The Grateful Dead: Photos Through the Years

June 12, 2015 10:00 AM EDT

When the Grateful Dead played their first gig in 1965, they weren’t even the Grateful Dead. They were the Warlocks. The group’s long, strange trip from those early days to the top of the jam band mountain is chronicled in the new LIFE special edition The Grateful Dead: 50 Years Along the Golden Road.

Many of the images are by Herb Greene, who was with the band from the beginning. “San Francisco was such a great place then—you could do the whole city back then,” he told LIFE Books of his early days with the band that would become the Dead. “You didn’t need any money, there were two-dollar restaurants. There was an availability of the kind of culture we were looking for.”

LIFE’s special edition The Grateful Dead: 50 Years Along the Golden Road is available in stores and online June 12, 2015.

Photo of Grateful Dead & Warlocks — The Grateful Dead when they started playing as the Warlocks, 1965. Paul Ryan—Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Jerry Garcia posing with banjo in front of American Flag, 1966.Herb Greene

In 1967, from left: Lesh, Garcia, Kreutzmann, Weir and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.Herb Greene

Music File Photos - The 1970s - by Chris Walter — The Grateful Dead, 1970 (clockwise): Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Mickey Hart and Jerry Garcia.Chris Walter—Wireimage/Getty Images

Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez and Mickey Hart — November 1981, San Rafael, California, USA --- Jerry Garcia, singer and guitarist for the Grateful Dead, poses for pictures at his home with folk singer Joan Baez and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey HartRoger Ressmeyer/Corbis

Bob Dylan and The Dead photographed at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, OR July 24, 1987.Jay Blakesberg

7 Pictures That Show the Grateful Dead’s Evolution Over the Years

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