Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead by Bill Kreutzmann

Cover of Bill Kreutzman's book "Deal"

Dust Jacket of Bill Kreutzmann's book "Deal"

Photograph of Bill Kreutzmann drumming from the book "Deal"

Back Cover of the book "Deal" by Bill Kreutzmann

Photo of Grateful Dead at Greek Theater from Bill Kreutzmann's book "Deal"

Photo portrait of Bill Kreutzmann in the book "Deal"

Photos of the Grateful Dead from the book "Deal" by Bill Kreutzmann

 Published 2015 by St. Martin's Press

“When someone comes along and changes the way something is done, if it doesn’t work, they call it foolish. But when it works, they call it revolutionary.”

Bill Kreutzmann’s Deal reads like a field recording from the drummer’s stool. Co-written with journalist Benjy Eisen, the book is both candid and messy in a way that feels honest rather than careless. I came of age when the Grateful Dead were not particularly user friendly. With my first show landing in 1984, the band hadn’t had a hit in years. Popular music, driven by music videos on cable television, was dominated by new romantic synthpop from the UK, along with dancecentric sounds of Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Several voices from an earlier generation, Aretha, Bowie, Tina Turner and Neil Young were rewarded for embracing video. The Dead steered clear. What most young teens knew of the Dead at the time boiled down to Jerry Garcia, Jerry Garcia, Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir’s cut off shorts. Once the band charted in 1987, the general public’s palate expanded. Yet, even as the Grateful Dead members, somewhat inexplicably found themselves in the spotlight, Bill Kreutzman’s public voice, whether by design or accident, remained on the fringes.

Twenty years after the passing of Jerry Garcia, Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead, is Bill Kreutzmann's invitation for Heads to listen to his story. He begins by tracing his path from Palo Alto to the band’s earliest days, through the years when the Dead’s experiments became a working language and into the long stretch when endurance became part of the job description. He doesn’t pretend to offer clean answers or a perfectly edited memory. Instead, you get the joy of discovery, the grind of touring, complicated loyalties and the way drugs and fatigue can warp a community that once felt invincible. Throughout, Kreutzmann is frank about his own indulgences, his frustrations with bandmates and his own cycles of burnout and reinvention. His humor is often disarming, his humility shows up in unexpected pockets and his bluntness can land like a rimshot.

I feel Deal is at its best when it stays close to the music: Billy's intricate partnership with Mickey Hart, the near-telepathic communication with Jerry and the improvisational risks that made every show an experiment. Throughout, there's also thoughtful insight into how the band built its sound and how fragile that creation could become when egos, exhaustion and substances entered the fray.

“We started off as a band of brothers, by music and by experience if not by blood. But toward the end of it, a lot of the time we didn’t want to see each other, much less have to interact on any real level. It was a separation without divorce.”

Deal isn’t without rough patches. The storytelling can be uneven, with abrupt jumps in time and a conversational tone which sometimes leans toward barstool storytelling. Even so, Kreutzmann's narrative serves as a reminder the Dead’s story was not all cosmic harmony. It was also a test of endurance among people trying to keep the music alive while navigating fame, excess and loss.

I feel Deal succeeds because Kreutzmann doesn’t mythologize the Grateful Dead. By removing some of the polish, he humanizes it. His love and affection for the music, Jerry and the Deadhead community comes through, even when he’s clear-eyed about how hard it was to keep going. The result is a memoir that may not be the most polished or exhaustive account of the band’s history, but it’s the most personal.

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EYES OF THE WORLD 6/18/74 Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY

Even if possessing open ears, Deadheads have a credibility problem. You can talk Steve Reich’s minimalist pulses, Pablo Casals’s tone, Motörhead’s shock and awe or Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s righteous guitar crunch. Yet, the moment you mention the Grateful Dead, people step back. If you try to clarify your position, they take yet another step back. Uh oh. You’re one of those people. How can you tolerate the out-of-tune instruments and the wincing vocals?

I learned that lesson early.

On long family treks to visit siblings a few states away, we had a ritual. We took turns feeding a battery-operated portable cassette player. Mom might lean toward Ella. Dad could drift to big-band instrumentals. Brother David, a pianist, composer and music scholar, might put on Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert. While eyes would roll, they even tolerated letting me slip on a 45-minute side from a show.

Dave can be a tough critic, which is why one small moment has stayed with me. During “Eyes of the World” from Freedom Hall, 1974, Mom asked, honestly trying to understand, why I loved the Grateful Dead so much. Before I could mount a defense, Dave chimed in and said Billy was nailing it. This was probably 1986. Forty years on, Dave likely remembers nothing about it. I remember everything.

It wasn’t a grand endorsement, just a thoughtful nod from the person least inclined to hand one out. Jerry hits clams. The band occasionally wobbles. Even so, the Louisville “Eyes” is a gorgeous, breezy and sparse interpretation. Billy absolutely slays. That simple validation, chimed in from the back seat of the family car, made me feel understood.