ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Today is the end of a weeklong annual celebration by Grateful Dead fans known as the Days Between. That's between the date of Jerry Garcia's birthday and the date of his death in August 1995. And we have with us here in the studio, Felix Contreras, wearing, of course, a tie-dye shirt.
FELIX CONTRERAS, BYLINE: (Laughter).
SCHMITZ: He's one of several very dedicated Deadheads here at NPR. Felix, welcome.
CONTRERAS: Hey. Thanks for having me, man.
SCHMITZ: So tell us why this summer the Days Between celebration was just a little bit different.
CONTRERAS: OK, it's the first time in 61 years that there are no summer tours by any of the principal original members, and it's especially noteworthy after the passing of Bob Weir, who was one of those original members, in January of this year. My NPR music colleague, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, and I decided to hit the road to take stock of the band's legacy. So early in the summer, we went to Monte Rio, California, for a festival headlined by Grahame Lesh, who is the son of original member Phil Lesh, playing Grateful Dead music in a small amphitheater along the Russian River in Northern California.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GRAHAME LESH AND THE WOLFPACK: (Singing) I will get by. I will get by.
CONTRERAS: That's the band playing "Touch Of Grey," Phil - Grahame Lesh and friends playing "Touch Of Grey." You know, we were surrounded by tons of folks that were just so excited about keeping the Grateful Dead style of music alive and, most of all, the community of fans that keep it going, all of this in the shade of beautiful redwood trees.
SCHMITZ: Felix, this is - how did you get this assignment?
(LAUGHTER)
SCHMITZ: This is awesome. So as part of your reporting, you did a callout to listeners to learn how they became Deadheads. And I'm just curious, what did you hear?
CONTRERAS: You know, we heard from people from all walks of life, from farmers to West Point graduates, and the answers reflected that variety of personal connection to the band's songbook. Everybody has a different story.
SCHMITZ: Right.
CONTRERAS: Here's Gia Pisto, who sent us this from Columbia, Missouri.
GIA PISTO: My sister was actually a big fan of the Grateful Dead in the early '90s. And when she died in 2011, we gathered and we sang "Brokedown Palace" in her memory. And I can't really speak the words to fully describe what I feel when I listen to the Dead or even see a bumper sticker on a fellow fan's car. But I can say that I feel my sister.
CONTRERAS: Very emotional connections coming from Gia Pisto.
SCHMITZ: Yeah.
CONTRERAS: While listener Jim LaBrie showed how a random guy sitting next to him at a concert helped him see the light.
JIM LABRIE: The Dead began playing "He's Gone." But I was confused by the song being played at a much slower tempo. I quickly asked my new friend, why are they playing it so slowly? He sort of half-smiled and looked at me and said, are you in a hurry? Right then, I was hooked.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHMITZ: "Brokedown Palace," "He's Gone," those are two of my favorite Dead songs. I mean, the band, of course, has an incredible musical legacy, but they were also influential in sort of nonmusical ways. What did you discover about that?
CONTRERAS: You know, one of the stops we made was to the library at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which holds the band's "papers," and I'm using air quotes on that, OK?
SCHMITZ: Their papers?
CONTRERAS: Because the band left a visual bread trail of things like the newsletters they sent to fans in the early '70s - they also created a ticket agency. They sold their own tickets, and the fans sent in elaborately designed envelopes along with their money orders for tickets. Those are also in the collection, which also includes the mid-'60s early psychedelic concert posters, which reflect a major countercultural artistic shift that the band was part of back then.
SCHMITZ: I mean, those posters are legend. I mean, I hear there's also a vault of recordings somewhere, right?
CONTRERAS: The band - check this out. The band recorded just about every single concert they ever played in the 30 years before Jerry Garcia died. And all of those recordings - plus tape of their studio albums, unreleased tracks, other recorded music - is in a vault administered by Rhino Entertainment.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT")
GRATEFUL DEAD: (Singing) Whoo, Saturday night, one more Saturday night, now.
CONTRERAS: And once a year, they release an elaborately designed multi-CD box set, featuring specific tours, venues, cities or shows.
(SOUNDBITE OF GRATEFUL DEAD SONG, "ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT")
CONTRERAS: And what we're hearing right now is from the iconic...
SCHMITZ: "Saturday Nights" (ph).
CONTRERAS: ...May 8, 1977, show in Barton Hall on the Cornell campus, "5/8/77." The - that recording, by the way, was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2012. They say that they accepted it because of its cultural and historical significance.
SCHMITZ: Amazing. I mean, we mentioned earlier that your goal was to learn who and what will carry the band's legacy. What conclusion did you and Isabella land on there?
CONTRERAS: You know, we kept coming across the idea and the fact that the music will survive in as many different ways as there are people who will listen, whether by Grateful Dead cover bands or other groups in the jam band scene. But what pulls all this together is the community created when you're in a crowd listening to Grateful Dead songs. And that's this band creates a camaraderie unlike any I've - a camaraderie, rather, unlike any I've ever experienced. It's really about shared ethos, a shared history and the songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RIPPLE")
GRATEFUL DEAD: (Singing) If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine and my tunes were played...
CONTRERAS: There are lessons in the lyrics that are both celebrations and meditations, like in this song, like "Ripple," which you're hearing now, which is full of beautiful poetry. And that wordless chorus at the end creates community the moment you sing along with it, whether in a stadium full of other true believers or at an open mic in a local cafe.
SCHMITZ: That was one of my favorites. That was NPR's Felix Contreras, host of Alt.Latino. And for more of Felix's reporting, the Grateful Dead's legacy lives on at the NPR app. Head to the music tab and check out the full series playlist, featuring all of Felix and Isabella's reporting. It's called The Ripple Effect, of course. Felix, thanks so much for coming in today.
CONTRERAS: Thanks for having me, man. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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