Dead to the Core, an acoustic celebration of the Grateful Dead, makes its upstate New York debut
On April 8 the acoustic collective known as Dead to the Core, led by Syracuse-based musician/author Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, makes its CNY debut at Syracuse’s Folkus Project concert series.
Featured in the show are Brooklyn’s Jefferson Hamer (Sarah Jarosz, Anaïs Mitchell), Ryan Fitzsimmons (coming back to his hometown Syracuse from Boston), Laurence Scudder (former violist for Ryan Montbleu Band), and Rodgers’ multi-instrumentalist bandmate Wendy Sassafras Ramsay.
These singer-songwriters and acoustic musicians originally connected through a series of Jerry Garcia birthday shows that Rodgers hosted at the famed Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In Dead to the Core, the group celebrates the band’s music not through note-for-note re-creations but by playing the songs their own way—letting them grow and evolve collaboratively in the true spirit of the Dead.
Interspersed with the music are clips from Rodgers’ own interviews with Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, in which they reflect on the roots and evolution of the music.
A Dead to the Core show is an experience unlike any other Grateful Dead tribute: a night of deeply personal performances that illuminate the masterful song craft of one of America’s most original bands. Grateful Dead music right down to the core.
“Rodgers doesn’t tap the legion of dedicated Grateful Dead tribute artists for these concerts…. Instead, he seeks out songwriters and musicians who have developed their own voices and styles, though they are very much inspired by—and fans of—Garcia and the Dead.”
—Arts Fuse
Show details:
Friday 4/8, 8 pm: Folkus Presents Dead to the Core, May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society, 3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse. Tickets.
More about the musicians
Jefferson Hamer is an internationally touring songwriter, guitarist, and traditional musician based in Brooklyn. He performs with the Murphy Beds and Session Americana, and his guitar work and vocals are featured on Sarah Jarosz’s Blue Heron Suite, nominated for a 2022 Grammy. Hamer’s Child Ballads album with Anaïs Mitchell earned a BBC2 Folk Award and was named one of NPR’s top-ten folk releases of the year.
Ryan Fitzsimmons and Laurence Scudder are fixtures of the Boston roots-rock scene and frequent collaborators. Fitzsimmons, a Syracuse native, has built a reputation as one of the Northeast’s most compelling songwriters and, in the words of Red Line Roots, “a brutal force of nature on acoustic guitar.” Violist/songwriter Laurence Scudder toured and recorded for seven years with Ryan Montbleau Band, and currently performs with Spotted Tiger, Danielle M and the Glory Junkies, Thank God for Science, Brothers McCann, and other bands.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine, and author of a best-selling video series teaching his acoustic arrangements of classic Grateful Dead songs. Joining him is multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Wendy Ramsay, his partner in the duo Pepper and Sassafras.
“Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers sure can play the music—listen to his ‘Stella Blue’ and you’ll know what I mean.”
—Dennis McNally, author, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead
Learn more and listen to songs:
Video:
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