• LIFE

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

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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.”

 

Grateful Dead book
LIFE Books

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

Warlocks in 1965
Warlocks in 1965Herb Greene
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.
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
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
Bob Dylan and The Dead photographed at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, OR July 24, 1987.Jay Blakesberg

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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com