The Silver Snarling Trumpet

The Birth of the Grateful Dead—The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter

By: Robert Hunter, John Mayer - foreword, Dennis McNally - introduction, Brigid Meier

Narrated by: Fred Berman, Dennis McNally, Brigid Meier, John Mayer

Discovered at last, the legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co-founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s—a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of “the scene” in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia, and then to the Grateful Dead itself—with a Foreword by John Mayer, an Introduction by Dennis McNally, and an Afterword by Brigid Meier.

“Strange to think back on those days when it was perfectly natural that we all slept on the floor in one small room.... These were the days before practical considerations, matters of ‘importance,’ began to eat our minds. We were all poets and philosophers then, until we began to wonder why we had so few concrete worries and went out to look for some.”

So wrote Robert Hunter in The Silver Snarling Trumpet, both a novelistic singular work of art and the missing piece of the Grateful Dead origin story. In this book, listeners are privy to the early days of Hunter, Garcia, and their cohorts, who sit at coffee shops passing around a single cup of bottomless coffee because they lacked the funds for more than one. Follow these truth-seeking souls into the stacks at Kepler’s Books, renting instruments at Swain’s House of Music, and through the countryside on mind-expanding road trips. Witness impromptu jams, inspired intellectual pranks, and a dialogue that is, by turns, amusing and brilliant and outrageous. Hunter shares his impressions of his first gig with Garcia for a college audience, along with descriptions of his most intense dreams and psychedelic explorations. All of it, enlivened by Hunter’s visionary spirit and profound ideas about creativity and collaboration.

The lost manuscript is augmented with a Foreword by John Mayer, an Introduction by Dennis McNally, and an Afterword by Brigid Meier, who was part of their scene in the San Francisco Bay Area that served as a bridge from the beatniks to the hippies. Also included is Hunter’s own 1982 assessment of his work—about how he shared it with close confidants but then decided to leave it unpublished. Five years after Hunter’s death, the text has been found, so readers and fans of Hunter’s indelible poetry and song can explore the origin of his genius and his craft.

©2024 Robert Hunter (P)2024 Hachette Books

Critic reviews

“Very touching and endearing, The Silver Snarling Trumpet is a Menlo Park version of Withnail & I. It reads like a duck down a Roman alleyway, taking in all the graffiti and movie posters, as it embraces the panic and curious certainty of youth, the flights and fancies of friends, even the butts of a few discarded jokes—all before first light dawns on Robert Hunter's intricate, lyrical dream of America.”—Elvis Costello

“This is a gift—a rare, special, and important hand-drawn blueprint by the architect of the dream himself. Discovering just a page of this book would have been enough to rejoice over. That we have hundreds is a reality I’m still trying to get my head around. Time itself has revealed something truly magnificent, and there is beauty to be found on every page.”—John Mayer, from the Foreword

“An essential document in the Deadhead library, and a pleasure to read.”—Kirkus Reviews

Time Machine Ride

I’ve been excitedly awaiting release of this title since I heard it was found in a storage locker by Hunter’s family years after his passing. For anyone who knows the Grateful Dead history from all of the existing written and oral sources, this work brings you to the day before the days between. When Hunter and Garcia were just young men, existing as themselves the best they knew how, but overall musing and learning what life was all about. Quite a tribute to the Grateful Dead’s place in History to recognize that decades later, so many of us have shaped what our own lives have been about from these specific moments in time amongst friends.

Meandering hippie nonsense

Please describe 74 of your most favorite acid trips. Yay. There's no premise, no direction. Repetitive wording.

distinctly hunter

For me, this work was a joy to behold. like a newly discovered chapter in the book of life. I am so grateful to all the parties involved with making this available to those of us who you knew would appreciate it. we may not be many, but that makes the gift of sharing this all the more meaningful. thank you !

not what I expected

This book was about nothing and went nowhere. Hunter writes beautiful songs and I love his lyrics but this was mostly rambling that got tiresome after a while. It also has very little to do with early formation of the Grateful Dead