There aren't many signposts in Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip. The exhibit, opening April 12 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, isn't a linear journey through landmark albums and milestone concerts. The Grateful Dead were better known for their tours than their albums, so the Rock Hall's curators have organized the show like a caravan.
Fans who followed the Grateful Dead join the procession. So do tapers who collected recordings of shows. Fellow traveler Ken Kesey organizes "acid test" parties where the band played. Neal Cassady, inspiration for Jack Kerouac's On the Road, appears at a listening station, performing a rap in 1967 with the band's backing.
Like a touring van, the exhibit is packed full of instruments and gear, including eight guitars.
"The Dead's fans had a very deep personal connection to the band," says Rock Hall curatorial director Howard Kramer. "When they saw them, they were on stage performing with these instruments." The exhibit's guitars evoke moments in the band's development and the sound each musician wanted to create.
Travis Bean TB 500
Jerry Garcia played this guitar at hundreds of shows from 1975 to 1978. The body's double cutaway is similar to those on Stratocasters, another type of guitar Garcia often played. "There's a certain steel quality, a certain waterdrop sound to the way he played," says Kramer. The orange sticker, which reads "Ass, Grass or Gas: Nobody Rides Free," was a common bumper sticker on motorcycles and pickup trucks in the '70s, Kramer says, and the Dead likely appreciated its joke about traveling freeloaders and hangers-on.
Rosebud
Garcia first played this instrument, custom-made by guitar designer Doug Irwin, at the Grateful Dead's 1989 New Year's Eve show. It became one of his favorite guitars until his death in 1995. The female skeleton holding a rose is a variation on the famous skeletal figure from a 1966 concert poster. The guitar's many knobs and switches include a MIDI controller, compatible with a very early digital sound system. "If he wants it to sound like a trumpet," says Kramer, "he can call up a trumpet. It can sound like a violin."
Ibanez Cowboy custom
This guitar was built for Bob Weir around 1975. It's named for the floral mother-of-pearl inlays which curl around its body and up the neck to the headstock. "It looks like it could be on a Western shirt," Kramer observes. The guitar includes an unusual innovation: One of its pickups moves up and down. That gave Weir, who usually played rhythm guitar, a chance to experiment when he occasionally played lead. "He had a lot of flexibility with the moving pickup to nuance the sound of his leads," Kramer says.
Six-string Modulus bass
This bass, played by Phil Lesh, is shaped much like Garcia's Rosebud. Its designers were imitating the style of the two cutaways on Doug Irwin guitars. The six strings, instead of a standard bass' four, gave Lesh more tonal range. "This is a wider neck, to accommodate Phil's style," says Kramer. "He would play mostly with a pick — but individual notes. He's not chording." The guitar is a single piece of graphite, which adapts well to temperature changes and does not warp. "It's a stunning thing to look at up close," says Kramer.
