Robert Hunter (lyricist)

Robert Hunter
Robert Hunter, 2013
Background information
Birth name	Robert Burns
Born	(1941-06-23) June 23, 1941 (age 75) San Luis Obispo, California, United States
Genres	Folk rock, bluegrass, country rock, rock and roll, psychedelic rock, blues-rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, singer-songwriter, poet, translator
Instruments	Guitar, harmonica, mandolin, upright bass
Years active	1962–present
Labels	Relix Records, Dark Star Records, Round Records
Associated acts	Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan
Website	www.dead.net/band/robert-hunter

Robert C. Hunter (born June 23, 1941) is an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his work with the Grateful Dead and for collaborating with singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

He was born Robert Burns in Oceano, California. In a 1973 Rolling Stone profile of the Grateful Dead, Charles Perry reported that Hunter is the great-great grandson of noted Romantic poet Robert Burns. An early friend of Jerry Garcia, they played together in bluegrass bands (such as the Tub Thumpers) in the early sixties, with Hunter on mandolin and upright bass.

Around 1962, Hunter was an early volunteer test subject (along with Ken Kesey) for psychedelic chemicals at Stanford University's research covertly sponsored by the CIA in their MKULTRA program. [McNally 42] He was paid to take LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline and report on his experiences, which were creatively formative for him: "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane." [McNally 42–43]

The first lyrics he wrote for the Grateful Dead were composed while on LSD, and mailed to the band from Arizona: a suite that would later become "China Cat Sunflower"/"The Eleven" (these were performed together for a short time). "China Cat Sunflower" would later find a partner in "I Know You Rider". After battling moderate drug addiction, he abandoned his Joycean/Western vision quest and joined his old friend's band, the Grateful Dead, on the first weekend in September 1967, at the small Rio Nido, California, gigs. The association was at first informal, but began on an auspicious note, as that weekend he wrote the first verse of one of his better-known songs, "Dark Star". It is perhaps not a coincidence that some Deadheads argue that the Rio Nido gigs were the first in which the band accessed the full power of their psychedelic improvisation style.