Deadheads will get new insight into the origins of the Grateful Dead this fall with the upcoming publication of The Silver Snaling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead—The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter.
Due out on October 8th, 2024 via Hachette Books, the novelistic memoir penned by late Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter includes a foreword by John Mayer and offers a rare glimpse into the Dead’s early days. From sharing a single cup of bottomless coffee to renting instruments at Swain’s House of Music, the book follows Hunter and Jerry Garcia as they forge the musical partnership of a lifetime through impromptu jams, pranks, and inspired intellectual dialogue.
“Strange to think back on those days when it was perfectly natural that we all slept on the floor in one small room,” Hunter writes in an excerpt. “These were the days before practical considerations, matters of ‘importance,’ began to eat our minds. We were all poets and philosophers then, until we began to wonder why we had so few concrete worries and went out to look for some.”
The Silver Snaling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead—The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter will be available wherever books are sold and is available for pre-order now at local bookstores or online here.
In addition to the new book, Rhino has announced the launch of a new career-spanning archival series honoring Robert Hunter’s solo work. The series will kick off with a deluxe edition of Hunter’s 1974 debut, Tales Of The Great Rum Runners, due on June 7th in honor of the album’s 50th anniversary.
Recorded at Mickey Hart‘s converted barn studio in Novato, CA, Tales Of The Great Rum Runners highlights Hunter’s talents as a multi-instrumentalist in addition to his inspired lyricism and features Bay Area musicians including Jerry Garcia, Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux, Mickey Hart, Barry “The Fish” Melton (Country Joe & The Fish), David Freiberg (Quicksilver Messenger Service/Jefferson Starship), Buddy Cage (New Riders Of The Purple Sage), and more. The tracklist includes several staples of Hunter’s live repertoire, like “Boys In The Barroom”, “Rum Runners”, and “It Must Have Been The Roses”. The deluxe edition has been newly remastered and expanded with 16 never-before-released tracks, outtakes, and more.
Related: Remembering Grateful Dead Lyricist Robert Hunter With Some Of His Finest Lines
“The music was as warm and handmade as the tapestries and tie-dyes adorning the Barn studio walls, an idiosyncratic continuation of the cosmic folk vocabulary that Hunter and Dead explored on Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty,” author, DJ, and cohost of the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast Jesse Jarnow wrote of the album in the collection’s liner notes. “In an era when the Dead’s own studio albums were growing slicker, Rum Runners doubled down on organic earthiness.”
The first preview of the album’s new deluxe edition arrives today with a freshly remastered version of “Standing At Your Door” featuring Mickey Hart on drums and Keith Godchaux on keys. Jerry Garcia is credited as “mixer” and Hart is listed as producer.
Listen to “Standing At Your Door” from the new Robert Hunter Tales Of The Great Rum Runners (Deluxe Edition) below or on your preferred streaming platform. Click below to view the tracklist and pre-order the album on CD and vinyl here. Stay tuned for announcements of future releases in the Robert Hunter archival series.
Robert Hunter – “Standing At Your Door”