Like swallows on their way to Capistrano, the Grateful Dead is making its annual spring migration through Chicago. And on the group`s heels will be legions of Deadheads; faithful fans decked in their full 1960s psychedelic regalia, arriving in mini buses and car caravans with out-of-state plates, for three days of tie-dyed, purple haze abandon Tuesday through Thursday at the Rosemont Horizon.
”One More Saturday Night, ”Sugar Magnolia” and ”Uncle John`s Band,”
songs that are staples of any Dead show, will be eagerly awaited by thousands of fans-many of whom were barely toddlers when the Grateful Dead played its first Bay Area concert during the mid-1960s. Regardless, for those three days, the news, trials and complications of the 1980s will melt into a paisley mix of painted faces, dancing, talk of free love and plentiful (if much more discreet) mind-expanding drugs.
All this will be in marked contrast to some of the recent activities of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, who spent the winter break from the Dead`s endless touring with his family on their Sonoma County ranch north of San Francisco.
Legendary guitarist and Dead leader Jerry Garcia was in the studio then, mixing the group`s long-awaited follow-up to 1987`s surprise hit LP ”In the Dark” (only the group`s second platinum album). But Hart was content to sit on his front porch, feet propped up, shaking off the remnants of a winter cold while basking in the warmth of the sun, as he did a phone interview.
His favorite topic was the collection of endangered ”world” music he has gathered or encountered during 20 years of touring the world with the Dead. Last fall, Boston-based Rykodisc released the first of six albums of Hart`s ”World Series” and there`s a second set due out about the time the Dead hit Chicago.
”I never saw myself as a white knight riding in to save the world`s music,” Hart said of the project. ”It wasn`t like that. Basically, it was a pretty selfish motivation at first. I just wanted to hear this music because I liked it so much.
”I grew up in New York and I went to see Tito Puente and Machito and I saw the auditory driving that accompanied the loudness of the music. It was Latin mambo, and it was sending the people into ecstatic states.
”It was the first time I ever saw group rapture go down. That`s when I learned that we didn`t have a patent on rhythm or inspirational music in the U. S. That, I guess, was the beginning of the adventure.”
When Hart talks about world music, he`s not talking about the Gipsy Kings, Ofra Haza, the National Bulgarian Women`s Choir or any of a bevy of international performers who have found success in the United States during the last year. Hart has gone back to the source.
From the banks of the Nile to the jungles of the Amazon, Hart has tracked the music of ancient and often dying cultures in an effort to preserve the music, just as many have worked to save the natural environments of the musicians who play it.
As a member of the Smithsonian Institution`s newly founded Folkways board, Hart has been charged with the duties of an ethnomusicologist: Record, study and preserve the unusual music of cultures that are on the brink of assimilation into the world of Michael Jackson, Madonna and U2.
”I wasn`t riding out to save the music, but these recordings don`t happen all the time. They can`t be duplicated. So, for 18 years, I`ve been making these recordings for myself. This is special stuff.
”The first Ryko releases are some of my favorites from my own tape collection. This music has never seen the light of day outside of the cultures it`s a part of. These are also some of the best acoustic musicians that have never been recorded.
”It was more than I could pass up.”
The first six releases from the World Series span a range from African drum master Babatunde Olatunji to the Sarangi music of India and the music of Upper and Lower Egypt to the traditional Klezmer music of Eastern Europe`s Jews. Recording on location, often in conditions better suited for a mud bath than a studio session, Hart toted his equipment along with his drum kit.
”In Egypt, it was really a `Raiders of the Lost Ark` adventure,” Hart said laughing. ”We were recording from one boat to another in the middle of the Nile, because we didn`t have the power to juice up all the equipment. We were trying to record the singing on one boat while taping it on the other, trying to present it with the same care as a pop record.
”It was kind of magical, rolling up and down on the Nile while these wonderful sounds drifted across the water in the middle of the night.”
The recurring theme that Hart seeks is one of transformation; music that ascends to a level that breeds imagination, improvisation and a bit of magic for an out-of-body musical experience.
”The Grateful Dead music has those same kind of characteristics, which allow for change. It is created in front of you and that`s its grand appeal.” Although Hart`s commitment to Folkways could lead to as many as 600 recordings (the treasure of his own personal music vault), he said it will never take the place of his first love-performing with the Dead.
”I play drums in the Grateful Dead, and that`s what I do. I`m a drummer. I just couldn`t be an enthnomusicologist. I just love to hit a drum too much. In that sense, I`m just really still in the same place I was when I joined the group in 1967.
”(World music) is not a great crusade, more like a hobby that got out of control and is now being put to good use. I was passionately involved with world music because I thought that it wouldn`t be here forever. Besides, these are our roots. The Dead and every musician owe a lot to the music of the jungle and the savannah.”
And what about the Grateful Dead? During the last two years, thr group has grown from `60s holdovers with a cult-like following to Top 40 artists with a new, younger audience who`ve never heard of Phil Graham`s Fillmore Auditorium or the Dead`s late harmonica player, Ron ”Pigpen” McKernan.
In the last year, the Dead has smashed house attendance records at New York`s Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl and dozens of other hallowed venues as new fans dash to see what they have been missing.
But has the platinum success of ”In the Dark” and the reappearance of tie-dye on everyone from toddlers to mall-strolling suburban mothers changed the group or its music?
”I can`t tell you how it happened,” Hart said of the band`s regained popularity. ”Everything about the Grateful Dead says that we should have crashed and burned a long time ago.
”But I also thought we always made popular music. The only problem was that it wasn`t popular. But it basically was pop music.
”The only thing that has caused a problem recently has been the number of people who come to the shows. This megadeath thing is affecting us. And we`re beginning to think that people aren`t enjoying the shows as much as they used to.
”You try to create something new each time you go on stage, so the popularity of the Grateful Dead affects us in no way as far as the music is concerned. We don`t see `In the Dark` as a crossroads. There is a crossroads every minute and every day.
”Playing in the Grateful Dead is like walking on egg shells.”
