An account of how my book Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead turned him on to the Dead:
[a friend] asked if I had ever listened to the Grateful Dead. I had a Warner Brothers sampler album that had one song by them on it (a live version of Johnny B. Goode) and it did absolutely nothing for me and I told him so. And that was the end of that.
But a while later I found myself on the road with my job and with a little down time to burn in a strange city. I had no vehicle to get around but there was a mall within walking distance of my motel, so I set off for the bookstore. Browsing around I saw a book called ‘Playing in the Band’ and it was about the Grateful Dead. After thumbing my way through the book in the store I put it down and walked down to the mall record store. I looked up the Grateful Dead and I ended up buying a cassette of their ‘greatest hits’ called ‘What a Long Strange Trip’. Then on impulse I went back to the book store and bought the book.
I read the book and looked at it’s pictures as I listened to the music for the rest of the evening. I have to say that if I had not bought the book I may not have investigated the band any farther. The music seemed way too slow for me, but the book made me want to hear more…
Read the post here.