Melvin Seals

The second annual Skull and Roses Festival brought Deadheads from all over California, to the Ventura Fairgrounds, for three days of music inspired by The Grateful Dead. The campground area was nearly full by the time the music started early on Friday afternoon, April 6th. Festival publicist Dennis McNally, who was the publicist for the Grateful Dead from 1984-95 choose the spot because of its significance in the history of the Dead.

KUVO, Dazzle, Central Presents and Feyline have teamed up to bring a distinguished music lineup to the historic and mystical mountain town of Central City, Colorado.

Central Jazz is the revival of the Central City Jazz Festival, which ran continuously from 1976 through 1992 and is resurfacing on June 9th, 2018 with an unparalleled lineup. This year will feature four stages in various locations throughout the town, ensuring fans can explore the quaint and beautiful location amidst this connoisseur-status music offering.

Rock n Roll Resort is back at the Hudson Valley Resort & Spa in Kerhonkson, N.Y. this Friday, March 23rd and going through until Sunday. RRR features multiple stages with dozens of musical acts, art, vending and activities - all in one weekend, under one roof.

There is something about the energy created by people coming together to hear the music of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. The first time I experienced this seemingly human-powered electricity was a few days before my 18th birthday, in 1994, in a parking lot near what was then the Boston Garden. When Jerry died the following summer, I found myself in a park sitting in a circle around a singular candle that seemed to burn for hours.

Skull and Roses is a celebration of community, a community generated by the music of the Grateful Dead.  Our music.

Somebody asked Uncle John what being a Dead Head was all about.  He smiled and said, “When you want to be fully alive, an individual but also tied at the heart within a rich, vibrant family, somebody who wants to have a lot of fun and probably dance, too – then you’re a Dead Head.”

In their forth outstanding gig at San Rafael’s Terrapin Crossroads this year, The Rock Collection brought an evening of originals, and beloved covers dissimilar to anything fans had seen of them yet. Any act under the jam band umbrella has to keep their shows diverse night to night, but what makes The Rock Collection standalone is the sheer combination of talent and background that allows the music to take off different directions on any given night.

Jam Veteran Melvin Seals is generally acknowledged as the keeper of the flame for continuing the music of Jerry Garcia Band. The organist/keyboardist met Garcia thru his friend Merl Saunders in the early 1980s. Garcia was struck not only by Seals sheer talent and soul but that he was separate from the whole Grateful Dead world. In fact, as a man of the church, he was only marginally familiar with the Dead and Garcia.

It hit me quickly after I had arrived at Jerry Jam 2017. It was the kind of revelation that, once discovered, seems obvious. But when it hit me, it felt earth-shattering. Not to mention fear-inducing. I looked down at the note I had just written. “I’m not going to have a lot to write about.” This came to me when I was watching The John K. band Friday afternoon.

JGB Band | Positively 4th Street | Owsley's Golden Road

In a three-set, five hour night of music at the Warfield Theatre on February 25 that began with an unusual David Nelson Band performance, the current, proficient Melvin Seals and JGB turned in an fine set before giving way to special band roster, also led by monster organist Seals, but with the addition of Stu Allen on lead guitar, Oteil Burbridge on bass and 1980s-‘90s-era JGB v

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