Did Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart invent rap music in 1974?
During their Sunday night show at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado, Grateful Dead offshoot Dead and Company were deep into a grooving version of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ when something truly unexpected happened. After a few verses and some lengthy jamming, percussionist and core Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart left his gaggle of drums and approached the microphones at centre stage for the first time in the history of Dead and Company. After blowing a kiss to bassist Oteil Burbridge, who was taking the lead with both vocals and banjo bass on the Shakedown Street album cut, Hart unleashed his own verse of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ in a delivery that could only be described as rapping.
The verse was greeted with a massive cheer from the audience. Some were in pure ecstasy, while others were left in bewilderment. On what has been advertised as their final tour, Dead and Company have provided more than their fair share of memorable moments and massive changes to the Dead canon. ‘Fire on the Mountain’ was already a part of that legacy, having experienced a divorce from its normal preceding segue song, ‘Scarlet Begonias’. But Hart’s rapped verse officially made the performance one of the most memorable versions of ‘Fire’ that has ever been played.
But Hart’s sudden desire to start rocking the microphone wasn’t without precedent. In fact, just a few nights prior, there was a sign in the audience that read “Let Mickey Sing”. What could have easily been dismissed as a joke turned out to be something more prophetic. How could anyone have seen this coming? Well, as it turns out, some of the most dedicated Deadheads know exactly why Hart began rhyming (and/or stealing) at Boulder.
First off, it goes without saying that Mickey Hart probably didn’t invent rap. The tradition of hip-hop MCs dates back to a number of sources, most prominently the Jamaican tradition of toasting and the freeform poetry that had been performed as early as the Harlem Renaissance. By the same token, rap originated in New York, Hart’s home city, given that he’s a Brooklyn kid. But by the time hip hop truly began its solidification in the early 1970s, Hart had already uprooted himself to San Francisco. Did he know something about what was going on in NYC while he was in exile from the Dead at his ranch in Novato in the early 1970s?
Hart is a dedicated musicologist, having picked up his love of drumming and its impact on culture early in life. While Hart probably didn’t experience the house parties or late-night dances that titanic figures like DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa were staging in The Bronx, he was at least aware of the same influences that eventually blended into hip hop’s origins. The mix of James Brown funk beats and island rhythms (plus toasting and vocal rhymes) had filtered into Hart’s world by the time he exiled himself from the Dead in 1971. After his father and one-time Dead manager Lenny Hart had stolen an estimated $150,000 from the band, Hart opted to leave the band and sequester himself in his ranch/recording studio in Marin County, California.
During that time, Hart was able to exercise a clause in the Dead’s contract with Warner Bros that allowed the members to record solo albums. Jerry Garcia recorded his solo debut Garcia in 1971, released in January of the following year, and Bob Weir followed with his own solo debut Ace in May of 1972. A few months later, Hart released his own album, Rolling Thunder. In 1976, Hart released his second album Diga, which featured the track ‘Happiness is Drumming’, a song that contained the same structure and melody as ‘Fire on the Mountain’.
‘Happiness is Drumming’ was actually an updated version of a song that Hart had recorded with Garcia, Quicksilver Messenger Service singer David Freiberg, Country Joe and the Fish guitarist Barry Melton, and others. The earliest recording of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ likely dates from sessions at Hart’s ranch in 1974. On those takes, Hart himself took lead vocal duties, opting to rap the verses instead of sing them to a melody. The “rap” version of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ floated around bootlegs for years but was never officially released.
The completed version of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ began appearing in Grateful Dead sets in 1977, with Garcia taking over lead vocals from Hart. Lyricist Robert Hunter was officially credited with the words, but it seems likely that he at least retained some of Hart’s original lyrics from his “rap” version. Hart was the credited composer, and over the years, ‘Fire’ became an intrinsic jam for the Dead, having been played at least 250 times across three decades.
After Garcia died in 1995, Hart returned to the road with his band Planet Drum. Hart resurrected the “rap” version of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ with himself taking lead vocals, including a notable appearance at the Woodstock ’99 festival that became a deep dive milemarker for a new generation of tech-savvy Deadheads when it appeared on YouTube. Not long after, Hart’s original 1974 recording with Garcia began to surface on the website as well, creating a sort of meme that kept proliferating among the most committed of Dead aficionados.
So when Hart took to the microphone in Boulder, a certain subsect of Deadheads squealed with delight while others couldn’t comprehend what they were seeing. Hart’s original version of ‘Fire on the Mountain’ probably won’t make any scholar’s works capturing the first hip-hop records, but it probably does come from the same origins that hip-hop itself later formed out of. Hart’s performance was part callback, part fan service, and part campy joy that could only come from the wacky extended world of the Grateful Dead.
