Formed in 2015, Dead and Company was a “project” band put together by surviving Grateful Dead members Bobby Weir on guitar/vocals, Mickey Hart on percussion, and Bill Kruetzmann on drums. The band was joined by long time Bobby Weir sidekick Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and former Allman Brothers Band and ARU bassist Oteil Burbridge. The lineup was completed with the force of guitarist/singer John Mayer to the surprise of all.
Dead and Company hit the road and for the next 7 years or so would play countless shows and eventually see themselves achieving popular status close to that of the Grateful Dead themselves. To many, myself included, Dead and Company was the greatest display of the legacy of Grateful Dead music since the passing of Jerry Garcia and it was never not a mindblowing show. I
2023 saw the band embark on their final tour. Drummer Bill Kruetzmann parted ways with the band and was replaced by longtime Bobby Weir (and former Primus drummer) Jay Lane. The band played the best shows of their 7 year run and ended things with a three night run in San Francisco on July 14, 15, and 16.
This essay is dedicated to the legacy of the Grateful Dead which was carried out so gracefully by Dead and Company along with a bit of history in there as well. I hope you’ll enjoy this one, A Band Beyond Description: Dead and Company
Thank You For a Real Good Time: Dead and Company – A Band Beyond Description
“They’re a band beyond description.” This line from the Grateful Dead song “The Music Never Stopped” unintentionally became the best way to describe the music and the band. The Grateful Dead was formed in 1965 with original members Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kruetzmann, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Unlike many of their peer bands, such as Big Brother & the Holding Company, the Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, The Grateful Dead was not content on riding on one signature style. The Grateful Dead incorporated elements of blues, bluegrass, rock, and even improvisational acid jazz to forge a sound that no band could imitate, regardless of how hard they tried.
Following the death of founding member Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the Grateful Dead’s surviving founding members continued to forge ahead and, in my opinion, from 1972 – 1978, made the best music of their long career. This lineup featured co-vocalist Donna Jean Godcheaux and her husband Keith Godcheaux on piano/organ. This era performed some of the band’s most known and revered live performances. Donna Jean and Keith parted ways with the band in 1979. The 80s era brought in a new keyboard player/vocalist named Brent Mydland. Brent won the hearts of many Deadheads around while folks like me were not a fan of his Michael McDonald/Yacht Rock kind of delivery.
Brent Mydland passed away of a drug overdose on July 26, 1990, shortly after completing the Grateful Dead’s summer tour. After his passing, Vince Welnick, former keyboardist for the Tubes, joined as a band member, while Bruce Hornsby, who had a successful career with his band the Range, joined as a touring member. Both performed on keyboards and vocals—Hornsby mainly from 1990 to 1992 and Welnick until the band’s end. The Grateful Dead performed its final concert on July 9, 1995, at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The 80s and into the 90s was a rough period for the Dead. The band was exhausted from years of touring, and the “little band from San Fran” was now an operational machine with many moving parts. Taking a break wasn’t an option for the Dead, as they felt fully obligated to keep their crew members financially secure while not seeing much in the way of money for themselves. Additionally, Jerry Garcia’s intensified and growing addiction to heroin ultimately took a toll. Jerry passed away on August 9th, 1995, and with that… the Dead was, for a better sense of the word, dead.
The legacy of the Grateful Dead’s music was just too important to so many people just to get left in the dust, and what followed was a series of spinoff bands featuring various surviving members of the Grateful Dead. Bobby Weir had Ratdog, Mickey Hart had his world music/percussion-led groups Mystery Box and Planet Drum and Rhythm Devils with former drum partner Bill Kruetzmann, and Phil Lesh led his Phil Lesh and Friends band, which featured a revolving door of notable musicians such as Joan Osborne, Ryan Adams, and Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson to name a few and Bill Kruetzmann himself had his band Billy and the Kids.
Some of these bands participated in what became an annual tour called Further Festival, billed as a celebration of the spirit of the Grateful Dead featuring the members’ own projects performing songs of the Grateful Dead. In 1998, the first collabortive band comprised of Grateful Dead members was formed, calling themselves The Other Ones after the song of the same name. This lineup also had a revolving door of guests but concentrated on founding Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart. This was a great start in forging forward as a “unit” of original members and young blood. While a decent representation of the Dead’s music, The Other Ones fell short of being great because there seemed to be no real connection between the artists on stage.
In 2023, The Other Ones changed their name to THE DEAD but this time around brought in a stronger collective of musicians such as Allman Brothers Band/Gov’t Mule guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes and former ARU and future WSP guitarist Jimmy Herring. The band would be active from 2003 to 2009 performing in arenas, festivals, and in support of presidential candidate Barack Obama for a performance billed as “Deadheads for Obama) on October 13, 2008. In 2009, Bobby Weir and founding Grateful Dead member/bassist Phil Lesh would form another project band called Furthur. This is where they jumped the shark.
Furthur was a horrible idea featuring a Grateful Dead tribute band vocalist/guitarist who eventually became known as “Fake Jerry” (for better or worse.) Throughout the years, Phil and Friends and Ratdog seemed to be the longest running post-Dead bands. While all these project bands were forming and touring, the Grateful Dead moniker was never used after the death of Jerry Garcia. In 2015, the surviving members, along with keyboardist Jeff Chementi, pianist Bruce Hornsby, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio on guitar and vocals, officially laid to rest the Grateful Dead name with a three-show run in Chicago dubbed Fare Thee Well.
I attended the run’s final night, July 6th, 2015, and it was a bittersweet moment. In classic Grateful Dead form, the show was spotty, featuring some truly great moments and moments that were absolute cringe—the cringe moments mainly involved hearing both Phil Lesh and Trey Anastasio butcher those songs vocally. That being said, the heart, the love, and the respect for the legacy of the Dead were present. The energy from the stage and the fans were electrifying, and it was an unforgettable experience. It had us all wondering what would happen next. Would we go back to getting Ratdog and Phil and Friends shows? Would Planet Drum continue to tour smaller theaters? We were about to get something that none of us saw coming from a mile away.
In 2015, it was announced that founding Grateful Dead members Bobby Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kruetzmann, and Mickey Hart would be joined by long-time Bobby Weir keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, former Allman Brothers/Aquarium Rescue Unit bassist Oteil Burbrudge, and oddly enough, pop singer/songwriter John Mayer. Yeah, you know the guy. Your Body Is a Wonderland. That guy. How the hell was this going to work, and was it going to work? The internet was a buzz with this news, and Deadheads expressed all aspects of feelings: curiosity, joy, confusion, pessimism, and optimism.
It was curiosity, yet I was open-minded to something different but John Mayer? Don’t get me wrong, that boy is a badass on the guitar, but how would he compliment the Dead’s music with his voice and playing style? This is sacred ground he was about to tread upon, yet I still felt like this could be a massive fucking trainwreck. I mean, these guys, at one time, hired John Kadlecik, the singer/guitarist for Grateful Dead tribute band Dark Star Orchestra. This was one of the most idiotic things they could’ve done at that point, and it was terrible. So remembering this, I started to find myself less optimistic.
A fall tour was announced for Dead and Company, and who the fuck was I kidding? I was not going to miss this. Curiosity got the best of me, and besides, why would I pass up any opportunity to see a live representation of the Grateful Dead’s music? So me and my good friend/show partner Bert picked up tickets for the Greensboro, NC, show on November 14, 2015. By the time the show got to us, we had already been listening to shows from earlier in the tour, and I was blown away.
Dead and Company took the music of the Grateful Dead and represented it in a way I had never heard from any of the previous projects. That night in Greensboro, the band came out and hit the stage opening with “Hell In a Bucket,” by the time that song was over, I felt like I was home again. I had that same feeling when I first heard the Grateful Dead for the first time (Cornell 5/8/1977 on cassette; Maxell XL II). The songs were exciting, and for the first time, to be honest, it felt right. All eras of the Dead’s legacy were covered and done so with such grace and respect. The band themselves was a unit, and there was a connection happening, and while it still seemed a bit “young,” I knew that Dead and Company would grow into something extraordinary.
Over the course of nearly eight years, Dead and Company would be met with lots of praise and criticism from Deadheads. Some, like myself, enjoyed and loved it with all our hearts. Others found a zillion things to complain about. From the slower tempo of the songs to John Mayer being there to ticket prices (which weren’t all that outrageous). It was entertaining to watch so many people bitching, yet with every passing year, and they seemed to be drawn into the magic of this band.
From starting in not sold out arenas to sold-out stadiums all over the US, Dead and Company decided to stop while they were on top of their game. After nearly eight years, in 2023, Dead and Company announced that they would be touring for the last time. The last couple of tours had original drummer Bill Kruetzmann sitting out or playing incomplete sets due to health issues. Stepping in to save the day was long-time Bobby Weir drummer Jay Lane. What Jay Lane brought to the fold was something truly remarkable and exciting. The songs were punchy, and the tempo increased a bit,
Dead and Company gave us all years of incredible live shows, classic Grateful Dead gems that hadn’t been played in quite a while, and most of all, the love, camaraderie, and happiness that came with gatherings of the tribe of Deadheads. We laughed, cried, smiled, and danced, but most of all, we loved what Dead and Company gave us.
Dead and Company grew and grew, eventually sounding like their own band. The energy and the vibe of the Grateful Dead were there, but instead of trying to replicate it poorly like some of the other projects, Dead and Company found a way to have their voice. The songs were treated delicately and with so much honor, yet the band felt comfortable taking risks, orchestrating, and exploring new improvisational sections that covered aspects of jazz, blues, and reggae. For me, as a long-time Deadhead, this excited me and made the songs interesting and, at times, unpredictable.
My last two Dead and Company shows were on July 7th and 8th, 2023, at the legendary Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State. This tour was called the best run this band had done to date. Because of their comfort level and confidence as a band, Dead and Company played with no restraints at all, and the performances were bold, exciting, and even daring at times.
2015 – 2023. What a time to be a Deadhead. It was an exciting time for me and my friends, and Dead and Company’s audience was the most diverse I had ever seen. At the Gorge, I ran into a family that asked me to take a photo of them, and one of them said, “This is four generations of Deadheads.” I think the youngest of them was maybe 16 at most. I asked the young lady about the music of the Dead, and she told me that this was her first time seeing Dead and Company but that she had loved the music of the Grateful Dead since she was a small child. “It took me a while, but it finally made me feel something, and now I can’t stop listening to them. I’m bummed this is their last tour, but I’m glad I’m here.”
Dead and Company was, without a doubt, a band beyond description. The music played them they played the music, and they made me happy. In my 30 years as a Deadhead, this was the most magical time for me and an era I will never forget. What will happen next? Who knows. There is a lot of speculation and rumors, but I’m still basking in the afterglow of it all. Dead and Company was a true testament to the healing power of the Grateful Dead. Their contribution and expansion of the Grateful Dead legacy will never be forgotten. Thank you, Dead and Company, for a real good time.
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