Hiss Golden Messenger Honors Honors Grateful Dead’s Days Between With ‘Dire Wolf’ & ‘They Love Each Other’

Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor celebrated the Grateful Dead's annual Days Between by fulfilling a longtime musical ambition. The singer-songwriter shared newly recorded studio versions of “Dire Wolf” and “They Love Each Other,” two of his favorite Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter compositions, through his Substack, A Place Where No One Can Find Me.

Taylor explained he’d long dreamed of recording Grateful Dead songs specifically for Days Between — the annual August 1 through 9 stretch spanning Jerry Garcia's birthday and the anniversary of his death. When an unexpected stretch of free time opened up in his Dad’s Bar & Grill studio a few weeks ago, Taylor finally brought the idea to life, reimagining “They Love Each Other” with a Waylon Jennings-inspired feel before taking “Dire Wolf” into country territory “as though we were on the bandstand at a VFW Hall on a Friday night.”

Rather than becoming a solo studio project, the sessions evolved into a collaborative celebration featuring Chris Boerner on mandolin, Matt McCaughan on drums and bass, Matt Booth on acoustic bass, Omar Ruiz-Lopez, John Lee Shannon on guitar, Joe MacPhail on piano as well as Kelly McFarling, Rich Hinman, Mikaela Davis and the BERTHA Choir (Mike Wheeler, Caitlin Doyle and Melody Walker), among others.

Taylor said the experience reminded him that “community trumps all,” describing the project as friends gathering to make music “with joy as the engine,” while noting the Dead songs themselves became a vehicle for bringing everyone together.

The Substack post also includes an extensive essay in which Taylor reflects on discovering the Grateful Dead after moving to San Francisco in 1998, traces the band’s influence on his songwriting and worldview and explains why Garcia and Hunter’s music continues to resonate with him decades later.

Head to Substack to stream both tracks and scroll on to watch live performances of Grateful Dead covers by Hiss Golden Messenger: