Mar­tin Scors­ese is pro­duc­ing a doc­u­men­tary about The Grate­ful Dead

A six-part doc­u­men­tary about Amer­i­can rock band The Grate­ful Dead will debut on Ama­zon on 26 May. Direct­ed by Ari Bar-Lev and exec­u­tive pro­duced by Mar­tin Scors­ese, Long Strange Trip will receive its world pre­mière at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val next week – 14 years after work on the project began.

Front­ed by the charis­mat­ic Jer­ry Gar­cia, The Grate­ful Dead’s unique blend of rock, folk and drug-fuelled psy­che­delia made them one of the best loved bands of the late ​’60s and ear­ly ​’70s. The band cul­ti­vat­ed an almost myth­ic sta­tus among their fans over a musi­cal career that spanned 30 years, mak­ing them the per­fect sub­ject for a lengthy doc­u­men­tary series. For­mer drum­mer Mick­ey Hart offered up this pithy tagline for the film: ​“Stranger than fic­tion – a user’s guide for an impos­si­ble journey.”

While no trail­er has yet been released, the film will report­ed­ly pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey chron­i­cling the band’s evo­lu­tion from a fringe, avant-garde San Fran­cis­co group to the very sym­bol of 1960s free-liv­ing. It seems like it will serve as a great intro­duc­tion for new lis­ten­ers unfa­mil­iar with the band’s sto­ry, but even their most diehard fans can look for­ward to dis­cov­er­ing the rare archival footage and pre­vi­ous­ly unre­leased stu­dio and live record­ings we’ve been promised.

Scors­ese has received plen­ty of acclaim for his own rock doc­u­men­taries, includ­ing No Direc­tion Home: Bob Dylan, Shine a Light and George Har­ri­son: Liv­ing in the Mate­r­i­al World. The film­mak­er signed up to exec­u­tive pro­duce the project back in 2014, explaining:

“I’ve always admired the spir­it and cre­ativ­i­ty of The Grate­ful Dead. They are rev­o­lu­tion­ary artists who for­ev­er changed the world of tour­ing and record­ing live music. They were a cul­tur­al force a lifestyle, that con­tin­ue to influ­ence new gen­er­a­tions of fans. This film will enter­tain and edu­cate audi­ences about one of the most inno­v­a­tive and ground-break­ing Amer­i­can bands of the 20^th century.”

You can bet the sound­track prob­a­bly won’t be half bad either.