The Mother of All Bands

[jps]

Another would be Parlaiment/Funkadelic.

[wayang]

Yes..."A real mutha fo' ya..."

[325_fan]

I suppose The Grateful Dead would be up at the top of the list somewhere.

[firstbassman]

I’m as big of a fan of the Dead as anyone, Chris, but I don’t see where they spawned off into any other bands. (New Riders sort of but not really.) The Dead stayed together all those years (G-d bless ‘em). Unlike the others cited: Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, etc.

[35012]

With the Dead, though, other than the Riders, there was Old and in the Way, Jerry's Bluegrass Band. It involved Garcia (Banjo), David Grisman (Mandolin), Peter Rowan (Guitar), Vassar Clements (Fiddle) and John Kahn (String Bass), all of whom went on to make their names more and more well known after this band.

[wayang]

Maybe they didn't spin off as many other bands, but Dead alumni contribute tremendous time and resources to the cause of keeping music alive around the world. There's Mickey Hart's 'Endangered Music' series, which supports the ongoing work of indigenous players (Indonesian gamelan musicians prominent among them) who might otherwise be forced to pack it in and serve umbrella drinks to bored tourists. Phil Lesch also does tremendous work supporting contemporary avant-garde composers (most of whom are in Europe, rather than America...imagine that!), who face similar economic pressures.

Let's hear it for the Dead...doing their part to keep world culture from swirling down the bowl into 'Britneyland'...

[firstbassman]

Oh, yes, absolutely. Agree.

It seems like I'm plugging books all the time but for those uninitiated, Lesh's book came out fairly recently. It's certainly a good read for Deadheads.