Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip [Hardcover]

Robert Hunter (Author), Stephen Peters (Author), Chuck Wills (Author), Dennis McNally (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

This definitive, illustrated biography of the Grateful Dead is also a nostalgic history of psychedelia, the West Coast sound, and American counterculture. The book's unique, encyclopedic, timeline format tells the real story of the band from childhood to the present day, incorporating rare and unseen photography which captures pivotal moments, both large and small. Seminal posters, memorabilia, and ephemera; personal essays that give revealing insights into life in the band and on the road; and all the facts -- biographies of the band members, all the albums and key songs, and every tour date ever played -- ensure that Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip will appeal to generations of "Deadheads" everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A behemoth of a book, Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip isn't cheap (especially the limited-edition slipcase edition). But Grateful Dead devotees should think in terms of its per-pound price. Tipping the scales at over 15 pounds, it's priced more like hamburger than steak. Make no mistake, however--this is a porterhouse of a book. Weighty, lushly illustrated, and thorough, the collaboration (spearheaded by longtime band publicist Dennis McNally and stalwart Dead chronicler Blair Jackson, among others) is constructed around an annotated timeline that runs from the 1940 birth of the band's oldest member, Phil Lesh, (the following notation concerns the assassination of Leon Trotsky) through the Dead comeback shows of the summer of 2003. Striving to capture the tenor of the times as well as the development of the group, vignettes capture seemingly everyone and everything that came into the orbit of Jerry Garcia and company, from the rise of the underground press through the links between the Dead and hip-hop nations (which pretty much begin and end with a shared affection for weed). Great fun to scan and visually dizzying (thanks to more than 2,000 photos and other pieces of artwork), this is the Dead coffee table book to end all Dead coffee table books. --Steven Stolder

From Booklist

The Dead book is a group project put together by the likes of Dennis McNally, author of A Long Strange Trip [BKL Ag 02], and Blair Jackson, editor of the fondly remembered GD fanzine The Golden Road. Augmenting their efforts are a rambling time line constructed by rock scribe Chuck Willis, many boxed features, lotsa colorful illustrations, and capsule descriptions of standout Dead shows as selected by "proto-taper" and Dead discographer Ihor Slabicky, whose criteria were "long extended jams" and "uniqueness" rather than historic considerations. Coverage runs from the earliest performances of the Warlocks (the band's earlier name) through the Grateful Dead years and on to the band's two post-Jerry Garcia incarnations, the Other Ones and the Dead. Comprehensive, terminally upbeat, and nostalgic as all get out. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT; 1st edition (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789499630
• ISBN-13: 978-0789499639
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 10 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye candy for a long, strange trip, March 27, 2004

By 

Kirk McElhearn "Freelance writer and translator" (A town in the French Alps) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Hardcover)

What can you say about an illustrated book about the Dead? It's fun, disjointed, fragmentary, but it fits perfectly with the Dead and their style of living and music-making. In the usual Dorling Kindersly style, this book contains lots of sidebars with illustrations all over the place. There's no narrative, other than time itself. The timeline, that is the thread through this book, moves from the earliest days to Jerry's death and beyond, covering the albums, important concerts, drug busts and all the other highlights of the Dead's career. If you are, or ever have been, a Deadhead, you'll want this book to leaf through while listening to live Dead shows.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just the Best!, December 2, 2003

By 

Anthony M. Zipple (Louisville, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Hardcover)

It is really a wonderful book. Clever, well written, and full of trivia and history organized chronologically. The forward by Robert Hunter is a special treat. The photos are varied and delightful, evoking images of a very special time and place. True, it is a little light on some of the less attractive parts of the history, but that seems OK in a book like this. And the photos are generally too small to do them justice, but they make up for the size in quantity. What is there is choice and makes for hours of fascinating reading. Just the thing to be enjoyed on a cold winter's evening with Europe 72 on the stereo and a hot drink in your hand. On balance, it is one of the few "must have" books for a Deadhead.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coffee Table Dead, December 10, 2007

By 

PHILIP S WOLF (SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CA. USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Hardcover)

This is a Large, Thick and Heavy Book.
Based on a Timeline that begins in 1940 and ends in 2003, this is Quite a Feast for the eyes. If you are New to the Music of The Grateful Dead and have never seen one of the other Hundreds of Books about The Band, this will fill you in on THOUSANDS of Details. If this Book was used as a Guide to bring you into the World that is The Grateful Dead, well... just be prepared to be Busy for a While.

For the Seasoned Head, lot's of this Information has been Covered elsewhere in the Past. But at the Same Time, here is just about everything there is all in One Place. The Visuals herein are Quite a Trip for your Head, and they are as much the Stars of this Massive Volume as the Twenty Tons of Dead Story contained within 480 Pages.

To sum it up...When they begin teaching: "Grateful Dead 101" at UC Berkeley, this will be the Textbook!
FIVE STARS !!!