<P> The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s . The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks . Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs . Drummer Mickey Hart and nonperforming lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967 . With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30 - year history . The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968--1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971--1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971--1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972--1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979--1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990--1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours . </P> <P> After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009 . In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together . There have also been several spin - offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh & Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids . </P> <P> The Grateful Dead began their career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions . The band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza located at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, California, on May 5, 1965 . They were initially known as the Warlocks; coincidentally, the Velvet Underground (similarly influenced by avant - garde music) was also using that name on the East Coast . The show was not recorded but the set list has been preserved . Gigging as a bar band, the group quickly changed its name after finding out that another band of the same name (not the Velvet Underground, who by then had also changed their name) had signed a recording contract . The first show under the new name Grateful Dead was in San Jose, California on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests . Earlier demo tapes have survived, but the first of over 2,000 concerts known to have been recorded by the band's fans was a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on January 8, 1966 . Later that month, the Grateful Dead played at the Trips Festival, an early psychedelic rock concert . </P> <P> The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary . According to Phil Lesh, in his autobiography (pp. 62), "...(Jerry Garcia) picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary...(and)... In that silvery elf - voice he said to me,' Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?"' The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial ." According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary . In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time . The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures . In mid-1969, Phil Lesh told another version of the story to Carol Maw, a young Texan visiting with the band in Marin County who also ended up going on the road with them to the Fillmore East and Woodstock . In this version, Phil said, "Jerry found the name spontaneously when he picked up a dictionary and the pages fell open . The words' grateful' and' dead' appeared straight opposite each other across the crack between the pages in unrelated text ." </P>

When did the grateful dead change their name