Aces Back to Back: The History of the Grateful Dead (1965 - 2013)

Aces Back to Back: The History of the Grateful Dead (1965 - 2014) details the Grateful Dead's entire 50-year history, right through January, 2015, including the Dead's announcement about their historic reunion shows in Chicago this summer, making it the most precise and up-to-date account of the Dead's history ever written.

Aces Back to Back covers the events leading to the band's inception as well as their complete 30-year reign, and is the only book that recounts the post-Jerry Garcia period - from the death of Garcia, and on through the surviving members' incarnations as the Other Ones, the Dead, RatDog, Phil Lesh and Friends, the Mickey Hart Band, 7 Walkers, and Furthur.  

Our biography features a Foreword from Grateful Dead lyricist and renowned civil libertarian John Perry Barlow. The cover is drawn by acclaimed poster artist Steve Johannsen (Grateful Dead, Furthur, Gov't Mule) and the interior features 20 original illustrations by Steve and the gifted Lauren Kroutil.

Aces Back to Back traces the group's history from their earliest roots - the spring, 1961 meeting of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter - and takes the reader right up to January, 2015. 

Every vital moment in the Dead's history in-between is covered. This book celebrates the most minute - Weir gets to sing almost all of the songs at two '78 shows in San Diego because Jerry is ill - and doesn't forget the glory: the Acid Tests, the Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock, the Wall of Sound, Watkins Glen, the May 8, 1977 show at Cornell, the Egypt concerts, In the Dark, the Deadheads.

All the key players are here, too; among them: Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, Robert Hunter, John Barlow, Bill Graham, Mouse & Kelley, Jerry's guitar history with luthier Doug Irwin, the Mime Troupe, the Family Dog, Winterland, Augustus Owsley Stanley III.