Monday, May 11, 2015

Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger

Just discovered this blog today, courtesy of David Browne and Tales of the Golden Road on Facebook. Was DELIGHTED to read the following review of No Simple Highway.

Richardson, Peter. 2015. No Simple Highway: A Cultural History of the Grateful Dead. New York: St. Martin's Press.
--Essential, canonical source. Loved this book, a great, rich read, a beautiful set of three long narratives through the themes of ecstasy, mobility and community--exceptionally well conceived and executed. I learned a lot about the San Francisco avant-garde scene, and Wally Hedrick in particular, that I did not know--this is bedrock cultural material for Garcia. I learned a few new things about the Dead, in part via Richardson's work at the amazing GD Archives at UC Santa Cruz, but also just by novelly composing materials that I thought I already should have known ... It struck me in Richardson's hands as a fresh angle that cast some very interesting light, beautifully rendered, well-written stories. I hope this book gets read by more than Deadheads, but by anyone who is interested in digging a little more deeply into postwar American culture.

Man, I hope that "canonical" thing catches on.

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