Grateful DeadThe Grateful Dead was a famous rock and roll band. During the 1960s, the group had a following called the "dead heads". The Deadheads were a bunch of druggies. Jerry Garcia played an important role in this group before his life-threatening health problems surfaced. The Grateful Dead was a band that made an impact on society by breaking the rules to build their careers. The Grateful Dead was a famous rock and roll band throughout the 1960s. They experienced many ups and downs during their life as a band. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann were all in the group. The Grateful Dead played a variety of music, but they were primarily a rock and roll band; blues, reggae, country, folk and space rock. The Grateful Dead played their first concert at Magoo's Pizza on May 5, 1965. At that time, they were known as the Warlocks. They realized after a while that there was another group called Warlocks. After changing their name from Warlocks to Grateful Dead, they played in San Jose, California. The place was called Ken Kesey's Acid Tests. The first performance ever recorded was by a fan at the Fillmore Auditorium on January 8, 1966. The name Grateful Dead means "the soul of a deceased person, or their angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, organized his burial. .” Everyone in the group agreed on this after Jerry Garcia told everyone about it after reading a dictionary. The term "Grateful Dead" appears in folk tales from various cultures. Owsley Stanley became the group's financial backer. Owsley bought them a house and sound equipment to practice on. Owsley was known as the "King of Acid" because he did a lot of drugs. The whole Grateful Dead band was on drugs. They played a lot middle of paper...around famous groups. They were an icon in the United States for trying to send people a message in their music that drugs are not bad. Jerry Garcia was a lead role in this group and they would not have been as successful without him. The Grateful Dead made rock and roll history from all of these points. Works Cited “Grateful Dead,” keno, website Kenos Classic Rock N Roll, 2014, website, April 16, 2014 “The Grateful Dead,” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone; Jann S. Wenner. Edition And publisher, 2014, web, April 16, 2014. “The Grateful Dead Biography”, Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 2014, web, April 16, 2014 “Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny”, AllMusic, AllMusic A Division of All Media Network, LLC, 2014, Web, April 16, 2014 « Why the Grateful Dead were the greatest American rock band:, BlogCritics, BlogCritics, 2014, Web, April 16 2014