Live Dead: The Grateful Dead Photographed by By Bob Minkin (BOOK REVIEW)

Because his work speaks volumes for itself, vaunted photographer Bob Minkin doesn’t really need the endorsements offered by Tom Constanten, Steve Parish and Blair Jackson for  Live Dead.  But their observations and insights included here in the form of preface, forward and introduction (especially the latter’s,which serves a s mini bio)  ratify the experience of poring through this weighty book.  As performers, the Grateful Dead offered  the most arresting stage presence of all—the natural theater of musicians as they play—and that drama radiates from these two-hundred twenty two pages.

Arranged chronologically beginning in the late Seventies, (in a harmonic convergence of sorts, the very time Minkin’s interest in photography dovetailed with the band’s return from its hiatus), then through the Eighties and into the Nineties, Minkin’s photos capture the range of emotion the Grateful Dead traverse in their interactions with each other on stage and off.  The contrast in the color photos with the  black & white almost takes on a metaphorical meaning, illustrating the pain as well as the pleasure the community experienced as the Dead’s career evolved til the profoundly melancholy event of Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. The Grateful Dead Photographed by Bob Minkin documents the personnel changes in the band in such a way the collection also becomes visual counterpart to the changes in the Grateful Dead’s music over the course of their now fifty year career.

The panoramic subtlety with which Minkin’s imbues his work derives directly from the layout of this nine-by-twelve tome. Progressing from beginning to end, Live Dead functions almost as time-elapsed photography, almost like cinema itself,  as the book moves into the latter phases of the band’s career. But the design wouldn’t be so dynamic if it were not for the subject at hand, practically speaking, a motley collective of individuals who forged a remarkable unity unto themselves through their devotion to a remarkably eclectic music;  the intense concentration they brought to their playng is palpable. In turn, it’s uncanny how Minkin’s shots, from all different angles, at all the different venues, including the (New Jersey) Capitol Theater. San Francisco’s Winterland, Radio City Music Hall in New York and Red Rocks, Colorado, depict how the Dead, their partners and their followers were mutual reflections of each other,

And Bob Minkin is careful to also capture the sights of the world that grew up around the band too, including their literal and figurative families and associates such as lyricist Robert Hunter and the late rock entrepreneur Bill Graham.  In so doing, he elaborates on the main theme within the essays by Constanten, Parish and Jackson that begin the book – the spirit of creative industry and benevolent trust embodied by the Grateful Dead, in their music and in their business endeavors, posit the story of this group as the most fascinating in the history of rock and roll. And that premise  echoes so resoundingly here, Bob Minkin’s Live Dead becomes another contribution  to the tale, rendered with an affection and an eye for detail the band itself would be proud of.

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