Robert M. Petersen's "Unbroken Chain" – Authorized Commemorative Broadside

Limited edition of 100. Printed for the Seventeenth Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus in Albuquerque, NM, February 10–12, 2016.

Produced with the authorization of Ice Nine Publishing and the Petersen estate, this broadside was printed by the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz in honor of the Bobby Petersen Panel at the Seventeenth Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, the first academic conference paper ever devoted to his work. It is a document with serious institutional provenance.

The lyric it presents needs no introduction. "Unbroken Chain" is Petersen's masterwork, a sweeping philosophical meditation on human connection that has earned a permanent place in the Deadhead canon. Recorded for From the Mars Hotel in 1974, it became the stuff of legend when it finally debuted live in 1995 to a room that didn't know what hit them. Garcia was gone months later. The song was performed only a handful of times.

To own this broadside is to hold all of that at once: Petersen's literary genius, the Scholars Caucus that finally gave it its due, and the living tradition of a band that never stops giving back.

Broadside, 8.5 x 14 in.