Warren helped bring the band to this peak in the reunion years. This was the best they had sounded since Brothers and sisters. I give Warren all the credit, he was a great buffer between Dickey and Gregg. He managed to pull the material both brought and made it a cohesive thing again, sounding like the Brothers of old.
The Grateful Dead are a peculiar entity, and tough to think about critically because they exist almost entirely as their own subculture. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are similarly successful, massive revenue-generating groups, but they defined culture at large. Everyone can find ways to wrap themselves in the subtext of those bands or, in the least, find songs that they admire. The Dead are a different thing; with fans of the group comes a… more »
