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Searching for the Sound - My Life with the Grateful Dead
by Phil Lesh
Back Bay Books
ISBN 0-316-15449-0
Published April 2006 - Paperback - 340 pages - $15.95

Grateful Dead, a group that seems to have been around forever.  Bass player Phil Lesh has put together this account of his life with one of the most enduring bands of all time.  At a young age he took up the violin and later the trumpet, becoming a better trumpet player than violinist, with his interest at improvisation peaking after discovering jazz and John Coltrane.  He also describes the early murmurings of the counterculture emerging in the San Francisco area and the "names" who were also emerging in their respective genres, their travels, and their continuously bumping into each other in the circles they moved about in.  Jerry Garcia was the first of the future band members he met, and he tells of their getting together and how "Jerry" Garcia was, right from the start.  And, of course, their foray into drugs.  This is the story of how the Grateful Dead inched their way into the music business and how they got into experimental improvisational rock 'n' roll.  I didn't know much about the Grateful Dead (I didn't even know any of their songs) but I knew of them and of their incredible following, the "Dead Heads".  It's amazing how small the world is when you read about all the up-and-coming stars who hung out together back in the day.  This eloquent account of how the band got started and their lives on the road, is extremely interesting, and sad in parts.
Conclusion - A must for Grateful Dead fans.