In subsequent years, Walton traveled with the Dead when the band performed at the pyramids in Egypt, drummed onstage with Hart and fellow percussionist Bill Kreutzmann, and appeared at a Dead & Company concert as Father Time as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve in 2019. (Walton was also a fan of other musicians, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Phish.)
After Walton joined the Celtics before the 1985-86 season, Larry Bird, the Celtics star, organized a team outing to a Dead show in Worcester, Mass., as part of welcoming the new guy. Years later, Walton was inducted into the Grateful Dead Hall of Honor — “my highest honor,” he told Relix Magazine.
“He knew the music inside-out,” said Hart, who remembered that Walton’s favorite Dead song was “Fire on the Mountain.”
Walton also seemed to perceive other pursuits in terms of the Dead — above all, playing basketball.
“The music and the basketball were the exact same thing,” he wrote. “You have a team with a goal, and a band with a song, and fans cheering because they’re happy, but also to make the players perform better, faster, and to take everybody further.”
He continued: “During the game, during the song, everybody goes off, each in their own direction, playing their own tune. But then with the greatness of a team, the greatness of a leader, and the willingness to play to a higher calling, they’re all able to come back and finish the job together — to win the game and send the people out into the night ecstatic, clamoring for more.”