Dead to the Core

An acoustic celebration of the Grateful Dead

Upcoming

See below for more about the performers.

Learn more about the monthly series Shakedown Sunday, at the 443 Social Club in Syracuse.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine, and author of a best-selling video series teaching his acoustic arrangements of classic Grateful Dead songs.

“Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers sure can play the music—listen to his ‘Stella Blue’ and you’ll know what I mean. Better still, he can teach it.”

—Dennis McNally, author, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

About the performers

Dead to the Core is a collective that performs with varying lineups, from duo and trio to a full band with drums. Here are the musicians featured on upcoming shows.

Wendy Sassafras Ramsay, Rodgers’ bandmate and duo partner (as Pepper and Sassafras), is a singer-songwriter and versatile multi-instrumentalist on clarinet, flute, accordion, and guitar. She also plays in the alternative rock band Starting Off Red.

Video: Uncle John’s Band

Jefferson Hamer is an internationally touring songwriter, guitarist, and traditional musician based in Brooklyn. He performs with the Murphy Beds and Session Americana, and his guitar work and vocals are featured on Sarah Jarosz’s Grammy-nominated Blue Heron Suite. Hamer’s Child Ballads album with Anaïs Mitchell earned a BBC2 Folk Award and was named one of NPR’s top-ten folk releases of the year.

Video: Cumberland Blues

Steve Roy is a multi-instrumentalist from Eliot, Maine, who plays upright bass, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and ukulele. He performs with Oldhat String Band and, as a sideman, has toured internationally with many of the acoustic world’s top acts, including Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, John Reischman and Eli West, Molly Tuttle, Joe K. Walsh, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Joy Kills Sorrow, and many others.

Video: Dire Wolf

The Syracuse-based full-band incarnation of Dead to the Core features Rodgers and Ramsay along with singer-songwriter Tim Burns (Two Hour Delay) on guitar, mandolin, and vocals; Josh Dekaney (Mary Fahl, Samba Laranja) on drums; and John Dancks (the Cadleys) on upright bass.