"When I saw the composite drawings, I felt sick to my stomach. My heart just froze,” Grateful Doe's sister said.
The massive phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead has never been objectively reported on, an historical anomaly that boils down to what might as well be a Buddhist koan: Pretty much anyone who was there must be immediately eliminated as a reliable witness.
The place is not touristy. It's not pretentious. It has absorbed its fame and moved on. It's more a Robert De Niro than a Justin Bieber -- it knows stardom and is okay with it.
With Garcia as a reluctant leader of the hippie movement, the largest countercultural movement in American history, the Grateful Dead quickly evolved from a rock and roll band into a new religious movement.