A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

"If you want to know what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and what it was like in the Grateful Dead, A Long Strange Trip is for you. No other book on us comes close to it." --Bob Weir

"Was it important to history? I'm not sure. Was it important to life? I know it was. A great read for those needing to know what happened between the cracks. . . ." --Bill Kreutzmann

"McNally has presented an evenhanded treatment of what is arguably the most complex and multifaceted phenomenon in the history of American music. I highly recommend it to anyone who really wants to know what we are all about." --Owsley "Bear" Stanley

"It's a simple tale, really. A band of misfit guys fall in love, stumble blindly onward and defy gravity, then try to kiss the face of God! This truth is better than fiction. I hope you all enjoy this odyssey as much as I have." --Mickey Hart

"Dennis McNally knows the Grateful Dead as intimately as they know themselves. His historian's eye, his immersion as a Dead 'family member, ' and his crazed hippie heart have made this the book to read about the life, times, and twisted, double-helix road of the band's evolution. It's a great read." --Peter Coyote

"As I read Dennis's book, I knew he is the one person who could tell the history of the Dead, and why this band survived as it attracted everyone from the so-called hippie generation to those of us firmly in the establishment. It is a well-written and valuable history." --Senator Patrick J. Leahy

"No novelist, sane or otherwise, could have invented the ethereal saga of the Grateful Dead. Dennis McNally's backstage portrait of the world's most liberated rock band is full of unforgettable images, wild and funny and fascinating." --Carl Hiaasen

"The Dead has been an inspiring source of light for countless people. Dennis McNally's riveting tale of the longest strangest trip will take you on a high-altitude training course and leave you prepared for the next lightning bolt of social and spiritual revelation." --Bill Walton

"This is McNally's view of what went down. It's more often right than wrong and done with love, not a grudge, which goes a long way toward excusing another damned book about the Grateful Dead. Any view of us is necessarily a limited interpretation, like an aerial photo of Ground Zero. What Dennis loves and hates about us bears more weight than most interpretations because he took twenty years to get his facts straight. I'll miss him when we kill him." --Robert Hunter

An authorized portrait of the Grateful Dead documents its early explosion on the 1960s roots and folk scene, complicated relationships between band members, intricate stage setup, and most noteworthy tours and performances. Reprint.