First grateful dead drums and space1/3/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() Much of it is connected to his first love, the drums, but a lot of it is not. Over the past 30 years or so, Hart has helped record and release dozens of extraordinary albums by a diverse range of artists from all over the world. ![]() Despite his refusal of the category – “there’s no such thing as World Music!” – Hart is perhaps its most important proponent. Within a decade, by 1991, with the Dead at the height of their commercial success, Mickey Hart found himself accepting the first ever Grammy for “World Music”, a category that (though baggy and ineffable, with strong colonialist overtones and absurdist undertones) would come to be closely associated with him and his work. Word spread that Hart was up to something, that he was archiving some pretty amazing stuff out there in those tiny villages and monasteries and jungle huts in Africa, Asia, South and Central America it wasn’t long before he was approached by a record label about releasing the material to the public. But when the tour was over, he’d return to his other work. ![]() Meanwhile, his nightly on-stage drum collaborations with Grateful Dead co-drummer Bill Kreutzmann (which usually appeared about midway through the second set of their concerts) came to reflect his immersion in indigenous drumming techniques, and Dead Heads would trance out in their thousands to the “rhythm devils” as they did their improvisation thing. It was the late 1970s and, combining his skill for making high-fidelity recordings with his ongoing interest (we should really call this his obsession) with the indigenous musics of the world, Hart began to travel around to record what he calls “the greatest music on the planet.” Having no intention to sell these recordings, he simply collected them, learned from them, enjoyed them, and shared them with friends here and there. About halfway into his three-decade run as a drummer in the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart became one of the most significant figures in the music industry, despite the fact that this side of his story is still mostly unknown. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |