Lost Robert Hunter Manuscript Chronicling Birth of the Grateful Dead to Be Released
It’s a good day for Deadheads: Robert Hunter’s lost manuscript is headed for publication.
The Grateful Dead lyricist — who penned gems like “Ripple,” “Box of Rain,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Eyes of the World,” “Dark Star,” and more — died in 2019. Five years later, Hachette Books will release The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead — The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter, out Oct. 8.
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Unearthed by Hunter’s widow, Maureen, Silver Snarling Trumpet chronicles the origin of the Grateful Dead in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hunter, who met and befriended Jerry Garcia in 1961, travels along with the band to coffee shops, Kepler’s Books, and more.
“Strange to think back on those days when it was perfectly natural that we all slept on the floor in one small room,” Hunter writes. “These were the days before practical considerations, matters of ‘importance,’ began to eat our minds. We were all poets and philosophers then, until we began to wonder why we had so few concrete worries and went out to look for some.”
Silver Snarling Trumpet features a foreward by John Mayer, an introduction by Dead biographer Dennis McNally, and an afterword by Brigid Meier, a longtime friend of Garcia and the band. “If you thought you were one of us, you were welcome to join in,” she writes.
The news of the manuscript arrives on the same day that Rhino announced an archival series of Hunter’s solo catalog. They’ll launch it with a reissue if 1974’s Tales of the Great Rum Runners, out June 7 in honor of its 50th anniversary. The deluxe reissue contains 16 previously unreleased tracks and outtakes.
Almost a decade ago, Rolling Stone sat down with Hunter at his home in San Rafael, California. “I think writing for the Dead was the best thing I could’ve done,” he told us. “In fact, I remember at a certain point thinking, ‘What was I thinking about being a novelist? This is where it’s at.'”
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