Dancing with the Dead--A Photographic Memoir

Book excerpt: Photographer and Grateful Dead insider Rosie McGee tells dozens of previously-untold stories of living, traveling and working with the Dead during their first decade as a band. The book is illustrated with 200 of her rare and candid photographs, many never before seen in print. Not just for Deadheads or baby boomers-this book is for anyone seeking a woman's intimate account of the San Francisco rock music community in the Sixties, rare in a field of such books most often written by men. Included are firsthand stories of Autumn Records; The Matrix nightclub; the Acid Tests; Olompali; life in the Haight-Ashbury; the Human Be-In; the Grateful Dead (and the author's) bust at 710 Ashbury; New York, Toronto and Montreal with the Dead and Jefferson Airplane; Monterey Pop; Altamont; the Dead's Europe '72 tour; and encounters with individuals as diverse as Tom Donahue, Phil Spector, Lenny Bruce, Janis Joplin, Owsley Stanley, Timothy Leary, Jesse Colin Young, Julie Christie and many others.