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List Price: $19.00 | | Publisher: Delta
Salesrank: 373446
Released: July 7, 1997 |
| Our Price: $9.98 |
| Used Price: $7.93 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
The Grateful Dead have left us a musical bounty of thirty years and thousands of shows. Now Dead to the Core: An Almanack of the Grateful Dead takes Deadheads through the seasons and years of the Dead's dazzling array of music, with lavish treatment of those "bumper crop" eras from which their most succulent songs and shows and shows can be harvested. It is part reference, part critical companion to the best the Dead have to offer, a work liberally stocked with trivia, lore, humor, and arcana. No Head "farmer" wanting to reap the dankest of the Dead kind will want to be without this essential resource.
Includes...
Show-a-day seasonal calendars
Detailed show reviews from key years
Musical and lyrical analyses of the Dead's core tunes
Annotated lists of hot versions of key tunes
Capsule reviews of shows from throughout the Dead's career
Personal anecdotes and observations from Deadheads
A guide to the best Dead-related sites on the Internet
In-depth essays on the Dead's prime eras
...And much, much more, including the Dead-Dylan connection, the Dead and Garcia's place in the musical universe, the Deadhead pantheon, tour lore...
Dead to the Core: An Almanack of the Grateful Dead Reviews:
Great for Newbies Too!! 
2008-07-20 - In 1997 I became a Deadhead. Somehow I had never got around to listening to them. At that time I was bored with much of the current music scene and tired of all the other music in the world. I was completely jaded. The Grateful Dead were a conspicuous "missing" in my musical education, so I decided I'd find out what all the hoopla was about. (Note that Garcia had been dead for 2 years at that point. I never saw him play live.)
An acquaintance recommended a couple of CDs to check out... I did and I was totally hooked! I then went out looking for a book about the band. I needed to know more about the history of this music that was unlike anything I had heard before and still so familiar. The first book I picked up was Dead To The Core. It was a total crash course in the history and lore of the Dead all told in the vernacular of the Deadheads. I dug it tremendously!
I've since read just about every other book ever published about the Grateful Dead (and listened to every album and hundreds of show tapes) and I still think of this as an excellent introductory book. Wybenga doesn't hold your hand. He pushes you into the deep end. It's sink or swim! But these days you are easily buoyed by the availability of resources like archive.com to provide access to key reference material.
Whether you're new to the Dead or if you've been on the bus for years, check out this book. You'll enjoy it.
Enjoyable reading and lots of good lists
2007-08-11 - It's Eric's personal opinions of dead shows, now somewhat dated. But it's fun reading if you're a deadhead. There's some "must have" shows he describes, lots of anecdotes and "oh by the ways" . He's got a lot of enthusiasm and it's clear he has the true religion.
It's a good book to pick up if you find it remaindered, or used.
I bought it new and it's dog eared, highlighted, and back broken. Obviously I liked it and kept it around.
so many roads
2004-12-16 - This book sneaks up on you. Is it definitive? No. Is it all-encompassing? No. Is it authoritative. No.
It is, however, a unique love letter to a unique organization. I fell in love with this book little by little, often while having a beer or ten. A feeling of old friends reminiscing about shows gone by creeps over me until I can stand no more, put the book down, and head for the tapes.
And ultimately that is the reason I recommend this book so highly. It'll make you want to taste the dead again for the first time. Or something like that...
Cheers
In response to reviewer: are you dead to the core?
2003-12-16 - Lyrics from "Fire on the mountain"
"Your playinÕ cold music on the barroom floor
Drowned in your laughter and dead to the core."
An incomplete masterpiece 
2001-07-24 - The book provides some very useful and insightful information. As a veteran of some 50+ shows I learned more than I thought I would I read the book. However, it is almost like it was written in a hurry. The author should have had more friends and heads contribute to the book.
For instance, how could the writer completely overlook some of those great 1988 shows (e.g., when the Boys broke Ripple at the Cap Centre). Also, he rambled on and on about how great he thought the Maine shows were that summer. Obviously, he was there and had a great time, but those shows were just plain average at best. There was just too much subjective content and not enough input from other heads.
I also disagree with the fact that he skipped over whole periods of Dead evolution. To skip over the years 1982-84 is ludicrous. Remember this is when we heard St. Stephen again and Brent came into his own.
Also, he should have had more fact checkers. He referred to a Cap Center show in 1991 as a great one in which the Boys broke out a Stir it Up Jam for the first time, but he overlooked the Stir it Up Jam in Hampton in 1988. (Again, his review of this show baffles, because he does not even mention the Ruben & Cherise show from two nights before, which was the highlight of the four-night run at the Cap Centre that year. Obviously, he went to the show he reviewed and not the Ruben & Cherise show).
That said, if you want to read one head's subjective ramblings of his own experience mixed with some very insightful information, this is a good book. Plus, if you are building a collection, he gives some excellent suggestions for additions.
