Rock Scully, who managed the Grateful Dead between 1965 and 1985, died Wednesday after a long bout with lung cancer, the Monterey County Weekly reports.

Scully signed on as the Dead’s manager after seeing the band play at one of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests in San Francisco under the name the Worlocks. Within a couple of years, he was booking them into major gigs like Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival.

In 2001, Scully co-authored with David Daulton a biography that surely has one of the most memorable names in rock literature, Living with the Dead.

Scully died peacefully and without suffering, allowing family members to say their farewells the night before, his brother wrote in an email to the Weekly.

[Monterey County Weekly]

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