Aging Gratefully: A Grateful Dead Time-Capsule Brought Back to Life
Every now and then, a project comes along that feels so perfectly aligned with the spirit of the Grateful Dead community that you wonder how it hadn’t already happened.
“Aging Gratefully,” the new book from photographer Bill Lemke and longtime Dead chronicler David Gans, is exactly that kind of creation — a deep dive into the faces, stories, and uniqueness of Dead Head culture.
The Seed of the Project
The origins stretch back to 1980, when Lemke attended his first Grateful Dead show.
“I just kept thinking about the audience and what an amazing group of people. And as a photographer, I started thinking, ‘There’s got to be a way I can document this culture.’”
By 1988, he had a full portable studio operating in Dead Head parking lots, capturing formal portraits on a view camera. Between 1988 and 1991, he photographed roughly 150 Dead Heads, imagining someday he might stage an exhibition.
Then Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995, and the negatives went into storage.
Rediscovery in the Digital Age
Decades later, a call came from one of the original portrait subjects. His daughter — also in the photo — wanted her own print. He asked Bill to re-photograph them in Chicago.
That simple request reignited the entire project.
With the help of his wife Carmen, Lemke began searching for the original Dead Heads. Over nearly ten years, she located 40 people, spread across the U.S. and even as far as Thailand.
A beautiful before-and-after photographic time capsule began to take shape.
A Little About Bill Lemke
Bill Lemke is a longtime fine art photographer based in the Midwest, known for his meticulous darkroom work, use of large-format cameras, and a career spanning landscapes, portraiture, and documentary projects. His photography often explores time, memory, and cultural identity — themes that align perfectly with the Dead Head portraits he began more than three decades ago.
Aging Gratefully represents one of the most personal and ambitious projects of his career, bringing together his archival discipline, portrait artistry, and a deep affection for the community he documented.
Enter: David Gans
To tell the stories behind the faces, Lemke and Carmen needed a writer who understood Dead Head culture.
Naturally, they turned to David Gans — host of The Grateful Dead Hour, co-host of Tales from the Golden Road, musician, author, photographer, and one of the Dead community’s most enduring storytellers.
Carmen emailed him, not knowing if he’d respond.
Gans responded almost immediately.
“It was a very easy sell. I’ve been interviewing Grateful Dead and related people for 50 years… This is my culture. So it was easy. I said, ‘Oh yes, I can help you with this.’”
David spent six months recording interviews and assembling the narrative threads that now run through the book.
photo by Bill Lemke
The Characters Behind the Lens
The book is filled with unforgettable stories. Here are just a few:
Jody
Originally from New Zealand, arrested in the U.S., and was about to be deported. He managed to slip away from air marshals and spent two more years following the Dead before eventually settling in Thailand — where Lemke tracked him down decades later.
Cheez & Wynd Song
A busker whose puppet once caught coins — and with the help of fans at a show, caught the attention of Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia, who interacted with the puppet from the stage.
Gans calls it one of his favorite stories in the entire book.
Dead Head Families
Multiple father-daughter pairs appear, showing how some kids literally grew up on tour and now return for new portraits as adults.
“They were happy, well-adjusted, creative people,” Gans said. “People who took something from their Grateful Dead experience — more than just having been consumers of it.”
Photography as Cultural Memory
Gans has recently delved into photography himself — publishing Improvised Lives and co-curating a Jim Marshall Grateful Dead collection for Chronicle Books.
That experience shaped how he viewed Lemke’s portraits.
The book includes around 120 images, blending original 1980s/90s portraits with contemporary re-creations — a rare photographic look at how Dead Heads have grown, changed, and stayed true across decades.
“What I see when I look at these beautiful posed portraits of Dead Heads. They’re all looking right into this camera, and they’re giving him a lot. And this is by way of admiring Bill’s ability to make the camera disappear and get those people to look him in the eye. And that’s what we see in these portraits. And I just love them. They’re all sharp and kind bunch of people, so it’s nice to see their faces so beautifully.” – David Gans
Autographed Copies Available
Aging Gratefully is available now at:
The price is listed on the site, and for now, every copy is autographed by both Lemke and Gans.
A Living History of the Dead Head World
Aging Gratefully isn’t just a book of portraits.
It’s a document of a culture, a testament to time, and a reminder of what makes Dead Heads such a unique tribe.
A perfect holiday gift, a meaningful collectible, and a beautifully produced slice of Dead Head history.
