Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead

Rating:
Summary: Steve Rules
Review: This is easily the best book on the Grateful Dead that I've read--and I've read 'em all. There is so much cool stuff about the band that I've not read anywhere else. Also, Parish provides a look behind the scenes at what it's like on tour with a major rock band. It's wild, it's funny, it's nuts, and it's kind of heartbreaking at times too. I definitely recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: We Can Share The Women, We Can Share The Wine
Review: Yeah, we suspected the scene was as Mr. Parish details it. But what a great read to actually have a first-person account of the band personalities' strengths and frailties. Rarely does a rock book offer the insight into the people behind the music. If anything, the music is simply explained by matter-of-factly saying it was mostly superior in concert. That, we already knew. The interesting part to me is the behind-the-backstage scenes, times even an All Access pass was worthless. Clearly, this is written from one point of view but after 30 years, that perspective has been forged into a solid understanding of the dynamics required to maintain the Grateful Dead industry. Best of all, the book's pages just fly by. It reads more like a pulp novel than a biography. In summary, I'll never hear "We can share the women, we can share the wine" and think of the band in the same way again. . .