The man who helped get the Grateful Dead's career kickstarted, Rock Scully, died last week at the age of 73. His brother, Dicken Scully, who also worked for the Dead, told The New York Times that the former manager succumbed to his battle with lung cancer. Dead leader Bob Weir wrote a lengthy tribute to his first manager, calling Scully a "big part" of the band's history, Rolling Stone notes.
"We bowled ahead and made history together - the kind people write books and make movies about. Rock was a big part of it all," Weir wrote. "He put in the miles with us. He knew the words to all the songs. He knew the right things to say, to tell people, to let them know what we were all about without ever actually explaining anything, because he knew it couldn't be explained."
Scully was responsible for scoring the group bigger gigs at The Fillmore, which led to sets at Woodstock and Monterey Pop. He was there when the Dead signed its first contract with Warner too.
"When last we spoke, [Scully] was as full of wonder and curiosity as when we first met him back at the Acid Test," Weir added. "His mischievous sense of adventure made him a perfect candidate for the position of manager for a band with similar sensibilities and an equally similar disregard for the way things were supposed to be done."
The manager parted ways with the band in 1984 after not being able to kick a drug habit. Sadly, in his final days, Scully was forced to sell rare Grateful Dead memorabilia to pay for cancer treatments, the San Francisco Gate reports.
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