Aces Back to Back is the most comprehensive, fun, fact-filled and up-to-date history of the Grateful Dead ever written - now updated through August, 2016 !! From the band's inception, through the death of Jerry Garcia, and on to their incarnations as the Other Ones, the Dead, RatDog, Phil Lesh and Friends, the Mickey Hart Band, 7 Walkers, and Furthur - a replete history complemented by never-before-penned Grateful Dead stories, anecdotes and tales. Our biography features a Foreword from Grateful Dead lyricist and renowned civil libertarian John Perry Barlow. The cover is drawn by acclaimed poster artist Steve Johannsen (Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, Furthur, Gov't Mule) and the interior features 18 original illustrations by Steve and the gifted Lauren Kroutil. In his brand-new, updated 2nd edition, available September 1, Scott has added several new, amazing stories to the Grateful Dead canon, never-before-published tales that add to his already fantastic and exacting account of the Dead's history, which is told from their earliest roots - the spring, 1961 introduction of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter - and detailed right up to the Gathering of the Vibes festival in Connecticut in August, 2014. Few moments in the band's history in-between are missed !! Aces Back to Back celebrates the most minute - Weir gets to sing almost all of the songs at two '78 shows because Jerry is ill - and doesn't forget any of the glory: the Acid Tests, the Sixties, the Haight-Ashbury, Woodstock, Watkins Glen, the Wall of Sound, the band's late-career success with In the Dark, the Warlocks shows in '89, the Deadheads, and so on. All the key players are here, too: Dr. Albert Hofmann, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Family Dog, the Mime Troupe, Augustus Owsley Stanley III, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm, Tom Constanten, Winterland, lyricists Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Bill Graham, Mouse and Kelley, Betty Cantor-Jackson, Dan Healy, Bill Walton, Jerry's guitar history with luthier Doug Irwin, the Egypt shows, Bob Bralove, John Cutler, et. al. Today, the Grateful Dead's music continues to reverberate within the hearts and souls of their fans - faithful, long-time Deadheads and younger audiences drawn to the band's legendary, magical appeal, making Aces Back to Back a must-read for fans of all ages !! Scott W. Allen wrote for Relix magazine from 1983 until 1992, serving as Senior Writer, columnist (Fragments), and feature article writer. He is a veteran of nearly 250 Grateful Dead concerts and has taught on the high school and college levels for more than 25 years. Mr. Allen was commissioned by the Library of Congress to write the essay that accompanied the enshrinement into the National Recording Registry of the Grateful Dead's show on May 8, 1977 at Barton Hall on the campus of Cornell University. This book is a gift ... it is from Scott Allen, an utterly shameless Deadhead, to the community he has loved for a long time. It is, in one sense, a historical textbook. Scott understands that the real object of his adoration is not the band, but the Mysterious Creature which sometimes arises between them and the audience, which all of us create and of which each of us should be properly in awe. I hope you will accept this book with the grace in which it's given. As a fairly shameless Deadhead myself, I am grateful for it. - John Perry Barlow, Grateful Dead
