Trade ad for Grateful Dead’s album American Beauty (album). Public Domain.
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Looking to make your weekends slightly more psychedelic without the use of mind-altering substances? WDNA has you covered. The local public radio station that can be found at 88.9 on your FM dial and streams at wdna.org announced this week that every Sunday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., they will broadcast the Grateful Dead Hour.
The description from the press release states, “Hosted by guitarist, songwriter, journalist, author, and radio producer David Gans since 1987, the Grateful Dead Hour is a nationally syndicated radio program that airs weekly on more than 90 public, community, college, and commercial radio stations.”
The show airs live concerts from the Palo Alto band’s vault, as well as music by groups influenced by them, along with live studio performances, in-depth interviews with core Dead members, and more. “The Grateful Dead Hour is the only authorized weekly program of Grateful Dead music. Produced under exclusive license from Grateful Dead Productions, the program regularly features gems from the Dead’s inexhaustible stash of concert tapes (going back to 1966),” the official press release explains.
The Grateful Dead started out in 1965 in San Francisco. They quickly got a national following with Deadhead fans following the jam band across the world creating a circus-like atmosphere in the parking lot of every show. The band had a reputation where every concert was a unique event with the improvisational nature of their performances. They played South Florida over 20 times, most notably for two 1968 concerts at Miami Pop Festival and at an Easter Sunday Love-In at Greynolds Park that drew national headlines as a sign of the hippie times.
The Grateful Dead officially broke up in 1995 upon guitarist and lead singer Jerry Garcia’s death, but former members have sold out massive arenas as the Dead and as Dead & Company over the last three decades. Most recently Dead & Company played three concerts at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, a short walk from the Grateful Dead’s former Haight Ashbury headquarters, to celebrate the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary.
The WDNA press release says along with the groovy music, listeners will also get band history lessons every episode. The Oakland based host David Gans is well versed on the subject as he has had four books published about the band including Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead; Conversations with the Dead; Not Fade Away: The Online World Remembers Jerry Garcia; and co-written with Blair Jackson, This Is All A Dream We Dreamed, An Oral History of the Grateful Dead.
