Hart also just wrapped up a 19-date summer tour with Dead & Company. Reviewers have described “In The Groove” as a “hypnotic trance-like exploration of music at its most primal” and “an atmospheric sonic experience that is both uniquely organic and electronic.”

This year, his long-running international percussion ensemble with tabla master Zakir Hussain, Planet Drum, just released its first record in years after a rare live performance in Stanford, California this spring.

Since joining the Grateful Dead in 1967, the 78-year-old percussionist has explored ethnomusicology, astrophysics, the connection between music and neurology, archiving folk music for the federal government, authoring books on drumming, and more. We’ll talk with Mickey Hart about the Dead, Planet Drum, and much more in this special WAMC conversation.Ģ022 is proving to be a landmark year in the long, incomparable career of Mickey Hart. Every culture on the planet has every nation, every culture has rhythms to it.” Everybody knows about rhythm, melody and harmony. Hart, of course, has also spent nearly 60 years with the Grateful Dead and its various offshoots: Coming up this hour, a special conversation with percussionist Mickey Hart, who has returned to his Planet Drum project for its first new album in years.

This is Josh Landes and you’re listening up WAMC. To hear the fully produced piece, including samples of the Planet Drum and Dead and Company tracks referred to in the text below, hit the play button above.

Grateful dead drums and space