Grateful Dead’s Original Lyrics, Posters and Furniture Go to Auction
A selection of Grateful Dead memorabilia, including posters, original drafts of lyrics and even the group’s office furniture, is headed to auction. The Grateful Dead Family Jubilee Auction will take place at Donley Auction Services in Union, Illinois on April 11th and 12th, in advance of the band’s upcoming block of summer Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago. Former employees and friends of the Dead contributed the items in the auction.
Most notable among the offerings are an original draft of Robert Hunter’s lyrics to “He’s Gone,” which appeared on the band’s Europe ’72 live release; it is expected to go for $150,000. A chair with lion-paw legs used by Jerry Garcia in a 1987 Rolling Stone photo is expected to fetch $50,000.
Other items include the kitchen table that once sat in the band’s San, Rafael, California office – which, the auction house colorfully offers, “the band gathered around to drink coffee and consider the day” – original poster art by Rick Griffin and Stanley Mouse and the “Soto List,” a list of the band’s concerts that served as the basis for one of the first Grateful Dead Internet databases. A desk, the government patent document entitling the band to the name the Grateful Dead, original “long strange trip” lettering and a photo signed by Garcia, Hunter and Dave Nelson are also going to auction.
The Dead will commemorate their 50th anniversary in July with three farewell concerts featuring help from Phish frontman Trey Anastasio and pianist Bruce Hornsby. It will be the last time that percussionists Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, bassist Phil Lesh and guitarist Bob Weir will play together.