The friend was Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and those sessions set the stage for the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a group they considered “the original psychedelic cowboy band."
Dawson, 64, died Tuesday of stomach cancer in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, said Buddy Cage, who has played pedal steel guitar with the group since Garcia left in 1971.
The New Riders initially gave Garcia and two other members of the Grateful Dead -- Mickey Hart on drums and Phil Lesh on bass guitar -- a way to further indulge their taste for country music. But Dawson's songwriting skills quickly helped the offshoot band develop an independent country-rock identity.
Rob Bleetstein, archivist for the New Riders, wrote in an e-mail, “Dawson's songwriting brought an incredible vision of classic Americana to light with songs like 'Glendale Train' and 'Last Lonely Eagle.' “
With that material and such other “wonderful" Dawson songs as Garden of Eden and “Henry," the band “simply had to become a reality," Dennis McNally, a Grateful Dead publicist, said last week on Relix magazine's website.
They were the Grateful Dead's opening act from 1969 to 1971, then became successful touring on their own, Bleetstein said.
In 1974, the New Riders played a free concert for an estimated 50,000 fans in New York City's Central Park.
According to the “Encyclopedia of Popular Music" (1998), their first, self-titled release “blended country rock with hippie idealism, yet emerged as a worthy companion to the parent act's lauded 'American Beauty.' “
Dawson had written every one of the album's tracks.
