Poll About Grateful Dead Legacy Says as Much About Boomers as Band Itself

January 2021 edit note: So, a few years ago, I decided to finance a public opinion survey conducted by a prominent Democratic pollster to examine in a top-line manner the basic imprint left by the Grateful Dead on America… “Why would you ‘waste money’ on that?” asked baffled colleagues and acquaintances. Why? Because it’s interesting to me, and a very particular segment of the live music community. Here’s the piece:

In the nascent days of the Grateful Dead’s uniquely American musical odyssey, the band played free Haight-Ashbury parties hosted by The Diggers – a self-styled community action group of improvisational performance artists, dedicated to creating a society devoid of money and capitalism.

Nearly fifty years later, The Diggers would likely be stunned to discover the Grateful Dead’s most passionate fans make more than $100,000 annually. Is this a factoid with which to make a seminal determination about the band one way or the other? No. It likely means that those seeing shows in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s kept getting better jobs, had families and did well.

But it’s one of the more interesting findings of a poll I commissioned to explore basic public attitudes about the band I saw 181 times between 1977 and the end of the road, in 1995 -- when Jerry Garcia “checked out,” as Bob Weir refers to the icon’s passing.

As the highest grossing live touring act of the 1980s and early 90’s, I became especially curious about the fan base demographics while working on Capitol Hill as a twenty-something press secretary. When the Grateful Dead hit DC, throngs of Hill staff — Democrats and Republicans alike — would ditch the suit and make their way to the band’s primary area venues: RFK stadium or the Capital Centre, in Landover, MD

As a Republican who frequently ventured into the sea of tie-dye, the vast diversity of the Grateful Dead fan base has always been a source of personal fascination and curiosity: At various shows across the country, I met a first officer on a nuclear sub, a British-born Nepalese goat herder, a neurosurgeon, a Harvard math professor, and a senior economist at the World Bank, to name a few. An added twist is that I met the World Bank economist not at a D.C. show, where the Bank is based — and where one would have expected — but in rural Maine.

My attitude as a Republican? I simply checked my political affiliation at the door. Music, not politics, was the sole focus. And that’s what I loved and still love about the Grateful Dead. Lets be real: In the middle of a killer China Cat>Rider transition jam, no one’s thinking about tax policy, budget deficits, abortion policies, or who voted to kill a new Pentagon weapons system.

For the poll, I had the well-regarded Democratic survey firm, the Mellman Group (with whom I’d been working on an unrelated health care poll) ascertain a basic national name ID on the Grateful Dead. We would then assess the favorable/unfavorable rating among various subgroups. That’s a simple, logical, very rudimentary way to dive into this query.

The national survey sample was 1016 randomly selected adults over age 18, with a 3.1 percent margin of error. While I had no idea what the national name ID would be, I surmised the name “Grateful Dead” (recalling my parents’ distinct distaste for the name and the scene) would garner a higher unfavorable rating than favorable.

I was wrong, and pleasantly surprised.

The Grateful Dead have a hard name ID of 54 percent — well over 150 million Americans are aware of them, which is impressive. Significantly, their fav/unfav rating is 38/16 — a 2:1 ratio any Washington incumbent running in this harsh anti-Washington political environment would eagerly accept. Even Republicans view the Grateful Dead more favorably than unfavorably.

Here’s the FAV/UNFAV breakout by self-identified political affiliation:

Republicans: 31 fav/26 unfav

Independent leaning Republicans: 35/23

Independents: 36/19

Independent leaning Democrats: 45/17

Democrats: 37/14

FAV/UNFAV — By income:

100k or more 53 fav/20 unfav

75k-100k: 39 fav/24 unfav

50k-75k: 35 fav/21 unfav

35k-50k: 32 fav/15 unfav

Less than 35k: 30 fav/19 unfav

Other results worth noting: The Grateful Dead have the highest name ID in the Northeast, with 67 percent (versus 55 percent in the Midwest; 55 percent in the West; and 47 percent in the South). Seniors 65+ are the only subgroup in the entire survey to give the Grateful Dead a net unfavorable rating (18 fav/21 unfav — versus 39/23 for ages 55-64; 52/36 for ages 45-54; 47/22 for ages 35-44; and 27/13 for ages 18-34).

In my opinion, the “news” from this simple national survey is that the band is viewed more favorably than unfavorably by Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike — and that the band’s most ardent fan base are economically well off. The point is that the Grateful Dead has made a clear, positive mark on American culture. In many ways they’re still growing and expanding not just their fan base but their influence both on music, and the business of music.

New York Times columnist David Brooks, in his excellent 2000 sociological treatise, “BoBos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There,” explains that during the 1980s and ’90s, “The values of the bourgeois mainstream culture and the values of the 1960s counterculture merged. In the resolution between the culture and the counterculture, it is impossible to tell who co-opted whom, because in reality the bohemians and the bourgeois co-opted each other — and they emerge from this process as bourgeois bohemians, or BoBos.”

No doubt, Jerry Garcia, a wry social observer himself, would find this all terribly amusing — especially the fact the Grateful Dead’s business model, stumbled into serendipitously by allowing free distribution of fan-recorded live shows — is being taught at business schools throughout America. David Meerman Scott’s “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History,” provides the details.

At the end of the day, the band’s collective wisdom ensuring the Grateful Dead’s massive, decades-long touring platform would never become a propaganda effort for any political cause or candidate was among their greatest achievements. There’s no bigger turn-off than hearing some musician or band expound on their politics from the stage. But that’s just my own view.

Thankfully, the Grateful Dead was and still is only about the music — and to me and so many others, a celebration of America, life and freedom itself.

Gordon Hensley is a Washington, D.C.-based communications consultant. He has served as a press secretary, speechwriter or consultant for a variety of federal and statewide officeholders.