Hunter Revives Memories of the Dead

It might have been open-mike night at the Grateful Dead Coffeehouse, complete with tentatively strummed guitar, earnestly tremulous voice and visions of down-and-out Americana. But this was the House of Blues, and the guitar, voice and visions belonged to Robert Hunter, erstwhile lyricist of the Dead and chief architect of its earthy mythos.

On Monday, in the first of two nights of solo acoustic shows at the club, Hunter never hit the transporting heights of prime Dead, but he was successful in evoking some musical memories of the band and of his songwriting partner, Jerry Garcia.

Working through Dead tunes such as “Box of Rain,” “Jack Straw” and “Sugaree,” Hunter was effectively shaky--hitting sour notes and missing chord changes but passionately relaying the dark tales and hopeful messages of his songs nonetheless. A pass at “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts,” which Hunter wrote for Bob Dylan, was particularly strong, but a later attempt at replicating a Dead-style space jam with harmonica honks and guitar plucks was unsuccessful.

The performance wasn’t sharp, but Hunter’s history and his beatific stage presence were clearly powerful enough to engender goodwill from an audience of ex-Deadheads. When he ended his second set belting his way through “Truckin’,” the room broke into that loose-limbed dance peculiar to Dead shows, and it seemed nearly everyone sang along when the lyricist observed, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”