Songwriters & Catalogs

Spirit is privileged to have signed the first publishing deal in the history of the Grateful Dead, working with the band and its management to bring the legendary jam band’s collected works to a new generation of fans via smart, appropriate licensing into film, television and a wide range of new media. From their organic founding in San Francisco, the hotbed of cultural and political change in the 60’s, it was evident that the Dead would chart a unique and thoroughly unpredictable course as musicians and human beings. From the initial pairing of a bluegrass-inspired Jerry Garcia with poet/lyricist Robert Hunter to the addition of such push-the-envelope players as Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Ron McKernan, the group developed a kinetic energy that proved irresistible to a generation of open-minded music fans. While the band’s live show would become legendary, spawning a devoted cult of ‘Deadheads’ which would grow massively in the years and decades that followed, it can be argued that their song craft – prolific, inspired, and powerfully evocative – is just as impressive and important. Exploring a wonderful gumbo of country, rock, bluegrass and jazz, such songs as “Box Of Rain,” “Brokedown Palace," "Sugar Magnolia,” “Uncle John’s Band” and the ubiquitous “Alabama Getaway” and “Truckin” (not to mention 80’s tongue-in-cheek salute to aging gracefully “Touch Of Grey”, the Dead song catalog remains a timeless collection of evocative flavors and themes which continue to have a strong influence on pop culture.