Grateful Dead

Toni Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., figures it was three years ago when she first noticed something weird going on in her mailbox.As editor of Relix, a magazine dedicated largely to the Grateful Dead, she was receiving loads of mail from fans -- Deadheads. Many were written from inside federal prisons."And it was not just a few isolated letters," said Ms. Brown, whose magazine has become so swamped with such letters today that it prints them under a new section, dubbed "Heads Behind Bars."What Ms. Brown was seeing back in 1991 were the first results of an undercover operation by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as local and state police, to target the buying and selling of LSD at Grateful Dead concerts.

Kids go crazy for the darndest things. Just last winter, it was Zhu Zhu Pets. And recent history is littered with Pogs, Pokemon, Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch dolls. Occasionally, as with Silly Bandz, a fashion trend will start and end with the playground set. Remember: Friendship bracelets: Little girls would go to the craft store, load up on embroidery floss, then go home and weave and braid themselves silly, crafting creations to hand out to their favorite people.

The Grateful Dead will make a rare network TV shot Friday on ABC's "In Concert '91." Also included: performances by Indigo Girls, Lyle Lovett and Suzanne Vega. Although ABC bills "In Concert" as a live series, all the performances will be taped.

From the name the Grateful Dead gave its first album, Live Dead, to Jerry Garcia's sudden death at a retreat called Serenity Knolls, the band was always a paradox: virtuosos with a sloppy sound, anti-materialists who made a mint, an act that lived in the moment yet rocked on for 40 years. But even Garcia, a man who mined old blues and country for his psychedelic wanderings, might have had trouble seeing this coming. Tomorrow night at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, on what would have been Garcia's 66th birthday, tie-dye meets tie and tails as the BSO performs the world premiere of a work known as Dead Symphony No. 6. (The orchestra will perform a Led Zeppelin-based work Saturday.

NEW YORK -- Jerry Garcia a fashion maven?Definitely. The Grateful Dead's lead guitarist, whose signature look is a black T-shirt with coordinated jeans, now has his own neckwear collection.Mr. Garcia, who has serenaded tie-dye-wearing "Deadheads" for more than two decades, is introducing a tie collection with designs based on his minimalist drawings and abstract paintings.Mr. Garcia, "who probably never wore a tie in his life," laughed when he received a box of samples recently, said Irwin Sternberg, president of New York neckwear manufacturer Stonehenge Ltd., which expects to sell 84,000 of the $28.50 silk crepe ties to major department stores.

JODIE FOSTER, cited for her role as a psycho-stalking cop in the movie "Silence of the Lambs," plus her film directorial debut in "Little Man Tate," was picked as Entertainer of the Year in this week's Entertainment Weekly."

Police vs. the Grateful Dead, 1991. Scenes from an ongoing struggle entering its fourth generation:At Howard County police headquarters, about 15 narcotics officers assembled at 3:30 p.m. Thursday wearing bandannas, shorts, filthy T-shirts and unkempt beards to talk about their latest undercover assault at Merriweather Post Pavilion, siteof a concert by Dead guitarist Bob Weir."

DEADICATEDVarious Artists (Arista 8669)No matter how much the liner notes might insist that the all-star Grateful Dead tribute album, "Deadicated," was assembled solely to help the Rainforest Action Network, the real appeal for many of these artists must have been the excuse to cut a few Dead-perfect covers. Which is what most of them did, from Dwight Yoakam's blushingly faithful "Truckin' " to Los Lobos' earnest imitation of "Bertha." Frankly, though, the album's most interesting moments occur when the performers step away from the originals, whether through a reading as radically different as Burning Spear's "Estimated Prophet" or as subtly refined as Lyle Lovett's treatment of "Friend of the Devil."

Talk about culture clash of the first order. Last night at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, the BMW set met the VW bus crowd; Calvin Klein's Obsession mingled with incense and patchouli.It has to be the most unlikely pairing since Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner: Sting, the debonair British pop star, surrounded by top-notch jazz players and the Grateful Dead, monarchs of the last bastion of '60s culture. Well, the good (or bad) news is that the Dead are still the Dead, and aside from a svelte, almost youthful-looking Jerry Garcia, not much has changed with the world's oldest hippies.

When she began shooting the tape that would one day form the basis of Grateful Dawg, Gillian Grisman had no intention of making a movie. She says she was practicing with the camera, really, as she chronicled the dynamic musical collaboration of her father, mandolin master David Grisman, and Grateful Dead ringleader Jerry Garcia in the years before Garcia's death. She set up the camera in the living room of Grisman's Mill Valley, Calif., home, followed the men into a basement studio as they recorded their bluegrass-inspired tunes and joked around - even catching Garcia in mid-inspiration.

The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, video game theme music and Leon Fleisher -- not exactly your typical Baltimore Symphony Orchestra summer season. On the classical side of the eclectic 2008 lineup, the BSO will celebrate the 80th birthday of Fleisher, one of the country's most gifted and respected musicians, with an all-Mozart program that will showcase both his pianistic and conducting skills. He'll lead the orchestra in Symphony No. 35 and No. 40 and, from the keyboard, Piano Concerto No. 12. Performances are July 24 at the Music Center at Strathmore and July 25 at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right. -- from "Scarlet Begonias" (Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead) In the lengthening shadows of a summer afternoon, thickets of music fans -- on blankets, in lawn chairs, chucking Frisbees -- have turned a West Virginia hillside into a patchwork of tie-dye. Huge amplifiers on a stage pulse with the warbling of electric guitars. The American Roots Music Festival is about to begin. Halfway up the hill, where you've spread a tapestry on the ground, a stranger sidles up, a barrel of a man with bowed legs, a full white beard and an expression that says, "Hey, brother, want to chat?"

They showed up in waves, some wearing ragged orange softball jerseys and faded gray jeans, others dressed in expensive suits with silk blue ties. A few sported bushy gray beards, unkempt mustaches and Grateful Dead T-shirts. The sang, they laughed, they told stories that many of the hundred or so in attendance had already heard, and shouted and applauded during their favorite parts. When it was over, there were few tears but plenty of promises to head to the bar and down a few drinks. It was the kind of memorial service that William "Wild Bill" Hagy, the most famous Orioles fan in franchise history, probably would have loved.

As reported July 25, 1990, in The Sun: A longtime member of the Grateful Dead is scheduled for an Aug. 28 concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion, much to the chagrin of police officials, who have lobbied to keep the band's performers out of Howard County. After police voiced criticism about the Grateful Dead's drug-culture following, managers of the 14,000-seat amphitheater in Columbia announced last month that neither the band nor Jerry Garcia, the lead singer, would be booked for this summer.

DONNA JEAN & THE TRICKSTERS / / (With opening act 39 Cents a Gallon) 7 p.m. tomorrow, 8x10, 10 East Cross St., Federal Hill. $15-$17. 410-625-2000, ticketmaster.com or the8x10.com Donna Jean Godchaux-Mackay Born: Aug. 22, 1947, Sheffield, Ala. Home: Florence, Ala. Career: Recorded background vocals with Elvis Presley, Percy Sledge, Cher, Boz Scaggs, Otis Redding and Dionne Warwick Former bands: The Grateful Dead (1971-79), the Keith and Donna Band (1975), the Ghosts (1979-80), the Heart of Gold Band (1980s-1990s)

PEACE OF SUNSHINE 819 Frederick Road, Catonsville / 410-788-0942 / peaceofsunshine.com Open noon-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday Nostalgic for the good old days? Long for the time of peace symbols, smiley faces, flower power and the Grateful Dead? Then step into Peace of Sunshine, a newly opened shop that owner Larry Zwick says aims to bring a little color and happiness to Catonsville. Zwick, who retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in February, opened the shop with his wife, Jeanine, last month.

He was a Grateful Dead icon, and for many, the Dead embodied the peace-and-love Sixties during their 30-year rock-and-roll reign. So it might've seemed a bit odd when Bob Weir, the band's longtime rhythm guitarist, was recently asked his favorite sport. Football, he said. "It's a great game to watch," said Weir, 58. "Everybody has a neat and precise role or assignment. Then the ball is snapped, and it's pandemonium." It's hard to think of a better analogy for the kind of show his current band, Ratdog, now on nationwide tour, has been making for the past 10 years.

If all you know about Phish is what you read in newspapers and magazines, odds are that you think this is the band that will become the next Grateful Dead.According to the press, the signs are all there: The long, improvisation-heavy performances. The devoted, eager-to-travel fans. The scent of patchouli in the air. The guitar player with a beard. Put 'em all together, they spell G-R-A-T-E-F-U-L D-E-A-D.That used to bother Trey Anastasio, the guitar player with the beard. "When we first came into the awareness of the media, it would always be [the Dead]

Reggae night The lowdown -- Reggae Got Soul, the Ottobar's tribute to Jamaican music, is tonight. Bands and DJs play ska, rocksteady and reggae. The Rootworkers, a Baltimore reggae band, and the Pressure Sounds, a ska/rocksteady/reggae band from Washington, will perform. DJs Mike and Ryan and Bobby Babylon will spin. If you go -- The Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show starts at 9 p.m. Call 410-662-0069 or visit theottobar.com. More Marley The lowdown -- The Bob Marley Roots, Rock, Reggae Festival comes to the Filene Center at Wolf Trap on Sunday.

Vince Welnick, 51, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, died Friday in Los Angeles, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist, Dennis McNally, said yesterday. Mr. McNally would not release the cause of death. Mr. Welnick was the last in a long line of Grateful Dead keyboardists, several of whom died prematurely. He had replaced Brent Mydland, who died of a drug overdose in 1990. Mr. Mydland succeeded Keith Godchaux, who died in a car crash shortly after leaving the band.