WAUKESHA — A mother and daughter sit down in front of a camera popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It's a far cry from the digital cameras, or even the cellphones, of today. But the photos come out perfectly. This mother-daughter duo has done this before in front of the same camera. The first time was in 1988 at a Grateful Dead concert.
The two have been to hundreds of shows together.
“When I went to my first Dead show I was like, here they are. These are my people. They accepted me for being my odd self," Susan Bailey said.
Autumn was just a child when her parents took her on tour with the band.
“The last count that they told me when I was a kid was 187 (Grateful Dead concerts), Autumn Bailey said.
Now, after all those shows and nearly 40 years later, they are sitting in front of the same camera to recreate a moment.
Autumn and Susan Bailey traveled from opposite sides of the country to get to Waukesha. Autumn flew in from Oakland, California. Her mom came in from Western Massachusetts. It was all for a photo shoot that lasted just a few minutes. But the hours of travel and money spent on planes and hotels are all worth it to be part of Bill Lemke's project.
Lemke is a Deadhead and photographer. Back in the 1980s, he started taking photos of Grateful Dead fans outside of shows.
“I want to document the fans and not the band. There’s enough photographs of the band," Lemke said.
He took about 150 photos of Deadheads between 1985 and 1990. He sent the fans a copy of the photo. And that was the end of it. The photos and backdrop just sat in Lemke's vault.
Then, decades later he got an idea. He dusted off the old portraits and reached out to all those people he had taken photos of. His goal was to reunite with those Deadheads for new portrait photos.
“I wanted to see what happened, what they did with their lives. And so many of them have gone on to do things related to music, or they’re professors. There’s people that are music producers now," Lemke said.
Watch the story to see more Deadhead photos nearly 40 years apart...
Ultimately, he was able to get in touch with about 36 of them. He flew to New York City, San Francisco, and even Southeast Asia with the same camera and backdrop he used back in the 80s.
He is putting all these photos in a book called 'Aging Gratefully'. The Deadheads in the photos are also interviewed by longtime and well-known Grateful Dead author David Gans. As Lemke sees it, these portraits aren't just of Deadheads but of America in the 1980s.
"It's a big part of our society. It's not just this small splinter group. There's a lot of Deadheads out there from politicians, to you name it, to wealthy people, to people who are still living in their vans following the band," Lemke said.
The book will be published in the fall of 2025.
For Autumn and Susan Bailey, they are honored to be part of Aging Gratefully. Traveling across the country to the photoshoot wasn't an issue.
“I love the idea of taking and making an archive and a collection," Susan Bailey said.
Back in the 80s, the Baileys traveled with the band. They'd go from show to show, finding ways to make money to keep up with the tour. This was a huge part of their lives. Now, they can commemorate it with 'Aging Gratefully'.
“But there’s something about this project that elevates, because Bill is really immersed in the culture and it’s important to him. And he’s capturing not just family portraits that are unique to a specific group of people or a very small group of people — it expands it to the Grateful Dead family," Autumn Bailey said.
'Aging Gratefully' is an ode to the fans as much as it is the band — both of whom continue to rock as the years roll by.
“I want people to look at it and say, you know, this is a really unique culture. This is a really unique family, basically, that has survived for decades," Lemke said.
You can learn more about the book by going to Bill Lemke's website.
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