Memorialization on the cultural landscape is a common method of
celebrating the legacy of an event or person significant to the history
of geographical location. The Grateful Dead is a band that continues to
define the ideals of the late-1960s San Francisco Sound through their
music’s creative freedom and inclination toward experimentation.
Although the original lineup of the Grateful Dead is no longer intact,
the spirit of the music they created and their psychedelic appeal has
been preserved on the cultural landscape. Despite differing reasons for
naming their business after the band, hundreds of business owners in the
United States have collectively preserved the Grateful Dead’s presence
on the cultural landscape. In this paper we explore the distribution of
businesses in the United States with Grateful Dead-related names, and
how the presence of these business names enriches the cultural landscape
with the memory of the band’s music as a product of the iconic San
Francisco Sound.
Note: this is the author-accepted version/preprint for the published version in the Journal of Cultural Geography, with the DOI linked in this record.
History
Publisher Statement
Open Access pathways are permitted by this journal's policy, and this preprint is available using Pathway B for Accepted Versions. This manuscript is published in the Journal of Cultural Geography Volume 34, 2017 - Issue 3 at https://doi.org/10.1080/08873631.2016.1264073.