Introduction: Light the Song * They're an American Band * Of Jerry Garcia, Savior * Dead Shows Are Like Snowflakes * The Dead Are Epicurean * "Ripple" Is So Zen * They Invented a New Form of Music * Concert Sound at a Whole New Level * They Played the Pyramids * Their Instruments Were Custom-Made * Pigpen Sang the Blues * Bobby Brought the Muscle and the Sunshine * Rock Scully Was Their Manager * They Didn't Buy into the Jinx * The Birth of the Dead Was a Familial Process * Of the Acid Tests * The Lyrics of Robert Hunter Are Great Poetry * The Band Has a Philosophy * Of Academics and Business * Of Mountain Girl * Deadheads Roam the Earth * Crickets Played on Blues for Allah * Dead World Is a Kinder, Gentler Place * Their Most Spontaneous Moment Became Their Finest Hour * They Overcame So Much and Forged On * There Is Sugaree * The Commitment to a Concise Aesthetic and Traditional Song Structures * When Youth Was God, Jerry Played Old * Of the Art * The Concert Films * Their Music Is So Flexible * Of the Forty-Five-Minute "Sugaree" * Of Englishtown, and the Myriad Glories of '77 * When Jerry Died the Vibe Lived On * The Music Never Stops * Acknowledgments * Further Reading * Index.