Venturing into the world of music artists has been a wonderful opportunity to not only enjoy the creative side of artists creating music but has had very fulfilling challenges in creative work for myself as a photographer.  Most of my work with one of my favorite bands, the Grateful Dead, has been documenting shows that I have attended over the years.  My highlight of working with the Grateful Dead was in 1990 and again in 1996.  During 1990 I had been having some images printed in a publication, "The Golden Road" (published by Blair Jackson) - a quarterly issue documenting life on tour and featuring interviews with band members and other artists.  Blair Jackson had recalled my images from a spring 1990 show when in 1996 GD Merchandising was looking for images from that tour and he passed along my name to them.  I submitted about 10 images to GD Merchandising and they selected 6 of those images to be used for a live concert CD release titled: "Dozin' at the Knick" from shows at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, NY from March 24-26, 1990.  Images were featured on the outside covers, the CD's themselves and in the CD booklet.   I also photographed shows for "The Golden Road" in the fall of 1990 - which included their East Coast Tour and also their Europe Tour.

Since 1995 there have been several incarnations of the band and most of the members now tour as "Dead and Company" and the "Terrapin Family Band". 

Side bar story on the signed band photo (my tale from the Golden Road):  the photo is from September 16, 1990 at Madison Square Garden in NYC - Bruce Hornsby's first show to sit in with them as an additional keyboardist.  Vince Welnick had started the previous week when the tour started.  I was able to get most of the signatures in June 1991 when the band played at Bonner Springs, KS.  I finished getting an additional one in April 1995 from Vince but was unable to get Jerry Garcia's signature - even though I did meet him getting in an elevator and had the print and a pen on me ready to go!  He was in a hurry and being respectful I didn't want to push it - he said maybe next time.  Sorry to say that never happened as he passed later that summer.

My experiences of doing band photography with them has helped me immensely as I have been photographing other artists since.