Editing Grateful Dead (section)

==Formation (1965–1966)==
[[File:Grateful Dead at the Warfield-01.jpg|thumb|left|Grateful Dead at [[Warfield Theatre]] in 1980. Left to right: [[Jerry Garcia]], [[Bill Kreutzmann]], [[Bob Weir]], [[Mickey Hart]], [[Phil Lesh]]. Not pictured: [[Brent Mydland]].]]
The Grateful Dead began their career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a [[Palo Alto, California]] [[jug band]] called [[Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions (album)|Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions]] and members of The Wildwood Boys (Jerry Garcia, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, David Nelson, Robert Hunter, and Norm Van Maastricht).<ref>Metzger, John. [http://www.musicbox-online.com/gd-mcree.html ''Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions'' album review] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120927161321/http://www.musicbox-online.com/gd-mcree.html |date=September 27, 2012}}, The Music Box, May 1999.</ref> As The Wildwood Boys they played regularly at The Tangent, a folk music coffeehouse operated by Stanford Medical Center doctors Stuart "Stu" Goldstein and David "Dave" Shoenstadt on University Avenue in Palo Alto (1963).<ref>{{cite web |title=Stu Goldstein as the emcee at The Tangent |url=https://www.gdao.org/items/show/826709 |website=Grateful Dead Archive Online |access-date=June 24, 2023}}</ref> As the Warlocks, the band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor, at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]], on May 5, 1965, now a Harvest furniture store. The band continued playing bar shows,<ref>Kreutzmann, Bill; Eisen, Benjy (2015). [https://books.google.com/books?id=LkavBwAAQBAJ&dq=Bikini-A-Go-Go+Hayward&pg=PA33 ''Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead'']. St. Martin's Press. page 33 {{ISBN|978-1-250-03379-6}}.</ref> like Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8MtVkAglysC&q=%22Frenchy%E2%80%99s+Bikini-A-Go-Go%22+Hayward&pg=PT38|title=Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead|first=Phil|last=Lesh|date=September 3, 2007|publisher=Little, Brown|isbn=9780316027816|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51651709/oakland-tribune/|title=Clipped From Oakland Tribune|newspaper=Oakland Tribune|date=September 13, 1965|pages=13|via=newspapers.com}}</ref> in [[Hayward, California|Hayward]] and, importantly, five sets a night, five nights a week, for six weeks, at the ''In Room''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-in-room-1048-old-county-road.html|website=Jerry's Brokendown Palaces|title=The In Room, 1048 Old County Road, Belmont, CA|date=January 24, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.belmont.gov/Home/Components/FacilityDirectory/FacilityDirectory/158/520|title=Historic Photo - Old County Rd (Looking South)|website=City of Belmont}}</ref> in [[Belmont, California|Belmont]] as the Warlocks,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dead.net/show/may-05-1965|title=Magoo's Pizza Parlor&nbsp;– May 5, 1965&nbsp;– Grateful Dead|date=May 5, 1965 |publisher=Dead.net|access-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111108115400/http://dead.net/show/may-05-1965|archive-date=November 8, 2011}}</ref> but quickly changed the band's name after finding out that a different band known as the Warlocks had put out a record under that name. ([[The Velvet Underground]] also had to change its name from the Warlocks.)<ref>{{cite episode|title=Act I – It's Alive|series=[[Long Strange Trip]]|season=1|number=1|date=June 2, 2017|network=[[Amazon Video|Prime Video]]|minutes=32:45}}</ref> 

The name "[[Grateful dead (folklore)|Grateful Dead]]" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Lesh, Garcia "picked up an old ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica|Britannica]] World Language Dictionary'' ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'"<ref>{{cite book |last=Lesh |first=Phil |author-link=Phil Lesh |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8MtVkAglysC&q=silvery+elf-voice |title=Searching for the Sound |location=New York, NY |publisher=Little, Brown, and Company |page=62 |isbn=0316009989}}</ref> The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial." According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the [[Funk & Wagnalls]] ''Folklore Dictionary'', when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of [[Fictionary]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MfJ7_5rhq28C |title=Perspectives on the Grateful Dead: Critical Writings |first=Robert G. |last=Weiner |year=1999 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |page=145 |isbn=0-313-30569-2}}</ref> In the Garcia biography ''Captain Trips'', author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic [[Dimethyltryptamine|DMT]] at the time.<ref name="CT01">Troy, Sandy, [https://books.google.com/books?id=htmNHAAACAAJ ''Captain Trips: A Biography of Jerry Garcia''] (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994). DMT, p. 73; Acid King p. 70; Watts+ p. 85.</ref> The motif of the "grateful dead" appears in folktales from a variety of cultures.<ref name="Boggs, Ralph Steele 1932. p. 113">{{cite book |last1=Boggs |first1=Ralph Steele |last2=Adams |first2=Nicholson B |title=Spanish folktales |date=1932 |publisher=F.S. Crofts |page=113 |oclc=987857114 }}</ref>

The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in [[San Jose, California|San Jose]] on December 4, 1965, at one of [[Ken Kesey]]'s [[Acid Tests]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dead.net/show/december-4-1965|title=Big Nig's House&nbsp;– December 4, 1965 &#124; Grateful Dead|date=March 30, 2007 |publisher=Dead.net|access-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728165518/http://www.dead.net/show/december-4-1965|archive-date=July 28, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Stanton|first=Scott|title=The Tombstone Tourist|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|year=2003|page=[https://archive.org/details/tombstonetourist00stan_0/page/102 102]|isbn=0-7434-6330-7|url=https://archive.org/details/tombstonetourist00stan_0/page/102}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Herbst|first=Peter|title=The Rolling Stone Interviews: 1967–1980|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|year=1989|page=186|isbn=0-312-03486-5}}</ref> Scholar Michael Kaler has written that the Dead's participation in the Acid Tests was crucial both to the development of their improvisational vocabulary and to their bonding as a band, with the group having set out to foster an intra-band musical telepathy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Get Shown the Light: Chapter 8 [1] |url=https://www.thedaughtersgrimoire.com/getshownthelight1 |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=Daughter's Grimoire |language=en}}</ref> Kaler has further pointed out that the Dead's pursuit of a new improvisatory rock language in 1965 chronologically coincided with that same goal's adoption by [[Jefferson Airplane]], [[Pink Floyd]] and [[the Velvet Underground]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=In Conversation with Michael Kaler [1] |url=https://www.thedaughtersgrimoire.com/michaelkalerinterview1 |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=Daughter's Grimoire |language=en}}</ref>

Earlier [[demo tape]]s have survived, but the first of over 2,000 concerts known to have been recorded by the band's fans was a show at the [[The Fillmore|Fillmore Auditorium]] in San Francisco on January 8, 1966.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.bershaw.5410.shnf|title=Grateful Dead Live at Fillmore Auditorium on 1966-01-08 |via=Archive.org|access-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813153712/http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.bershaw.5410.shnf|archive-date=August 13, 2011|date=January 8, 1966}}</ref> Later that month, the Grateful Dead played at the Trips Festival, a three-day [[psychedelic rock]] weekend party and event produced by [[Ken Kesey]], [[Stewart Brand]], and [[Ramón Sender (composer)|Ramon Sender]], that, in conjunction with the [[Merry Pranksters]], brought the nascent [[hippie]] movement together for the first time.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ultimateclassicrock.com/trips-festival/|title=50 Years Ago: Grateful Dead and Big Brother & the Holding Company Begin the Haight-Ashbury Era at the Trips Festival|website=Ultimate Classic Rock. |date=January 31, 2016|access-date=May 26, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://experiments.californiahistoricalsociety.org/what-was-the-trips-festival/|title=The Trips Festival explained|first=Adam|last=Hirschfelder|date=January 14, 2016|website=Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966-1971}}</ref>

Other supporting personnel who joined early included [[Rock Scully]], who heard of the band from Kesey and signed on as manager after meeting them at the Big Beat Acid Test; [[Stewart Brand]], "with his side show of taped music and slides of Indian life, a multimedia presentation" at the Big Beat and then, expanded, at the Trips Festival; and [[Owsley Stanley]], the "Acid King" whose [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] supplied the Acid Tests and who, in early 1966, became the band's financial backer, renting them a house on the fringes of [[Watts, Los Angeles]], and buying them sound equipment. "We were living solely off of Owsley's good graces at that time. ... [His] trip was he wanted to design equipment for us, and we were going to have to be in sort of a lab situation for him to do it", said Garcia.<ref name="CT01" />