For the Grateful Dead, 1972 was the year. The band’s early-’60s bluegrass roots, its mid-’60s electric-blues jams, its late-’60s psychedelic-improv experiments and its early-’70s Americana songwriting all came together to produce a sparkling peak. A year or two later, drugs, death and fatigue dulled the songwriting and slowed the rhythms to a narcotic ooze. But […]
