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The Brent Mydland Years: An Appreciation of the Grateful Dead in the 1980’s

Due to popular demand here is another article from our August 2005 issue. Here longtime Grateful Dead journalist Blair Jackson, author of Garcia: An American Life and former editor of Golden Road, revisits an underappreciated era in the history of the group.

If you haven’t checked out our earlier installments, don’t miss our pieces on Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Owsley Stanley on a moment with the band in 1966.

Dick Latvala, the Grateful Dead’s famous vault-keeper and namesake of the Dick’s Picks series of historic Dead recordings he shepherded from its inception in 1994 until his death in 1999, once told me that he would be happy spending all his waking hours listening to Dead music recorded between 1968 and 1974. “There are a few shows from ’77 I love, a couple from ’78, various others scattered through the years, but I don’t need the other stuff. For me ’73-’74 was the peak.” And he laughed the deep, rumbly laugh of someone who had spent much of his life sucking on bongs and cigarettes.

This is not an uncommon view among older hard-core Deadheads—that the late ’60s and early ’70s represent the apex of the Dead’s career in terms of the quality of their songwriting, their onstage chemistry and the adventurousness of their playing. Fundamentally I agree with that assessment, too, and it’s not just because I first heard the band in 1969 and started going to shows regularly in the spring of ‘70, so that version of the band corresponds with my own Coming of Age. Clearly, the music of that era is a cut above.

But here’s a secret: I loved every period of Dead music, and I actually had more fun going to see the Dead in the 1980s than in the ‘70s. The ‘80s was a very different kind of Golden Age of the Dead: It was the era of the Dead’s greatest popular growth and of widespread networking among Deadheads; and creatively, it found the band moving in a number of interesting and compelling directions. The vast majority of Deadheads never saw Pigpen (who died in 1973), never saw Keith and Donna (who left in early 1979). No, for hundreds of thousands of Deadheads, the lineup with Brent Mydland on keyboards defined their live experience, and they loved that band with all the passion and mystical fervor of the few Heads who first encountered the psychedelic beast at the Carousel Ballroom in 1968 (or even earlier). And why not? The Dead with Brent was a great band, too, and obviously as capable of blowing minds as earlier incarnations had been. It was the perfect band for that time and those fans—for the decade of the staggering growth of the loose, laissez faire Deadhead counter-culture, and the concomitant rise of the band’s own commercial fortunes during a period when so many forces in American society were moving in the opposite direction, towards rigidity and conformity.

For a band that evolved gradually through the years, constantly adjusting to minor and major changes in personnel (T.C.’s brief tenure, Mickey leaving for five years, the Godchaux’s saga) the addition of Brent actually represented a fairly major shift in the group’s sound. The somewhat monochromatic keyboard approach of Keith Godchaux (particularly his last couple of years) was replaced by a much more colorful and insistent keyboard sound: Brent was a Hammond B-3 master of the first order and also adept at synthesizers; both opened up the Dead’s music to exciting new possibilities. He was a much better onstage singer, technically, than Donna Godchaux had been, so immediately the group’s harmonies took on a new power and vitality. He also was a dynamic performer, throwing himself into his singing and playing with abandon, his long blond hair flying with each emphatic pounding of the keys. Garcia, who was still at the beginning of a long slide into addiction when Brent joined the group, was clearly buoyed by his presence.

At the same time Brent was joining the band, there was a major transformation, too, in the percussion section. This wasn’t a personnel move; it was a shift in equipment and approach. In the early spring of 1979, Mickey Hart had been asked to create a percussion underscore for parts of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War film then in post-production, Apocalypse Now. Mickey responded to this challenge by assembling a huge number of percussion instruments from around the world and also having a number of custom ones built. He brought fellow “Rhythm Devils” Bill Kreutzmann, Greg Errico, Brazilians Flora Purim and Airto Moreira and others into the recording studio, and together they spent days exploring different aspects of the film’s story through percussion, jamming for hours on end. From small woodblocks and bells to giant frame drums and the marvelous contraption known as The Beam (which had piano wire stretched across and aluminum I-beam; when amplified it was perfect for simulating the sound of a napalm attack or other sinister sounds of war), they tapped into the primal power of the myriad instruments. The percussion journey didn’t end with that soundtrack, however. Mickey and Billy used the occasion of Brent’s joining the band to re-structure their percussion setup onstage, incorporating many of the instruments they had employed for the film, including The Beam, various gourds and shakers and the great circle of huge, thundering drums which became known as The Beast. From the first shows with Brent in the April of 1979 through the final Dead concert in July 1995, Hart and Kreutzmann completely re-defined the rock show “drum solo” by opening it up to the entire world of percussion and, in later years, using advanced electronics to alter the sound even more. It was music with roots as deep as mankind’s own, and with literally no boundaries. In the 1980s, the Rhythm Devils’ portion of the show, along with the group space jams that always followed, were some of the freest, most mind-bending music being made on planet Earth, and its legacy is as important as the Dead’s rockin’ side.

Comments

There are 12 comments associated with this post

thestarfactory1 November 24, 2011, 08:11:36

Taste the thunder of hen parties by entertaining at studios or celebrate children birthday at studio. Make your children experience popstar parties.

Rob November 25, 2011, 08:22:51

My active DH yrs. were from 84-95 at least for Live shows. I’d often head for the restroom or talk about setlist with fellow heads. I had often wondered what that device was called that Mickey was bending and stretching. The Beam you learn everyday. Thanks !!!

Manny G Lomas November 25, 2011, 14:59:24

This piece is essential Blair, in the literary post-Jerry cannon. Years from now, when the scene has birthed itself into the next incarnation, your work (and Scrib’s) will be the apex from which all academic endeavors shall be measured by. Thank you from a fellow dead-scholar for illuminating a path to a calling!

Briandrum November 26, 2011, 12:33:33

MSG is a soulless arena? Hampton too? Wow…..I’ve read and heard a lot of crazy things in my life, but saying those 2 arenas are “soulless” is down right ridiculous!

Bruce Scotton, M.D. November 30, 2011, 18:06:19

Blair, as always, well-written and thoughtful. However, whatever historical or sociological cast you give to the story, one inescapable fact remains and taints those years you write about. 1979 was the beginning of the “16 year skid on a 30 year ride.” The changes visible in Jerry that year, as he dipped into the addiction to the Persian white, were so dramatic to those of us who had watched the band up until that time that several of us talked about how we could pull together some kind of surprise healing ritual at one of the shows where people could spontaneously express their love and support for him. It was also about the time when the first of several classic “you’re addicted and need help and we love you and will help you get that help” confrontations were staged by the Dead family. Unfortunately, as we know, these various attempts failed to save the day and our beloved friend sank ever farther and lost the creative sparkle that had touched so many, and then he lost his life. I have trouble listening to the music from this period because I always compare it to what had been present but was now lost, in terms of Garcia playing as an ever-changing fountain of creativity, working one idea for a minute or a half-hour until, now fully fleshed out and having seized the rest of the band and those of us dancing, it was replaced by another and then another. We were lucky to have seen or even just heard a musician and a man like that.

Doogie Howser Scotton, M.D. December 6, 2011, 23:17:10

Dr. Bruce has put his finger on Jerry’s ever-changing styles and approaches, but I wouldn’t say that his latter-era playing, where he and the band dropped their “turn on a dime” style was a paradise lost. As a 31-year-old Deadhead who remembers only shows that my mom took me to in the 1990s, I can say that Dr. Bruce’s assessment is just relative to his relationship to a different era, but not necessarily one that was more magical than the 80s or 90s. Of course, my initiation to the Dead was as a in the late 80s, so I have my own biases. My initiation was with the BIG and rich stadium sound with Brent’s twinkling synth/keys. This sound, captured so well in Without a Net, for example, accompanied my larger than life sense of awe and wonder as I watched seas of thousands of people all dancing as one big undulating wave. I still can listen to 89 or 90 shows and feel that power —- much more so than when I listen to tapes from 69 or 70 — which sounds more like relics, or nostalgia. Perhaps it’s because I dont have a personal connection to those shows. Either way, I dont hear any dope-induced deficits in Jerry’s playing in the late 80s. Put on a pair of headphones and listen to Without a Net and tell me that Jerry is not at a creative peak, albeit different energetically from the 60s.

Cameron Mitchell December 14, 2011, 17:08:37

I was in full a Brent era head and thought that those years were some of the best at least for me. Of course my favorite years to listen to are always the 76 to 78 years but I did not see any of those shows personally. From my first show at a ski resort in utah in 83 until I stopped counting in 87 I had seen over 105 shows. Almost one every 10 days and all were with Brent. After that I saw a few with vince and Bruce but just couldn’t really get into it. I was truly a Brent era deadhead and miss them dearly. Lots of great music out there now and find fun in the moe. umphreys, disco biscuits, sts9, new deal and countless others now but the dead and the brent era is where I got my start into great improve and psychedelic rock.

Robin C. Moody December 15, 2011, 05:03:51

The first Dead album I bought was Aoxomoxoa, which happened to be their latest one at the time. I had heard of them, but I didn’t know what they sounded like. It was the cool artwork on the cover that made me want to take a chance on whether I would like the album or not. After all, I was only risking $2.08 at Fedco, a now defunct discount store chain. Even after adjusting for inflation, that was still pretty darn cheap. The next year, 1970, I saw them live for the first time. I was barely fifteen at the time. Excluding the 60s’, when I hadn’t yet discovered them, I got to catch at least a few of their shows during each period of the band’s long, strange trip. Though I think the Dead peaked in the 1970s’, I never failed to enjoy their concerts, but…and this is the comment I’ve been working up to, but during Mydland’s stint in the band, I started to develop a real dislike for him. Not Brent personally, for I knew very little about him, really, but his style of playing the keyboards, his voice, the sort of songs he wrote. This is a very subjective thing, of course. I still, when I’m shopping for live Grateful Dead recordings, try to avoid those from the Mydland years, unless he’s mixed down really low, which it seems to me he sometimes was. I wish, too, that he had left the band some other way; I never harbored any ill will toward him.

tp December 15, 2011, 13:36:54

I too was a Brent ear deadhead. I first saw the dead in 1981 at College Park Maryland and my run lasted until RFk in 95. When I listen to those early 80’s shows ( 80-83), they are outrageously good and very different the rest of the 80’s. The mid 80’s were really hit or miss with Jerry and the summer of 85 was probably the peak for that period. The worst for Jerry was the late fall solo acoustic tour in 85 and I still try to block that memory from my head. Then in 89 to the early 90’s, Jerry seemed to get another spark and maybe he cleaned up for while but there are some stellar performances from that period. Listen to the All Along the Watchtower from Dozin’ at the Knick, and try to tell me Jerry ever played better on guitar. I loved Brent’s playing, and his death in 1990 left me deeply saddened. That was the end of the Dead for me. I went to a bunch of shows after that, but it was never the same. I had a friend who spent a couple of hours with Brent a week or two before he died and he said he never felt accepted by the deadheads and it hurt him a lot. He didn’t understand it, and neither did I. To me that was the sadness part of his story.

Gary December 15, 2011, 22:03:48

I saw keith and donna’s last show in Oakland, but didn’t know it at the time. I think Brent did great, and was part of some classic 80’s shows. Sad to think he never felt accepted. My group certainly accepted him. I think he just got too wrapped up in the rock and roll party scene (to have fun, and yes…escape his demons) and he just didn’t survive.

Ayako May 4, 2012, 03:59:28

Your article sotpped me Dead in my tracks. I too am a Monster Deadhead. Never in my mind did I think (or consider) that an artist could touch my Grateful Dead experience or my love for Jerry Garcia. Lady Gaga has done just that. She completely captivates me, and her live Monster Ball concert extravaganza was one of the best shows of my life. I saw 70 plus shows before Jerry died, and have continued seeing every rendition of the band since (to date with Furthur). Lady Gaga taps the same vein.Lady Gaga resides in my heart, right by Jerry, and I will forever love her and being a Little Monster at the ripe old age of 43. She captures the young essence of my Spirit, and I am so Grateful for this piece that you wrote, as it solidifies my Monster Deadhead existence. Peace out fellow Monsterhead. )

Cliff Hanger December 5, 2012, 19:41:11

Fuck Lady Caca