Grateful Dead, Garcia and ‘Big Steve:’ Parish Honors History with Iconic Merch Launch
"Big" Steve Parish. Courtesy Photo.
By John W. Barry
Scarlet>Fire.
China>Rider.
Estimated>Eyes.
These are some of the most iconic phrases—song segues, actually— introduced across generations, by the Grateful Dead, into the modern Dead Head lexicon.
Well, now you can add another two-word phrase into that lexicon, courtesy of “Big” Steve Parish, an anchor of the Grateful Dead family whose contributions to mankind could never be quantified.
Chonga Bonga.
Decades ago, Parish and Grateful Dead lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia were outside the Hotel Navarro in New York City, later to be the Ritz-Carlton, about to get into a limousine. A car materialized out of nowhere and someone handed out the window a white shoebox. Inside was a white ch...
