The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists". For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world". The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area during the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The band's founding members were Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. With the exception of Pigpen, who died in 1973, the remaining founding members stayed with the band until their 1995 split, with subsequent members being Mickey Hart, Robert Hunter, Tom Constanten, John Perry Barlow, Keith Godchaux, Donna Godchaux, Brent Mydland, and Vince Welnick. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratefu...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)
