Dead Letters: Grateful Dead Fan Mail by Paul Grushkin
- Stuart Ake
- Dec 28, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Published 2011 by Voyageur Press
"Dead Heads now had a forum-the size 10 envelope-on which to share their love and knowledge of the band through the illustrations they created, even if, in effect, it begat what was in some cases an unsettling competition within the fan base for precious concert tickets."
Paul Grushkin’s Dead Letters: Grateful Dead Fan Mail puts the spotlight on the fans and the strange, beautiful, occasionally absurd relationship the Grateful Dead cultivated with them. The book frames that relationship through the handcrafted art adorning envelopes mailed to Grateful Dead Ticket Sales (GDTS), turning the humble #10 envelope into a canvas, a calling card and for some, a competitive edge.
Grushkin opens by tracing the band’s early correspondence with fans, including a handwritten response from Jerry Garcia to Craig Corwin, who wrote with questions about the songs performed in Sacramento on 12/28/68. That kind of direct, human-scale exchange feels almost unimaginable now, but it sets the tone. Long before GDTS became a fine tuned machine, the Dead were already in dialogue with their audience.
The mail-order system itself emerged from a mix of idealism and pragmatism. The band had real concerns Deadheads were being squeezed by scalpers and “insider trading,” and there was evidence some promoters were overselling venues, or failing to properly account for ticket sales. By handling a portion of tickets directly, the Dead could keep unscrupulous promoters in check while protecting access for the people who were actually creating the scene.
The process took shape with the 1982 Warfield shows and became more refined through runs at the Frost, the Greek and Santa Fe Downs in 1983. From there, GDTS grew into a phenomenon. By the early ’90s, over half a million tickets a year were being sold via mail order, publicized entirely through the band’s East Coast and West Coast hotlines. At peak demand, when the band might receive 60,000 requests for a 15,000-seat venue, the envelope became more than packaging. It became a plea.
"[Dead Heads] surmised that decoration would show the envelope pullers that a particular mail-order customer in fact was the most truly dedicated, the most knowledgeable of the Dead lore, the most loving to the nth degree, and by his/her own self-reckoning the most inspired fan with the most pure, holy, and burning desire to attend a particular run of shows."
That belief, part devotion, part superstition, part strategy, produced the real treasure here. Beyond Grushkin's well-detailed history, Dead Letters is a visual feast: nearly 130 pages of fan-created envelope art spanning collage, watercolor, acrylics, markers, ink and crayons. Familiar Dead iconography is present, but the range is what stuns. You get Benjamin Franklin, pirate ships, mandalas, Frank Sinatra and countless one-off bursts of imagination that feel like private jokes mailed in hopes the signal would cut through the noise.
And then there were the rule-followers, myself included. Because I was terrified of straying from Eileen Law’s hotline instructions, my own envelopes paled in comparison: a few colorful lines and a lot of quiet anxiety about doing it “right.” Thankfully, I can’t recall ever being shut out of a mail-order request, but looking at these masterpieces now, I realize I was playing defense while others were composing murals that rival Miami's Wynwood Walls.
Dead Letters is more than a gorgeous collection of artifacts. It documents an era when fandom wasn’t just consumption, but contribution. These envelopes don’t merely ask for tickets; they announce membership in a culture that captures the Dead’s world at its most intimate.
For Heads who once mailed in requests, anthropology-minded readers drawn to participatory culture and newcomers curious about this singular corner of Dead history, Dead Letters is essential reading and a worthy addition to the shelf.
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Fat man wobbles, but he won’t fall down.
After Jerry came out of the coma in ’86—and positive reports drifted east from the early-December Kaiser shows and NYE run— I fretted securing tickets for Spring Tour might turn into a scrum.
I had managed to save a bit of money the previous summer working 12-18 hour shifts, seven days a week on a fishing boat off the coast of Alaska. In addition to the paychecks there was even a little side economy: fresh salmon roe traded to a nearby Japanese vessel for whisky, whisky swapped for cash to crewmen who needed firewater to stay sane. In short, working on a fishing boat demanded the same scrappy skill set necessary to succeed on GD tour.
When the GDTS hotline announced mail order, I was ready—aiming for seven shows across Hampton, Byrne, Hartford, Worcester and Philly. With general admission, Hampton was always my favorite East Coast room, but my school schedule only let me catch Monday. The place was electric and the band played well— though, nothing truly astounded.
Hartford did. I’d seen “Touch of Gray” a number of times, but I’d never been inside one of those moments where the band locks in, the crowd locks on and the building feels like it’s lifting a half-inch off its foundations. That “Touch” hit so hard it brought me to tears— that hadn’t happened before. You don’t really hear the full exchange on tape, but in the room the roar was feral, froth-mouthed, ecstatic: He’s back!!!! By the last “We will get by,” 16,000 Heads had become a single voice. People swear Jerry was doing Pete Townshend windmills; I can’t confirm as I’m one of those knuckleheads who “watches” whole stretches of shows with my eyes closed.
Nearly forty years on, that six minutes and thirty seconds from a random night in 1987, still sits in a category of its own. Four months later, “Touch of Gray” would become a radio hit and briefly own MTV. I’d see dozens more versions after that, but none ever touched the height of that Friday evening at the Hartford Civic Center.