The Grateful Dead was one of the most popular and enduring of all musical groups. The Dead came of age during the mid-to-late 1960s, an era in which the lyrics and sounds of rock and roll (see entry under 1950s—Music in volume 3) music were coming under the influence of the drug-related experiences of musicians and fans alike.

Indeed, much of the Grateful Dead's image is related to the hallucinatory drugs (which produce strange sounds and visions) and psychedelia (the music, art, and writing influenced by the use of such drugs) that characterized pop culture in the late 1960s. The group's musical roots are in traditional blues (see entry under 1920s—Music in volume 2), folk (see entry under 1960s—Music in volume 4), and bluegrass (see entry under 1940s—Music in volume 3). The group's sum and substance may be directly linked to the free-spiritedness and nonconformity of...