I want to write a book about the Grateful Dead

and am looking for ideas on who to pitch it to

I wrote a lot of posts about the Grateful Dead last year. I started doing it for my own enjoyment and interest, and was pleasantly surprised by how many enthusiastic responses I got. I have also been surprised by how interested my students have been in hearing about these songs. I started thinking that I had enough to say for a book, and that there might be an audience for such a thing.

There are a lot of books (and documentaries, and other long-form studies) of the Grateful Dead already. There are two entire books just about 5/8/77. But these are mostly stories about the people in and around the band, and about their larger cultural context. There is not much out there in print about the actual music, aside from a few academic articles. There are a lot of YouTube guitar tutorials, and some of them are great, but as useful as they can be, they don't get into larger and deeper ideas than just "here's how Jerry played this riff". It's a vacuum that I am well positioned to fill.

So what would go in the book? I plan to pick ten songs or so to do deep dives on. That means music theoretic and musicological analysis, connections to related songs both in the Dead canon and elsewhere, stories from my own musical life, and assorted lore. Likely candidates include:

• Morning Dew

• St Stephen

• Uncle John's Band

• Playing in the Band

• China>Rider

• Tennessee Jed

• The Mind Left Body jam

• Help>Slip>Frank

• Scarlet>Fire

• Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie

• Touch of Grey

I'll talk about the lyrics, but not as much as I'll talk about the music: the rhythms, the harmonies, the structures. I'm a Deadhead, but a skeptical one, so while I write from a place of love, it is not unconditional love. My intended reader is an amateur guitarist who is interested in this music and has questions that can't be answered by online guitar tabs. This reader wants to know why Dead songs are so compelling, and why they have so massively transcended their original time and place. Or maybe they're already a fan and want their fandom better articulated, or to have a deeper understanding of it.

There are also going to be some larger interrelated themes woven across the song analysis:

• Grooves, jams and songs

• Dead fandom as a participatory culture

• Americana, folk music, Bob Dylan, and the challenge of authenticity

• The complexities of white people playing black music

So, sounds good, right? I'm in the process of writing a book proposal (this post is part of that process.) Then I need to find a publisher. I have a lot of connections in the academic publishing world but I sense that this has potential mass-market appeal, so a commercial press might be a better fit. I would especially like to talk to nonfiction agents. I had one many years ago, but at the time, I didn't have the platform or the chops to get something sold. Now I do. So be in touch, publishing people! I'll have a proposal together soon.