Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead [Hardcover]

Steve Parish (Author), Joe Layden (Author), Bob Weir (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2003

The untold story of life on the road with the Grateful Dead, written by an insider who lived it from the early days to today.

Steve Parish was never one to walk the straight-and-narrow, even during his childhood growing up in Flushing Meadow, Queens. Busted as a teenager for selling acid in the summer of 1968, Parish landed in Riker's Island. The experience changed him and after getting out he did his best to stay out of trouble, securing a job moving music equipment at the New York State Pavilion. The first show he worked was a Grateful Dead concert in July of 1969 and Parish was captivated by the music. A life seemingly headed nowhere had suddenly found its calling as he fell in quickly with a band of likeminded misfits who formed the nucleus of what would be the greatest road crew in rock 'n' roll history.

Parish traveled to California where his apprenticeship began. Working for the band for free and learning his craft, Parish got to know Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Billy and Mickey and through the years their relationships forged an unbreakable bond. He became very close with Garcia in particular, acting as his personal roadie and later manager for his solo performances and Garcia Band shows. He was there during times of trouble (like when a pimp held Garcia hostage at gunpoint in a New York hotel room), spending hours by his bedside when Garcia was in a coma in 1986, and performing the duties of best man at his wedding. He was also the last friend to see Garcia alive.

Throughout the Dead's historic run, there were parties of biblical proportion and celebrity run-ins with everybody from Bob Dylan to Frank Sinatra--but there was a dark side to life on the road and tragedy didn't just strike the musicians.

But Home Before Daylight is a story of friendship, of music and redemption. It is a piece of music history, one that reflects the American spirit of adventure and brotherhood. Seen through Steve Parish's eyes and experiences, The Grateful Dead's wild ride has never been so revealing.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The life of rock band roadie would hardly inspire the likes of say, Emile Zola. But Steve Parish's 30+ year tenure with the Grateful Dead, the Jerry Garcia Band, and its survivors makes for compelling reading, even if his low-key, often self-deprecating reportorial style can't hope to begin to unravel the complex psychology that drove the symptomatic excesses---and all too many tragedies--of the 60's most enduringly emblematic American band. There's more here than sex, drugs, and rock and roll, even if Parish's writing struggles to encompass the meaning of it all. And make no mistake; The Dead and their coterie were, in the estimation of unlikely Deadhead Joseph Campbell, nothing short of potent modern mythology evolving before his very eyes. In the fallout of one memorable backstage incident, the author even found himself parodied by John Belushi in an SNL skit written by Deadheads Al Franken and Tom Davis. Parish casts little judgment on the oft-debauched actions of his cohorts here, though he often stops to note the brightness of their humanity. A paradoxical marriage of unrestrained hedonism and radical Christian social conscience, The Dead's world seems to still baffle Parish. His continued wonderment at it all is one of the book's charms; his tortured sense of helplessness in the addiction-fueled decline and death of Jerry Garcia, its spiritual and musical leader, its most tragic mystery. --Jerry McCulley

Review

"One of the great literary works to emerge from the sometimes seamy backstage realm of rock 'n' roll road crews." - San Francisco Chronicle "The Grateful Dead was all about improvisation, and Steve spoke that language with a flourish" - Bob Weir, guitarist, the Grateful Dead --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031230353X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312303532
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A big-hearted book from a big-hearted, classy guy, September 17, 2003

By 

Andrew Macgowan, III (Rochester, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead (Hardcover)

Steve Parrish has been a justifiaby much-loved member of the Grateful Dead circle for decades, and this is why his book has been so anticipated. More than most, Parrish has earned the right to speak his peace. He's just a real, plain-spoken big-hearted fella - and it's this approach to writing his book (with Joe Layden) - as to why Parrish's book succeeds. Parrish manages to write with honesty but with compassion. For this reason many readers may prefer this simpler work over McNally's and Skully's books.

No, Steve Parish does not write with the sophistication and finesse of, say, Blair Jackson (still the best writer on the GD scene), it's the emotional directness that separates this book from many of the rest. True, there are a few minor inaccuracies with times and dates (believe me, you've seen worse). But it's the overall emotional quality of Parrish's stories and insights, for me at least, that I found more compelling than some of the other, more polished works that have come out. And don't let the plain-spoken nature of this book fool you: There are numerous observations, anecdotes and insights (I wish there were more), that only Steve Parrish could deliver (the meeting with Garcia and Sinatra is a riot).

So for those of us who loved the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Phil, Bobby and the rest of the crew, and for whom the emotional quality of the band mattered (and matters) more than anything else, Parrish's effort is one of the better ones there at this time. Recommended.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some interesting stories, but ultimately disapointing, December 9, 2004

By 

[e-mail] (SoCal, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead (Hardcover)

As an avid reader of all Dead-related literature, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in a big chain bookstore in NYC. Talk about no publicity. The people who were supposed to be marketing this book should be fired because none of the Deadheads I know had ever heard of it (for proof just note that this is the first Amazon review after more than a year in print).

While there are a number of cool stories about life on the road with the band, this is just as much a book about the author's life, and frankly, who cares? It's very poorly written, even with a ghost writer. Parish provides endless details about how many groupies he and the rest of the crew consumed and equally endless details about how much pot and other drugs they ingested. Don't get me wrong, I actually like reading that kind of stuff, but I kept hoping for deeper insight and it never came.

This is a guy who spent 30 years with the most creative musical genius (Garcia) and band (the Dead) ever to come down the rock and roll road, yet strangley there isn't a single story about the MUSIC itself, and what made it so special, or about the creative activities of the band as they made songs and uplifted several generations of fans. I think there may be only one song title mentioned. Perhaps he smoked so much pot that he forgot a lot of the good that happened.

It's better than Rock Scully's turd, but only because it came from a place of real love for Garcia. At the end it was a sad feeling that it left with this reader.

Having said all that, Deadheads will find it worth reading, it's just not a book about the thing that really mattered: the music. Fortunately, the music survived, and the spirit carries on.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Quick Read but a big letdown overall, October 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead (Hardcover)

I think the major problem with this book is that readers will buy the book to learn new insights about Garcia & the Dead. What they will get is few new insights that haven't already been written about but plenty of info on Parish's life as a roadie and his sexcapades. Who really cares about that. We all know that every band and roadie has drank to oblivion, partied harder than most, slept with groupies in multiple combinations. What we want to know is interesting stories about Garcia and the DeAD. While there are some good stories and insights, they are few and far between.

I too have read every book about the band and was looking foward to reading this book for months. I read the entire book in 2 days. There was some new insight into what a great guy Weir is. How Weir hated the Hells Angels. How Mickey was the most difficult memeber of the band. There is also some more sad confirmation of what a Heroin addict Garcia was for most of the last 25 years of his life. From Parish's inside position with Garcia and the band there could have been another 300 pages of good stories. Don't blame Parish for how poorly written this book is though, blame his co-author Joe Layden who wrote the Chuck Zito Hells Angels book. Another piece of quickly written but entertaining trash.