It’s been 50 years since the Grateful Dead formed in Palo Alto, Calif.; 20 years since lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia died; and five years since the group’s four surviving members last played together. Now, as the quartet prepares for what they say will be their final shows, drummer Bill Kreutzmann is coming out with a memoir of his years with the anarchic band that became an unlikely American institution.

One of the group’s two percussionists, Mr. Kreutzmann was the Dead’s musical rock, his steady beat keeping even their most tipsy jams from running off the rails.

“Bill was the pulse and rhythm of the Grateful Dead,” says Dennis McNally, the group’s publicist for their final 11 years and author of “A Long Strange Trip,” a history of the band. “He’s the guy who maintained the drive no matter what.”

In “Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead,” Mr. Kreutzmann and co-author Benjy Eisen recount the Dead’s formation, its zigzagging rise and many low points. Unlike other books about the Grateful Dead’s history, Mr. Kreutzmann homes in on his own experiences with the group. “Deal” chronicles partying with John Belushi, riding camels through the desert to a Bedouin musical jam and encountering George McGovern’s presidential campaign in 1972.

“As ridiculous as some of those stories sound, they all happened,” Mr. Kreutzmann says. The drummer, who turns 69 next week, lives with his fifth wife, Aimee, on an organic farm in Kauai, Hawaii.