Gans plays a show at the Whiskey in downtown Wilmington Sept. 14.

David Gans started writing words about music in the early 1970s because he was an aspiring musician attracted to the extra cash, free concert tickets and exposure to music industry folks. What transpired is a career beyond description.

Assignments for occasional articles led to staff positions at national magazines. Books and a weekly radio show followed. He became a trusted voice in the Grateful Dead world and his association with the band opened other doors. But he never quit playing music. Shortly after Jerry Garcia died in 1995, Gans added national touring act to his eclectic resume.

On Wednesday, Sept. 14, Gans returns to Wilmington for the first time since 2004 for a show at The Whiskey. He’s on a two-week run playing festivals, club shows and house concerts. Each setting offers its own challenges and rewards, and “it’s nice to have a mix of opportunities,” Gans said in a recent phone interview.

Gans is known to many as host of "The Grateful Dead Radio Hour," which started on KFOG in San Francisco in the mid-80s and has aired in syndication since 1988. The show combines live music from the Dead’s archives, interviews and studio cuts. Sometimes a track from Gans’ recent solo electric release, “It’s a Hand Me Down,” makes the playlist.

He’s also written books about the Dead and produced several vault releases.

“All of the things I’ve done have sort of synergized with one another to improve my visibility,” Gans said.

He's formed a strong bond with the band’s passionate fans through 1,459 episodes of the radio show. In the pre-internet world, in particular, it delivered 60 minutes of bliss for Deadheads who craved hot jams and rare gems.

While the Dead’s songs comprise a portion of his live repertoire, Gans has also written dozens of original tunes, including a collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and another with members of Railroad Earth.

“I come from the Grateful Dead world of loving the songs but also loving to improvise. I use a looper where I can improvise with myself and play more than one guitar at a time,” he said. “I feel like I’m very good at what I do and I like what I do and 97 percent of the people in the world aren’t interested in what I do or particularly care for my brand of hippie, jam band, solo, psychedelic country folk or whatever you call it.”

Gans limits his tours to two weeks, maintaining a happy blend between writing and performing, life on the road and time at home with his wife of 22 years (and two cats).

He listens to potential music selections for the radio show while driving from gig to gig and produces the show from his laptop. He and Gary Lambert co-host “Tales from the Golden Road,” on Sunday afternoons on XM Radio. Last year he and Blair Jackson co-authored an oral history on the Dead, "This Is All a Dream We Dreamed."

“With the Grateful Dead,” bassist Phil Lesh said in 1983, “there’s more possible than you could ever dream up.”

That quote closed a piece Gans wrote for Headliner Magazine. It also paints the road he's gone down as all the years combine, solo and intertwined, with the Dead.

Contact StarNews arts and entertainment at 910-343-2343.