Seattle Now & Then: Grateful Dead, 1974, UC Santa Barbara

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Aug. 10, 2023
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Aug. 13, 2023

Photographer grateful his images can ‘hit the moment in time’

By Clay Eals

You grow up an ordinary guy on the outskirts of Los Angeles. You’re not great at academics, but in the late 1960s you pick up a camera and shoot for the high-school newspaper and yearbook. Later, you work at McDonalds and a Ford plant. You deliver sailboats around the country. In 1979, you move north, bouncing from Granite Falls to Green Lake to the Alaska town of Valdez and, finally, to Shoreline.

All the while, you immerse yourself in enormous concerts by the biggest names in rock, blues, country and folk, your camera a constant companion. Over more than 50 years, you amass a rare archive.

You’re Steve Schneider, whose musically panoramic imagery fills “The First Three Songs: Rock & Roll at 125th of a Second,” a 220-page coffee-table compendium whose title alludes to the brief time at the opening of shows when promoters typically let photojournalists work up close. The tome bolsters Schneider’s uncomplicated mantra: “It’s always been about excitement, about fun. I just want to get the shot.”

The 71-year-old has earned day-job pay from documenting conventions of professional associations and occasional journalistic assignments (UPI had him shoot a 1984 Seattle campaign visit by Democratic VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro, see below). But nights and weekends are a different story.

His “Who’s Who” concert subjects range from CSNY to Pearl Jam, Dylan to Cobain, Bonnie Raitt to Carlos Santana, Willie Nelson to Paul Simon, to McCartney, Clapton, Jagger, Springsteen, Bowie and, yes, the Who. Whew!

Schneider’s most enduring focus, however, has been the trippy Grateful Dead, known for its freeform shows and faithful “Deadheads.” He has seen at least 100 Dead concerts. More than 20 appear in the book.

His Dead shots began with a May 25, 1974, gig at UC Santa Barbara featuring then-beardless leader Jerry Garcia. Exactly 21 years later, Schneider captured a greying Garcia at his last Seattle concert, at Memorial Stadium. Garcia died 76 days later at age 53, and Schneider’s portrait filled a page in Time magazine’s tribute.

The band persisted in various forms, most recently as The Dead & Company, which disbanded in July. Its fourth- and fifth-to-last shows were at The Gorge Amphitheatre. Schneider was there, part of “the family.”

For the Dead, and all of Schneider’s star subjects, the most compelling factor has been the music itself. “It once was all new,” he says. “The songs hit the moment in time. Today you enjoy the song, and it brings back good memories. I just preserve a bit of history, that moment in time that I saw.”

You might say it’s what keeps his Dead soul alive.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Steve Schneider for his invaluable help with this installment!

Below are 26 additional photos (not enlargeable here)  and, in chronological order, 10 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library) and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.