Editor’s Introduction

"Er, ah, it seems kind of lonely out here, doesn’t it?" Ralph J. Gleason asked that question as the opening salvo in one of his pioneering jazz columns for the San Francisco Chronicle. Only this time, he was about to talk about a new rock band he had just seen — the Jefferson Airplane. In 1965, that was a courageous critical stand to take.

For a long time, talking about the Dead in the academy felt equally risky. In the waning years of the band, though, that began to change, and it has accelerated since their formal demise following the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. Judging by the number of participants in the annual Grateful Dead mini-conferences in Albuquerque (which are discussed in this issue), there is a growing community of scholarly-inclined fans who phrase their questions of — and frame their answers about — the art and phenomenon of the Grateful Dead in academic terms.

This issue reflects that vibrant and diverse community, spanning business theorists to Post-Modernist literary critics, sociologists to musicologists, with a wide swath of the humanities represented in between, from historians to philosophers. Contributors here range from student to professor, dot-com executive to literary agent, with an equivalent range of questions and foci.

While the focus of the magazine is scholarship and criticism, there are a few creative pieces as well: poetry by Robert Cooperman, and to celebrate the launch of the inaugural issue, a special section devoted to poet Robert M. (Bobby) Petersen, the lyricist of "Unbroken Chain." At the heart of the section are two unpublished works: an unrecorded lyric and one of his rare prose pieces, a public letter. As his little-known last effort for the Dead, "Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues" is a curio in the Dead world. It was performed only once, in the mid-Eighties, and the words have been lost — Ice Nine, the Dead’s publishing company, does not have a copy. Unique in the Dead’s canon, it can also be seen as a contribution to the oral tradition in American folk song. Though known as a poet, Petersen did write some prose, almost none of which survives. The public letter that appears here he wrote while on trial for possession of marijuana. A moving appeal, it is a fascinating period piece and insight into this sensitive, eloquent poet.

Accompanying these is Christian Crumlish’s article "‘And I Done Some Time:’ Bobby Petersen and the Grateful Dead," which provides a good overview of this little known but vital tributary in the Dead’s lyric world, as well as exemplifying a kind of unique, first-person scholarly approach which may well emerge as the hallmark of Deadhead academic writing.

The Academic Memoirs section has several good examples of that unique breed of scholarship. Written from the standpoint of older fans, these essays by Stephen Allen, Alan Lehman, and Lans Smith are all highly personal but academically-inflected reminiscences — some even footnoted. They are examples of another pole in Deadhead scholarship, and representative of a kind of literary hybrid that seems utterly in keeping with the passionate but learned example set by the band.

Memoirs are one category of paper from the second annual mini-conference featured in this issue, with student papers the second. There were several fine student papers given, but two stood out in particular: in the undergraduate division, Dale Osofsky’s "The Resacralization of American Culture: Lord Buckley, Jerry Garcia, the Naz and ‘Ripple’," and in the graduate division, Mark Tursi’s "Deconstructing Deadheads." All three of the conferences are reviewed here, with particularly fine descriptions of the first by Robert Weiner and Mary Ann Martinez, and of the third by Mary Goodenough.

Dead Letters is also privileged to be able to publish reviews by a number of distinguished writers and scholars: Blair Jackson, author of Garcia: An American Life and editor of The Golden Road; Professors David Habbel, Vaughan Black, and David Pelovitz, contributors to Perspectives on the Grateful Dead (Greenwood, 1999) and The Deadhead Taper’s Compendium (Holt, 2000); and Jeff Tiedrich of Tiedrich.com and Brian Dyke, both major contributors to The Deadhead Taper’s Compendium. We welcome reviewers for our next issue, as well as contributors; we already have a section devoted to the topic of teaching the Dead, for which we encourage additional contributions. In Volume II we will also publish letters and notices of research requests on topics germane to our foci.

The range of subjects, interpretations, and styles of the contributions here is a reflection of why the band provides such fertile grounds for study. Against the span of disciplines represented by these papers, the unifying theme is their adherence to the ideals behind the Dead’s art, the same creative, quirkily intensive, inquisitive spirit.

Our hope is that Dead Letters will provide a forum for these voices, and make it much less lonely — and risky — for them to speak out than it was for Ralph Gleason when he was typing that opening line in September, 1965. Thanks for your patronage.