While most attendees of this weekend’s Fare Thee Well - Celebrating 50 Years Of Grateful Dead shows in Santa Clara are well verse in Grateful Dead history there are some concertgoers who aren’t as familiar with the band’s past. David Moran, who is the General Manager for The Hamilton and Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, D.C. is preparing his brother-in-law Ron for the California shows by providing a crash course on The Dead.

Moran started with 43 days left until the show, because it was his brother-in-law’s 43rd birthday, and has been sending Ron one e-mail per day providing a deep dive into the history of a Grateful Dead song or song suite. There was also a bonus e-mail about the Dylan & The Dead tour. “This project is a 43 day Grateful Dead 101 tutorial for my brother-in-law, Ron, who is heading out to the Santa Clara shows at the end of the month. In my mind I have set it up in a typical Dead show format - two 20 tune sets and then 3 encores,” Moran wrote.

Head here to read each and every e-mail David sent to Ron. Disclaimer: Due to the personal nature of what Moran was trying to accomplish (this was only meant for one person's eyes) he has wrapped his own thoughts and words around other people's work when researching and quoting. In particular, research and thoughts from David Dodd's Annotated Lyrics and his Greatest Story series on Dead.Net have been used extensively.

Watch a YouTube playlist of our Grateful Dead 50 tribute, the Songs Of Their Own video series: