral part of the Grateful Dead organisation for a long time. It is a pity that he did not do the justice to everyone in that organisation that they deserved.
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