The Big Business of the Grateful Dead, Circa 1974

Since the early days, the Dead have also grown into a corporation and an independent record company with well over thirty people on the payroll. Their hardcore San Francisco audience may still be locked into a 1967 consciousness, but the Grateful Dead operation is Big Business and strictly 1974. Why, Weir and Garcia have even been known to sport Nudie suits on stage every now and then.

—Cameron Crowe, writing about the Grateful Dead for Creem Magazine in 1974.

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