Mickey Hart (born Michael Steven Hartman, September 11, 1943) is an American

percussionist A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 1971, and again from October 1974 until their final show in July 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer

Bill Kreutzmann William Kreutzmann Jr. ( ; born May 7, 1946) is an American drummer and founding member of the rock band Grateful Dead. He played with the band for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart, and has continued to ...

earned the nickname " the rhythm devils".

Early life and education

Michael Steven Hartman was born in the

Flatbush Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the nort ...

section of

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. He was raised in the nearby suburban community of Inwood, New York by his mother, Leah, a drummer, gown maker and bookkeeper. His father Lenny Hart, a champion rudimental drummer, had abandoned his family when the younger Hart was a toddler. Although Hart (who was hyperactive and not academically inclined) became interested in percussion as a grade school student, his interest intensified after seeing his father's picture in a newsreel documenting the 1939 World's Fair. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a practice pad and a pair of snakewood sticks that belonged to his father. "From the age of ten," he recalled, "all I did was drum." He attended Lawrence High School in Cedarhurst, New York. Hart would later recall that many champion rudimental drummers attended his high school; this inspired him to ascend to the first chair in the All State Band as a pupil of Arthur Jones, who served as a father figure to him and ensured that he was not suspended for neglecting his other classes. While employed as a

soda jerk Soda jerk (or soda jerker) is an American term used to refer to a person—typically a young man—who would operate the soda fountain in a restaurant, preparing and serving carbonated drink, soda drinks and ice cream sodas. The drinks were made ...

at El Patio, a jazz club in Atlantic Beach, New York, he was influenced by

Tito Puente Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. (April 20, 1923 – May 31, 2000), commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, timbalero, and record producer. He composed dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz music. He was also k ...

's regular appearances. A few months out of high school, he discovered the work of Nigerian drummer

Babatunde Olatunji Michael Babatunde Olatunji (April 7, 1927 – April 6, 2003) was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist, and recording artist. Early life Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nig ...

, another formative influence. Olatunji later taught and collaborated with Hart. Hart dropped out of high school as a senior. Impressed by its musical pedigree, he enlisted in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

in 1961. He served as a drummer in The Airmen of Note, an elite

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

unit in the United States Air Force Band modeled after

Glenn Miller Alton Glen "Glenn" Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces ...

's celebrated Army Air Forces Band. For three and a half years, he was stationed throughout Europe, where he also claimed to have taught "combative measures" (most notably

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...

, in which he had attained a black belt) to units of the

Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile compon ...

and other units in Europe and Africa. During a tour in Spain, he reportedly sat in with a variety of notable jazz musicians (including

Gerry Mulligan Gerald Joseph Mulligan (April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996), also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing t ...

and

Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...

) in addition to performing in various ensembles (spanning the gamut from small jazz combos to marching bands) and on recording sessions for local pop stars. Hart would later intimate in a 1972 interview that his Airmen of Note assignment served as a "cover" for his instructive duties. While in the Air Force, he co-founded Joe and the Jaguars (alternatively billed as The Jaguars) with a fellow serviceman, guitarist Joe Bennett. Following his 1965 discharge, Hart briefly returned to the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...

, where he filled in for the regular drummer in a "staid fox-trot band" as a member of the local musician's union. While stationed in southern California, he had discovered that his father (by now employed as a

savings and loan association A savings and loan association (S&L), or thrift institution, is a financial institution that specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage and other loans. While the terms "S&L" and "thrift" are mainly used in the United States, ...

executive in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

) was still involved in the drumming community as an endorser for

Remo Remo Inc. is an American musical instruments manufacturing company based in Valencia, California, and founded by Remo Belli in 1957. Products manufactured include drum kits, drumheads, drums, and drum hardware, hardware, and various percussio ...

. Founder

Remo Belli Remo Delmo Belli (June 22, 1927 – April 25, 2016) was an American jazz drummer who developed and marketed the first successful synthetic drumheads and founded the Remo company. Biography Belli was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, and began drumming ...

facilitated an introduction before Hart was reassigned to Spain, but the elder Hart soon disappeared. A post-discharge reconciliation attempt (also mediated by Belli) proved to be more successful. Shortly thereafter, father and son established the Hart Music Center in

San Carlos, California San Carlos (Spanish language, Spanish for "St. Charles") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population is 30,722 per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Native Americans Prior to the Spain, Spanis ...

. In late 1965 or early 1966, Hart performed in an early iteration of William Penn and His Pals prior to Gregg Rolie's membership and the recording of the

garage rock Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock music that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is ...

classic "Swami." Later in 1966, Hart and Bennett briefly resumed their collaboration before the latter reenlisted for a tour of duty in

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

. By the end of the year, Hart had moved in with Michael Hinton, a student and friend who would accompany him to a

Count Basie Orchestra The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16- to 18-piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 19 ...

performance at The Fillmore in mid-1967. At the concert, Hart help fulfill Grateful Dead drummer

's request to meet Basie Orchestra drummer

Sonny Payne Sonny Payne (May 4, 1926 – January 29, 1979) was an American jazz drummer, best known for his work with Count Basie and Harry James. Biography Payne's father was Wild Bill Davis's drummer Chris Columbus. After early study with Vic Berton, ...

, leading to an informal tutorial between Hart and Kreutzmann and his eventual introduction to the Grateful Dead.

Career

Hart joined the Grateful Dead in September 1967. His interests in polyrhythmic rudiments and exotic percussion were integral to the band's arrangements in the period that archivist Dick Latvala would subsequently characterize as the "primal Dead era" of 1968–1969. However, he left by mutual agreement in February 1971, extricating himself after his father (who briefly managed the group) embezzled $70,000 from the band. In his 2015 memoir, Kreutzmann divulged that Hart's use of

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...

and other "dark drugs" had accelerated in the wake of the embezzlement and impacted his contributions to the group, also contributing to his departure: "Mickey wasn't able to play at the level he was capable of and it was beginning to affect our performances. He was getting really spacey and just getting so far out there that he wasn't able to deliver the music. It became impossible for me to play with him. It wasn't out of anger or meanness, but we had to address it and deal with it. So our brother Mickey left the band and retreated to his ranch in Novato and it really strained our relationship for a while, sad to say." During his sabbatical, he released the album '' Rolling Thunder'' in 1972. Two additional solo albums (including an

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes Musical tone, tone and atmosphere over traditional Musical form, musical structure or rhythm. Often "peaceful" sounding and lacking Musical composition, composition, beat, and/or structured melod ...

project that was envisaged as the soundtrack for ''The Silent Flute'', a screenplay co-written by

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun-fan; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was an American-born Hong Kong martial artist, actor, filmmaker, and philosopher. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy which was formed from ...

James Coburn James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.AllmoviBi ...

and Stirling Silliphant that was ultimately filmed in 1978 as the David Carradine vehicle '' Circle of Iron'') were completed but rejected by Warner Brothers due to the label's increasingly strained relationship with the Grateful Dead. Hart's home recording studio proved to be a haven for the more idiosyncratic endeavors pursued by various band members, and he continued to collaborate with his former bandmates on various projects, most notably Robert Hunter's ''Tales of the Great Rum Runners'' (1974) and

Ned Lagin Ned Lagin (born March 17, 1948) is an American artist, photographer, scientist, composer, and keyboardist.Ned Lagin interview with David Gans, August 2001 in: Gans, David. Conversations with the Dead, The Grateful Dead Interview Book, Da Capo Pre ...

's ''

Seastones ''Seastones'' is an album by American composer and musician Ned Lagin. In 1975 Lagin released the quadraphonic sound, quadraphonic album of electronic music, (composed between 1970 and 1974), a small part of the complete ''Seastones'' composition ...

'' (1975). He returned to the Dead for their final pre-hiatus concert in October 1974 and was formally reinstated by the beginning of the group's 1976 tour. He remained with the group until their official dissolution in 1995. Hart's collaboration with the remaining members of the Grateful Dead has continued with The Other Ones, The Dead and Dead & Company. Alongside his work with the Grateful Dead, Hart has performed as a solo artist, percussionist, and the author of several books. In these endeavors he has pursued a lifelong interest in

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

and

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

. Hart was influential in recording global musical traditions on the verge of possible extinction, working with archivists and ethnomusicologists at both the

American Folklife Center The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a rep ...

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. He is on the Board of Trustees of the

and has been a spokesperson for the "Save Our Sounds" audio preservation initiative. He also serves on the Library of Congress National Recorded Sound Preservation Board and is known for reissues and other recordings with historical and cultural value. In 1991, Hart produced the album '' Planet Drum'', which remained at #1 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' World Music chart for 26 weeks, and received the first ever

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

for Best World Music Album. Hart has written books on the history and traditions of drumming throughout history. His solo recordings (featuring a variety of guest musicians) are percussive but verge on

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

. In 1994, Hart was inducted into the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...

as a member of the Grateful Dead. In 2000, Hart became a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, a nonprofit organization that studies the healing power of music – continuing his investigation into the connection between healing and rhythm, and the neural basis of rhythm. In 2003, he was honored with the organization's Music Has Power Award, recognizing his advocacy and continuous commitment to raising public awareness of the positive effect of music. Hart was also a judge for the 3rd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. After the death of

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

and the consequent dissolution of the Grateful Dead in 1995, Hart continued to play music with various groups including members of the Grateful Dead. In the 1996 Furthur Festival, Mickey Hart's Mystery Box played, as did Bob Weir's band,

Ratdog RatDog is an American rock band. The group began in 1995 as a side project for Grateful Dead guitarist and singer Bob Weir. After the Dead disbanded later that year, RatDog became Weir's primary band. They performed some Grateful Dead songs, a mi ...

. In 2005, Hart and the members of the band

Particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

joined to create the Hydra Project. During 2006, Hart teamed up with fellow Grateful Dead bandmate Bill Kreutzmann,

Phish Phish is an American rock band formed in Burlington, Vermont, in 1983. The band consists of guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman, and keyboardist Page McConnell, all of whom perform vocals, with Anastasio being the ...

bassist

Mike Gordon Michael Eliot Gordon (born June 3, 1965) is an American bass guitarist and vocalist most recognized as a founding member of the band Phish. In addition to bass, Gordon plays banjo, piano, and guitar. He is a filmmaker ('' Rising Low'', '' Outs ...

and former Other Ones lead guitarist Steve Kimock, to form the

Rhythm Devils The Rhythm Devils is a percussion-based rock band led by former Grateful Dead drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. Grateful Dead The Rhythm Devils had their origins as an informal but frequent fixture in the Grateful Dead concert repertoire ...

, a nickname that refers to Hart and Kreutzmann's drum duets and improvisation. The band features songs from their respective repertoires as well as new songs written by Jerry Garcia's songwriting companion Robert Hunter. The Rhythm Devils announced their first tour in 2006, which ended at the popular Vegoose festival in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

over the

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

weekend. In June and July 2008, Hart led the Mickey Hart Band on a US concert tour. The band consists of Hart, Steve Kimock on guitar and pedal steel guitar, George Porter Jr. on bass, Kyle Hollingsworth on keyboards, Sikiru Adepoju on

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, which can be used as a form of speech surrogacy by regulating its pitch and rhythm to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather t ...

, Walfredo Reyes, Jr. on drums, and Jen Durkin on vocals. In 2010 Hart debuted "Rhythms of the Universe," a composition based on a variety of astrophysical data. The composition represents a collaboration between scientist and artist, using their own sophisticated tools.

Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

in physics George Smoot from the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Keith Jackson, a computer scientist and musician also from LBNL, are providing some of the data for the project. The final result will be a "musical history of the universe", from the Big Bang onwards through galaxy and star formation, up until modern times, including images from the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

and rhythms derived from the

cosmic microwave background radiation The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), or relic radiation, is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dar ...

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...

s, and many other astrophysical phenomena. The work premiered at the conference "Cosmology on the Beach" in Playa del Carmen in January 2010. In April 2010, it was announced that

will tour in the summer of 2010 with a new line-up including Hart and

(assorted percussion), Keller Williams (guitar, vocals), Sikiru Adepoju (talking drum), Davy Knowles (guitar, vocals), and Andy Hess (bass). The Rhythm Devils did only one show in 2011, at the Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This version of the band was Hart, Kreutzmann, Keller Williams, Sikiru, Steve Kimock and Reed Mathis of Tea Leaf Green on bass. In 2011 Hart debuted a new version of the Mickey Hart Band. This lineup included Tim Hockenberry (vocals, keyboards, trombone, saxophone, other instruments), Crystal Monee Hall (vocals, guitar, hand percussion), Ben Yonas (keyboards), Gawain Mathews (guitar), Sikiru Adepoju (

djembe A djembe or jembe ( ; from Maninka language, Malinke ''jembe'' , N'Ko script, N'Ko: ) is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe ...

shakers The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a Millenarianism, millenarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian sect founded in England and then organized in the Unit ...

), Ian "Inkx" Herman (drums), Greg Ellis (percussion), Vir McCoy (bass). The band played a few shows in August 2011 on the east and west coasts of the United States. In November and December 2011, the Mickey Hart Band did a 17-date tour with a slightly modified lineup. McCoy and Ellis were not in this lineup, and

Widespread Panic Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell (musician), John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Duane Trucks, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJ ...

band member Dave Schools joined the band as their bass player for the tour. On October 11, 2011,

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was f ...

released ''The Mickey Hart Collection''. Comprising 25 albums, the series includes music from regions that span the globe, including the

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

In August 2013, the Mickey Hart Band embarked upon a tour with the Tea Leaf Trio, which includes three members of the band Tea Leaf Green, in support of the band's album ''

Superorganism A superorganism, or supraorganism, is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a '' holobiont''. Concept The term superorganism is ...

.'' On September 29, 2013, the completed version of his and George Smoot's film ''Rhythms of the Universe'' premiered at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. In the summer of 2015, the surviving members of the

( Bob Weir, Phil Lesh,

and Mickey Hart), joined by Trey Anastasio,

Bruce Hornsby Bruce Randall Hornsby (born November 23, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, folk music, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock music, rock, heartland r ...

and

Jeff Chimenti Jeff Chimenti (born October 21, 1968) is an American keyboardist, best known for his ongoing work with former members of the Grateful Dead. Since May 1997 he has played with Bob Weir & RatDog, and has also played on every tour of The Dead (in ...

, performed a series of concerts to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. The performances took place at Santa Clara's Levi Stadium on June 27 and 28, 2015 and Chicago's Soldier Field on July 3, 4 and 5, 2015. These performances marked the first time Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann and Hart performed together since the Dead's 2009 tour and was publicized as the final time the musicians will all perform together. Also in 2015, Hart began touring with Dead & Company, a band consisting of former

members Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann, along with

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but he left for Atlanta in 1997 with fellow guitarist Clay Cook, with whom he formed the short-liv ...

(guitar), Oteil Burbridge (bass), and

(keyboards). The band began touring in late 2015 and have conducted multiple tours since then. In 2017, he released ''RAMU'', which featured contributions from both his long-time collaborators Steve Kimock and Sikiru Adepoju as well as Avey Tare and Tank Ball, among others.

Instruments played

Hart plays, or has played,

drum set A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer ty ...

, RAMU,

gong A gongFrom Indonesian language, Indonesian and ; ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ; ; ; ; is a percussion instrument originating from Southeast Asia, and used widely in Southeast Asian and East Asian musical traditions. Gongs are made of metal and ...

tubular bells Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the Percussion instrument, percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillons, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the soun ...

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

bongos Bongos (Spanish language, Spanish: ''bongó'') are an Afro-Cubans, Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger ''hembra'' () and the smaller ''macho'' ...

timbales Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfic ...

maracas A maraca ( , , ), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas, also known as tamaracas, were rattles of d ...

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...

snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...

güiro The güiro () is a percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines (see photo) along the notches to produce a ratchet sound. The güiro is commonly ...

castanets Castanets, also known as ''clackers'' or ''palillos'', are a percussion instrument ( idiophonic), used in Spanish, Calé, Moorish, Ottoman, Greek, Italian, Mexican, Sephardic, Portuguese, Filipino, Brazilian, and Swiss music. In ancient ...

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (;()), also spelt didjeridu, among other variants, is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous Drone (music), drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgerido ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...

cymbals A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...

, surdo, saron, beats,

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black b ...

, berimbau,

kalimba Mbira ( ; ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and ...

cowbell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell (instrument), bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. ...

, rattle,

shekere The shekere (from Yoruba Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀) is a percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd. There are multiple ways to produce sounds with the instrument. It can be shaken or ...

, rainstick, agogo bells,

bell A bell /ˈbɛl/ () is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be m ...

s, wood block, taragat,

balafon The balafon (pronounced , or, by analogy with ''xylophone'' etc., ) is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé peoples, Mandé, Bwaba Bobo people, Bobo, Senufo people, Seno ...

, tarang,

gourd Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly '' Cucurbita'' and '' Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. Many gourds ha ...

, clacker, bombo, dumbek, tom-toms, caxixi, water gong,

, blaster beam,

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...

, and

pan flute A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

Personal life

Hart has been married since 1990 to lawyer, environmental activist and former Sonoma County (California) Regional Parks Director Caryl Ohrbach Hart, with whom he has a daughter Reya. Hart also has a son Taro (born January 13, 1983) from his previous marriage to Mary Holloway. He had Taro's heartbeat recorded '' in utero'' and used as the basis for the album '' Music to Be Born By''. He lives in Occidental, California. Hart is the only Jewish member of the Grateful Dead.

Works

Audiobooks

* ''Aladdin and the Magic Lamp''. Rabbit Ears Entertainment LLC. 1994.

Books

* * * *

Albums

* '' Rolling Thunder'' (1972) – Mickey Hart * '' Diga'' (1976) – Diga Rhythm Band * '' The Apocalypse Now Sessions: The Rhythm Devils Play River Music'' (1980) –

* '' Däfos'' (1983) – Mickey Hart,

Airto Moreira Airto Guimorvan Moreira (born August 5, 1941) is a Brazilian jazz drummer, composer and percussionist. He is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. Coming to prominence in the late 1960s as a membe ...

, Flora Purim * '' Yamantaka'' (1983) – Mickey Hart, Henry Wolff, Nancy Hennings * '' Music to Be Born By'' (1989) – Mickey HartRuhlmann, William
''Music to Be Born By''
at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. Retrieved February 10, 2106. * ''

At the Edge ''At the Edge'' is a percussion-based world music album by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. It was released on CD and Compact Cassette, cassette by Rykodisc, Rykodisc Records on September 18, 1990. It was Hart's first album with the multi-na ...

'' (1990) – Mickey Hart * '' Planet Drum'' (1991) – Mickey Hart * '' Mickey Hart's Mystery Box'' (1996) – Mickey Hart * '' Supralingua'' (1998) – Mickey Hart * '' Spirit into Sound'' (1999) – Mickey Hart * '' The Best of Mickey Hart: Over the Edge and Back'' (2002) – Mickey Hart * '' Global Drum Project'' (2007) – Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, Giovanni Hidalgo * '' Mysterium Tremendum'' (2012) – Mickey Hart Band * ''

'' (2013) – Mickey Hart Band * ''

RAMU The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...

'' (2017) – Mickey Hart * '' In the Groove'' (2022) – Planet Drum

Video

* '' The Rhythm Devils Concert Experience'' (2008) – Rhythm Devils

Notes

References

* * * * * *

External links

* * *
Mickey Hart on the Dead's Official Site

Mickey Hart Interview
at NAMM Oral History Collection (2010)
Mickey Hart; God Is Sound - LA Yoga Magazine
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Mickey 1943 births Living people American musicologists American rock drummers American rock percussionists Dead & Company members Grammy Award winners Grateful Dead members Jewish American rock musicians Lawrence High School (Cedarhurst, New York) alumni Musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area Planet Drum members Writers from Brooklyn Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area People from Occidental, California The Other Ones members New Riders of the Purple Sage members 20th-century American drummers American male drummers Musicians from Brooklyn People from Flatbush, Brooklyn People from The Five Towns, New York People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder Relix Records artists American blues rock musicians Psychedelic rock musicians Drummers from California Drummers from New York City