The Grateful Dead will be honored as the 2025 MusiCares Persons of the Year, the Recording Academy announced Wednesday, 60 years after the groundbreaking jam band formed in 1965 and quickly became an avatar of the burgeoning counterculture based in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
The prestigious music industry commendation, which lauds an act’s philanthropy and cultural impact and comes with an all-star tribute concert traditionally held two nights before the annual Grammy Awards, will go to original Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, as well as the band’s founding guitarist and principal songwriter, Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995. Next year’s MusiCares gala is scheduled for Jan. 31 at the Los Angeles Convention Center; the lineup for the concert, for which Don Was will serve as music director, will be announced at a later date.
In a statement, MusiCares Executive Director Laura Segura said the Grateful Dead “built a community of fans and collaborators that embody the spirit of connection and support” and hailed the band’s “enduring commitment to social causes” including environmental conservation and music education. The statement quoted the Dead’s surviving members as saying that they’re “deeply honored to be recognized as MusiCares Persons of the Year,” which they called “a testament to the legacy of the music, which has always been bigger than us — it’s about the connection between us, the crew, and all those who’ve been on this long strange trip.
“It’s not just about what we create, but about making sure the people behind it, behind us every night, the ones who quietly make it all happen, get the support they need to keep going, no matter what life throws at them,” the musicians added.
This past February, Jon Bon Jovi received the MusiCares award at a gala that featured performances by Bruce Springsteen, Melissa Etheridge, Jason Isbell, Shania Twain, Jelly Roll and the War and Treaty, among others. Previous honorees include Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand.
The Dead’s recognition comes in the wake of a successful 30-date residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere by Dead & Company, in which Weir and Hart perform the Grateful Dead’s repertoire with help from the pop hitmaker John Mayer. In an interview with The Times in June, Weir suggested the band might return to the state-of-the-art venue just off the Vegas Strip, calling the group’s eye-popping show there “a work in progress.”