Joan Didion's Lost 1967 Grateful Dead Interview Resurfaces

A typescript of Joan Didion's 1967 interview with the Grateful Dead, omitted from her seminal essay 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem,' has been discovered in her archive at the New York Public Library by biographer Timothy Denevi. Music journalist Jeff Weiss posted the text online via Pow Magazine, calling it a landmark early interview conducted just after the band's self-titled debut album but before national stardom. In the interview, the Dead discuss disliking Los Angeles' Cheetah club for its programmed computer, resentment toward the Council for a Summer of Love's organizing efforts, the deterioration of the Haight-Ashbury scene, loathing of the radio hit 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),' and the absence of Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan. Didion's piece originally appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, offering a sobering view of the counterculture.