Read Joan Didion's Lost Interview with the Grateful Dead (1967)

"Quite possibly her single most widely known piece of writing, the piece relates her encounters both direct and indirect with participants in the counterculture both obscure and prominent. That latter group includes no less a San Francisco hippie institution than the Grateful Dead, Didion's interview with whom didn't make it into the final piece. But over nearly six decades since then, its type-script has remained among her papers, and it was recently discovered in Didion and John Gregory Dunne's literary archive at the New York Public Library by Timothy Denevi."

"Just days ago, music journalist Jeff Weiss posted the 1967 text online, describing it "as a landmark early interview with the band directly after the release of their self-titled debut album, but before national star-dom swept them on the Golden Road to unlimited devotion and drug consumption." In a sense, the members themselves occupied the eye of the countercultural storm. "I told the Dead I was trying to figure out what was going on," Didion writes, "and one of th"

A 1967 interview text with the Grateful Dead was discovered in Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s literary archive at the New York Public Library. The material was posted online by music journalist Jeff Weiss. The interview is described as an early landmark conversation with the band after their self-titled debut album release, before national stardom and widespread devotion and drug consumption. The discovery connects to Didion’s well-known work about the drug-fueled seeker scene around Haight-Ashbury. The interview reflects direct and indirect encounters with both obscure and prominent participants in the counterculture, including a major San Francisco hippie institution.

Read at Open Culture