Here’s a story that illustrates perfectly the madness of life on the road, and the familial nature of the Grateful Dead.
It was late 1972 and we were out on tour, as usual, crisscrossing the country in an assortment of trucks and vans, hauling our equipment from city to city, and spending a dozen hours at each venue setting up for the show. This was the most frenetic time for the crew of the Dead, when we reached critical mass—that point where it was simply not possible to work any harder, to drive more miles, to fuck more women, or to ingest more chemicals. We were redefining what it meant to burn the candle at both ends.
This was the Heartland portion of the tour, when we got out into the middle of the country, away from the safety and familiarity of the coasts. We did a show in Omaha, Nebraska, then another in Wichita, Kansas. I remember passing through Gardner, Kansas, and then getting to the hotel in Wichita, turning on the black-and-white TV, and being shocked to see the movie In Cold Blood.
“Jesus,” Jerry said. “This is too weird.”
“Why?” I had never seen the movie before and didn’t know much about it.
“You’ll see.”
Indeed I did. The brutal murders depicted in the film had taken place in Gardner, and seeing them acted out on screen gave me a pretty severe case of the creeps. I was happy to be spending only a short time in Wichita. We went to the theater the next morning, spent the entire day setting up, and then did our customary four-hour show. Then we tore everything down, packed up the trucks, and hit the road. There was a big show in Houston the next night, featuring both the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers, which meant no rest for the weary.
It was a long straight run from Kansas down to Texas. I rode with Sparky and we agreed that he would drive the first leg while I got some sleep. But there was an incredible thunderstorm raging across the plains that night—lightning cracking, wind howling, rain and hail beating off the windshield with such force that the wipers couldn’t possibly keep pace. I tried to get some sleep, but found it nearly impossible, what with nature putting on such a light show and the truck periodically bouncing off onto the shoulder.
The next morning I took over the wheel, despite having been up for more than twenty-four hours. Sparky gave me a Blackbird, also known as a Black Beauty . . . or, as we called it, a Reno Turnaround. So potent was this particular amphetamine that you could take one, drive from Reno to New York, and then turn around and drive right back—without ever taking your foot off the accelerator. That was more legend than fact, of course, but it sure did pack a wallop. I got in the driver’s seat and hit the gas, and pretty much kept it floored for the next 500 miles. I mean, I was a crazed mother-fucker of a trucker, my hands glued to the wheel, absorbing every bounce and bump. The speedometer never dipped below seventy-five, which might not sound all that fast, until you consider that this big old bobtail truck was overloaded with tons of equipment. It wasn’t the safest of vehicles even in sunshine. In this kind of weather, it was a deathmobile.
But I didn’t care. I was twenty-two years old. I was invincible.
“Keep it going,” Sparky said at one point. He was too amped to sleep, so he turned on the radio and cranked the volume. Mick Jagger’s voice filled the cab, nearly drowning out the storm that continued to rage outside.
“I can’t get no . . . satisfaction.”
I looked at Sparky. He looked at me. We both shouted at the top of our lungs.
“THOUGH I TRY . . . AND I TRY . . . AND I TRY . . . I CAN’T GET NO!”
To say I wasn’t really paying attention to the road would be a dramatic understatement. And I paid for it. All of a sudden I saw flashing lights coming up fast, then whizzing by my window. I saw a big sign: WARNING! CURVE AHEAD! and the number 50, which I presume was the maximum speed recommended for negotiating the curve safely. I hit the brake and pulled back on the steering wheel, as if that would somehow slow the vehicle. But I was already well into the curve and the brakes just locked up in the rain, the wheels sliding as if on ice. I tried to downshift, but that only made things worse. As Sparky and I both screamed, the truck spun off the road and out of control. I remember thinking quite clearly, as the truck tipped over, that I was about to die. I only hoped that it wouldn’t hurt too much.
The next thing I knew we were upside down in the cab, two big boys—me at six-foot-four, Sparky at six-two—sandwiched together in the shotgun seat. The rain continued to beat down on the truck, and mud oozed in through the cracked windows. I couldn’t say anything at first—I was too shocked to be alive. I just lifted my hand and held it in front of my face. One-two-three-four-five. All there. I did the same with the other hand. I wiggled my toes. Remarkably, everything seemed to be in working order. Sparky looked unharmed, too. Shocked, but alive and well.
The truck was buried more than a foot into the ground, and sinking fast, so there was no way to open the doors. The only way out was through the windshield. We both used our boots to kick at the glass. A spider-web crack had already formed on the windshield during the crash so it didn’t long to complete the job. As we crawled through the hole and out onto the highway, I could see a woman rushing toward us, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“My God,” she cried. “I thought for sure you were dead.”
“Don’t worry, lady,” I said. “We’re okay.” I looked at the truck, which was crushed so badly that it barely resembled a truck at all. My own words sounded ridiculous. How could we possibly be “okay”?
It wasn’t long before Jackson, Ramrod, and Danny Rifkin, our road manager at the time, arrived on the scene in a rental car, and they looked at us as if we were ghosts. They, too, were certain we’d been killed in the crash. No other outcome seemed possible. The truck had been mangled. Not only was the cab crushed, but the back had been shredded, too, leaving all of our wonderful, handcrafted equipment sinking in the Texas mud. And yet, there we were, me and Sparky, standing there without a scratch between us.
Jackson just shook his head and smiled. “Fuck, man. Unbelievable.”
Almost equally amazing was the way in which we dealt with this near-death experience. We didn’t call for an ambulance, didn’t make a trip to the emergency room for a precautionary set of x-rays. We simply went to work. Rifkin stayed with me while Sparky jumped in the rental car with Jackson and Ramrod. They drove to the next town to pick up another truck, while Rifkin and I pulled all of the equipment out of the mud, brushed it off, and stacked up the pieces by the side of the road. Then we loaded the new truck and got back on the highway.
We arrived in Houston around five o’clock that evening and to our amazement discovered that the Allman Brothers had cancelled their portion of the show. Why? Because their bass player had died that day in an automobile accident! Anyway, when we got there and explained what had happened, the guys in the band were completely sympathetic. They asked if we wanted to cancel the show, but of course we rejected that suggestion.
“We’re fine,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”
So we set up everything as quickly as we could, and the Dead put on an incredible show, just played their asses off, almost as if they felt they were paying tribute to us. Maybe they were. Later, as I hobbled into my hotel room, exhausted and bruised, I received a visit from Phil Lesh. I’d known Phil to be a very quiet and reserved man. He was one of the more mature members of the group and wasn’t inclined to reveal his emotions. On this night, though, I saw a different side of him. As I sat down on my bed and tried to process the events of the day, and suddenly came to the realization that I was remarkably lucky to be alive, the energy rushed out of me like a wave. I was completely and utterly exhausted. I slumped forward on the bed and looked down at my boots, which were caked with slop and dirt.
“Hey, Steve.” I looked up and saw Phil standing in the doorway. “Mind if I come in?”
“No, of course not.”
Phil walked across the room, leaned over and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive, man. And I promise you right now—we’re going to change things. You guys are no longer going to drive at night. This just isn’t worth it.”
With that, this soft-spoken man—this bass player who was ten years older than me, and whom I respected and admired—this man whose inherent goodness and warmth were not always visible . . . he got down on his knees and removed my muddy boots. It was such a genuine display of affection, and so entirely unexpected. I didn’t know what to say. Really, all I wanted to do was cry.
He took my boots and placed them in the closet. Then he lifted my legs onto the bed and covered me with a blanket.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “Everything will be all right.”