With all the recent hype surrounding their upcoming reunion shows, it comes as no surprise that the Grateful Dead are the centerpiece of the latest issue of Rolling Stone. One interesting feature looks at a number of influential artists’ top Grateful Dead songs of all time. Here are the results and some of our favorite quotes from the article.
Grateful Dead Members Are Auctioning Off 300 ‘Fare Thee Well’ Tickets For Charity
Jim James (My Morning Jacket) — “Candyman”
“There’s something about [Jerry’s]Â voice and his guitar tone, it radiated peace, but not a stupid peace, not a fucking tie-dye shirt with a peace sign on it: It was a questioning, kind of dark, peace.”
Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) — “Me and My Uncle”
“Their sets had movements, almost like opera or classical music. They went on a journey. No one does that anymore. If I did a live record, I would want it to have that quality, because it’s just fucking electrifying.”
Dave Matthews (Dave Matthews Band) — “Casey Jones”
“When I was a little kid, I heard ‘Casey Jones.’ I liked it before I knew what cocaine was, and before I knew what ‘high’ was. So that one is sort of the nursery rhyme that sticks in my mind.”
Ryan Adams — “Wharf Rat”
“I was tripping — I don’t remember if it was acid or mushrooms. When ‘Wharf Rat’ came on the car stereo, it broke through my mind. An epiphany came over me. This was the late Eighties, early Nineties, the Me Generation, the Ayn Rand era. People were calling people ‘bums.’ And then here’s the Dead, singing about this guy living on the street down by the wharf like he’s a wizard, a mystical creature worthy of your time and respect.”
Chris Robinson (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) — “Dark Star”
“When I first got into the Grateful Dead I realized that ‘Dark Star,’ in the universe of the band, is its own black hole. It’s outside of the regular realms of space, time, mathematics and gravitational realities…You know it was born from a real psychedelic experience, a real one.”
Read the full piece in Rolling Stone.