(I can vouch for it as I wrote it myself!)

Rather than plot the Grateful Dead's history in this introduction, readers might like to read the article on them in The History Of Rock issue on the SF explosion. Their debut LP contained its share of traditional material, and most of their LPs have contained at least nods towards folk music in its manifold forms, if not actually containing reworkings of such material. Their first single was on a local, independent label and both of the songs recorded were jugband/blues standards. The Grateful Dead were at the forefront of the San Franciscan scene in the mid-Sixties (although predated by groups such as the Great Society, the Charlatans, and Jefferson Airplane) and in their early days (when they were still going under the name of the Warlocks) were little more than an amplified jugband. An additional element in the web is their occasional augmentation, particularly percussively, by other musicians, such as at the Egyptian pyramids concerts at which Hamza El-Din performed. In a similar vein some of their original material uses devices or ideas from traditional musics, such as 'Casey Jones', a parody of the traditional songs of the same title, the blues 'Candyman', and 'Dupree's Diamond Blues'. That is not to pretend that such material is the only thing they play, but it is a vital part of their sets. Gary Davis' 'Death Don't Have No Mercy' and 'If I Had My Way (Sampson & Delilah)', 'Dark Hollow', 'Cold Rain And Snow', and 'Stealin'', and to the present day their repertoire includes this sort of material, as albums like Reckoning and Dead Set demonstrate. Like many of their San Franciscan contemporaries the Dead were rooted in folk music, blues, bluegrass, and rock 'n' roll, but while their peers tended to reject much of that repertoire, the Dead continued to incorporate songs like 'I Know You Rider', the Rev.

The interview that follows, however, follows the theme of 'folk, bluegrass & beyond', a title eminently suitable when viewing the music of the Grateful Dead. Their music would scarcely be considered folk music in most circles unless one was taking a more liberal interpretation, one treating rock music as a music popular among the people that approach to the subject could lead us into deep water, and in any case that is not the purpose of this article. When coining the catchphrase 'folk, bluegrass & beyond' the Grateful Dead were hardly uppermost in our minds.

Introduction to the grateful dead