[3] After graduation, he played with a number of bands and recorded one album with Silver before joining Bobby and the Midnites with Bob Weir and jazz veterans Billy Cobham and Alphonso Johnson.

Mydland quickly became an important member in the Dead, using a variety of keyboards including Hammond organ and various synthesizers and singing regularly.

Born in Munich, Germany, the child of a Norwegian U.S. Army chaplain, Mydland moved to San Francisco with his parents at the age of one.

[5] Mydland joined the Grateful Dead in April 1979, replacing Keith and Donna Godchaux, who had decided to start their own band.

He quickly combined his tenor singing with founding members Weir and Jerry Garcia to provide strong three-part harmonies on live favorites.

[7] He easily fit into the band's sound and added his own contributions, such as in Go to Heaven (1980) which featured two of Mydland's songs, "Far From Me" and "Easy to Love You", the latter written with frequent Weir collaborator John Perry Barlow.

Mydland wrote several other songs that were played live but not released on any studio albums, including "Don't Need Love", "Never Trust A Woman", "Maybe You Know", "Only a Fool", all written solo, and "Gentlemen Start Your Engines", with Barlow.

Mydland's vocals added color to old favorites such as "Cassidy", "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo", "Ramble on Rose", the Band's "The Weight", and he even wrote his own verse for Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster".

Mydland's instrumental interactions with Garcia became an increasingly prominent factor in the Dead's music over the years—their duo exchanges in "Friend of the Devil" were an early and lasting example.

The GS-1 and Emulator II were replaced by a new Kurzweil MIDIboard MIDI controller, which gave Mydland the ability to use voices from an array of different synthesizer modules, and blend them together using volume pedals and foot switches.

In 1986, Mydland formed Go Ahead with several San Francisco Bay area musicians, including Bill Kreutzmann, also former Santana members Alex Ligertwood on vocals and David Margen on bass, as well as guitarist Jerry Cortez.

Brent Mydland died at his home in Lafayette, California, on July 26, 1990, shortly after completing the Grateful Dead's summer tour.

An autopsy conducted by the Contra Costa Coroner's office revealed that Mydland had died of acute cocaine and morphine intoxication.

Richard Rainey, Contra Costa County coroner, stated that "Toxicology tests reveal lethal levels of morphine and cocaine in the blood", a mixture "commonly referred to as a 'speedball'.

"[11] He was the third Dead keyboardist to die (after founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan in 1973 and Keith Godchaux in 1980); Garcia said Mydland's death was "crushing" and it abruptly closed a chapter of the band's career.

[13] David Gans has described Mydland as "a talented synthesist [sic], who was able to play all this beautiful synthesized string stuff, but he could still kick ass and take names on the Hammond organ."