The Grateful Dead’s Influence on Bob Dylan This class will examine how people’s prejudices and perceptions—even of such rebels as Dylan and the Dead—influence their opinions, and how to overcome those limitations. Very little is as divisive to Bob Dylan’s fans as his 1987 tour with the Grateful Dead, or the accompanying live album from 1989. Two decades into his career, and at an artistic crossroads, Dylan collaborated with the Dead’s Jerry Garcia, who helped him reconnect with his own songs by rekindling his love of performing as a sympathetic and supportive kindred spirit. The Dead’s lack of convention likely appealed to Dylan’s iconoclastic leanings, and at one point, he even asked to become a band member. Dylan covering the Dead's "Alabama Getaway" Dylan/Dead rehearsal, 1987, "Under Your Spell" In 1988, Dylan began his so-called “Never Ending Tour,” now in its fourth decade (and currently officially titled the "Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour") which...
