'Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia' (
August 1,
1942 –
August 9,
1995) was an
American musician,
songwriter, and
artist best known for being the
lead guitarist and
vocalist of the
psychedelic rock band the
Grateful Dead.
[1][2] Garcia was viewed by the media as the leader or "spokesman" of the group.
Performing with the Grateful Dead for its entire three decade career (which spanned from 1965 to 1995), Garcia participated in a variety of side projects, including
Legion of Mary, and the
Jerry Garcia Band,
Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and several solo albums.
He also contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a
session musician. He was very well known by many for his highly distinctive guitar playing and was ranked 13
th in the
Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time cover story.
[5]
Later in life, Garcia was sometimes ill due to his unstable weight.
After experiencing a diabetic coma that nearly cost him his life in 1986, Garcia endeavored to live on healthier terms until his sudden death in a rehabilitation facility in August of 1995.
Early years
Jerome John Garcia was born in
San Francisco,
California, on
August 1,
1942, to
Spanish-American Jose Ramon Garcia and Swedish/Irish-American Ruth Marie Clifford.
[6][7] His parents named him after the famous composer
Jerome Kern.
Garcia was their second and final child, preceded by Clifford "Tiff" Garcia, who was born in 1937.
Garcia was influenced by music at an early age,
[8] taking piano lessons for much of his childhood.
[9] His father, Jose, was employed as a professional musician,
and his mother, Ruth, a hospital nurse,
[10] enjoyed playing the piano.
Also, his father's extended family (he had emigrated from Spain in 1919) would often sing during reunions.
At the age of four,
Garcia experienced the
amputation of two-thirds of his right middle finger.
Given the chore of steadying wood while his elder brother chopped, he inadvertently put his finger in the way of the falling axe, producing what would later be used as almost a signature for his art and music.
Garcia had quite a few traumatic or tragic events occur during his youth. Less than a year after losing a segment of his finger, he witnessed the death of his father. While camping with his family near
Arcata in 1947, his father brought him along for the hike when he went fly-fishing; his father soon slipped, plunged into the deep rapids of the
Trinity River,
and drowned, much to Garcia's shock and horror.
Having listened to music by
Chuck Berry,
, and
Eddie Cochran during his youth, Garcia's one wish was to have an
electric guitar. On his 15
th birthday, his mother purchased him an
accordion, which he pleaded with her to exchange for a guitar.
She eventually relented, buying a
Danelectro with a small amplifier.
During the following summer, Garcia took up an art program at the
San Francisco Art Institute in order to further his burgeoning interest in the visual arts.
Around 1958, Garcia attended tenth grade at
Balboa High School. During this period, he was introduced to
marijuana.
Garcia would later reminisce: "Me and a friend of mine went up into the hills with two joints, the San Francisco foothills, and smoked these joints and just got so high and laughed and roared and went skipping down the streets doing funny things and just having a helluva time."
Garcia frequented a Victorian-style house during the early sixities, then commonly known by its address at 710 Ashbury Street. It was situated in the midst of the
Haight-Ashbury district, most famous for being the center of the
counterculture movement in
San Francisco. He performed at 710 Ashbury during his early years, and would, within a few years, live with the rest of the Grateful Dead there. In 1962, Garcia met
Phil Lesh, the eventual
bassist of the Grateful Dead, during a party at 710 Ashbury. Lesh would later write in his autobiography that Garcia resembled the "composer
Claude Debussy: dark, curly hair, goatee, Impressionist eyes."
Garcia later dropped out of
Balboa High School in his junior year and enlisted in the
United States Army.
After completing Basic Training and Service School Training as an auto maintenance helper at
Fort Ord, Garcia was stationed at Fort Winfield Scott in the
Presidio of San Francisco.
Garcia was still spending his hours at his leisure picking up the
acoustic guitar. He was given a
general discharge on
December 14,
1960, after accruing two courts martial and eight
AWOLs.
After his discharge, Garcia traveled to
Palo Alto to experience the alternative scene then surrounding
Stanford University.
It was at this time that Garcia began to realize that he needed to begin playing the guitar in earnest—a move which meant giving up his love of drawing and painting. This decision was softened when Garcia recognized the impressive talent of his friend Paul Speegle.
Garcia soon meet
Robert Hunter in April of 1960. Hunter would go on to become a long-time lyrical collaborator with the
Grateful Dead.
Living out of his car next to Robert Hunter in a lot behind 710 Ashbury, Garcia and Hunter began to participate in the local art and musical scene, sometimes playing at
Kepler's Books.
Garcia performed his first concert with Hunter, each earning five dollars. Garcia and Hunter would also play in a band with
David Nelson, a contributor to a few Grateful Dead albums, labeled the Wildwood Boys.
In 1960, Garcia and his friend Paul Speegle were involved in a
car accident. Garcia was thrown from the vehicle, resulting in a broken
collarbone. Speegle, however, was fatally wounded by the crash. The accident served as an awakening for Garcia, who later elaborated: "That's where my life began. Before then I was always living at less than capacity. I was idling. That was the slingshot for the rest of my life. It was like a second chance. Then I got serious."
[11]
While attending another party at 710 Ashbury,
Phil Lesh approached Garcia suggesting that they record some songs, with the intention of getting them played on the radio station
KPFA.
Using an old
Wollensak tape recorder, they recorded "Matty Groves" and "The Long Black Veil", among several other tunes. Their efforts were not in vain, later landing a spot on the show, where a ninety-minute special was done specifically on Garcia. It was broadcast under the title "'The Long Black Veil' and Other Ballads: An Evening with Jerry Garcia".
Garcia soon began playing and teaching
acoustic guitar and
banjo during this time.
One of Garcia's students was Bob Matthews, who later engineered many of the Grateful Dead's albums.
[12] Matthews went to high school (and was friends) with
Bob Weir, and on New Year's Eve 1963, he introduced Weir and Garcia to each other.
Between 1962 and 1964, Garcia sang and performed mainly
bluegrass,
old-time and
folk music. One of the bands Garcia was known to perform with was the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, a bluegrass act. The group consisted of Jerry Garcia on guitar, banjo, vocals, and harmonica, Marshall Leicester on banjo, guitar, and vocals, and Dick Arnold on fiddle and vocals.
[13] Soon thereafter, Garcia joined a local
bluegrass and
folk band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, whose membership also included
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
Around this time, the psychedelic
LSD was beginning to gain prominence. Garcia first began experimenting with LSD in 1964; later, when asked how it changed his life, he remarked: "Well, it changed everything [...] the effect was that it freed me because I suddenly realized that my little attempt at having a straight life and doing that was really a fiction and just wasn't going to work out. Luckily I wasn't far enough into it for it to be shattering or anything; it was like a realization that just made me feel immensely relieved".
In 1965, Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions evolved into the Warlocks, with the addition of
Phil Lesh on
bass guitar and
Bill Kreutzmann on
percussion. However, the band quickly learned that another group was already perfoming under their newly selected name, prompting another name change. After several suggestions, Garcia came up with the name by opening either an old
Oxford or
Britannica World Language Dictionary.
He was then promptly greeted with the "Grateful Dead".
The definition provided for "Grateful Dead" was "a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial."
[14] The band's immediate reaction was disapproval.
Garcia later explained the group's feelings towards the name: "I didn't like it really, I just found it to be really powerful. [Bob] Weir didn't like it, [Bill] Kreutzmann didn't like it and nobody really wanted to hear about it. [...]"
Despite their dislike of the name, it quickly spread by word of mouth, and soon became their official title.
Career with the Grateful Dead
Garcia served as
lead guitarist,
vocalist, and principal
songwriter of the Grateful Dead for their entire career. Garcia composed such songs as "
Dark Star",
[15] "Franklin's Tower",
"Ripple",
and "
Scarlet Begonias",
among many others.
Robert Hunter, an ardent collaborator with the band, contributed lyrics to all but a few of Garcia's songs.
Garcia was well-noted for his "soulful extended guitar improvisations",
which would frequently feature interplay between himself and his fellow band members. His fame, as well as the band's, arguably rested on their ability to never play a song the same way twice.
Oftentimes, Garcia would take cues from
rhythm guitarist
Bob Weir on when to solo, remarking that "there are some [...] kinds of ideas that would really throw me if I had to create a harmonic bridge between all the things going on rhythmically with two drums and Phil [Lesh's] innovative bass playing. Weir's ability to solve that sort of problem is extraordinary. [...] Harmonically, I take a lot of my solo cues from Bob."
[16]
Jerry Garcia in concert on
December 31,
1976. He is performing with a
Travis Bean guitar. His principal instrument at the time, named Wolf, was receiving repairs.
When asked to describe his approach to soloing, Garcia commented: "It keeps on changing. I still basically revolve around the melody and the way it’s broken up into phrases as I perceive them. With most solos, I tend to play something that phrases the way the melody does; my phrases may be more dense or have different value, but they’ll occur in the same places in the song. [...]"
[17]
Garcia and the band toured almost constantly from their formation in 1965 until Garcia's in death in 1995, a stint which gave credit to the name "endless tour". Periodically, there were breaks due to exhaustion or health problems, often due to unstable health and drug use of Garcia. During their three decade span, the Grateful Dead played 2,314 shows.
Garcia's mature guitar-playing melded elements from the various kinds of music that had enthralled him. Echoes of
bluegrass playing (such as
Arthur Smith and
Doc Watson) could be heard. But the "roots music" behind bluegrass had its influence, too, and melodic riffs from
Celtic fiddle jigs can be distinguished. There was also early
rock (like
Lonnie Mack,
James Burton and
Chuck Berry), contemporary
blues (such as
Freddie King and Lowell Fulson),
country and western (such as
Roy Nichols and
Don Rich), and
jazz (like
Charlie Christian) to be heard in Jerry's style. Don Rich was the sparkling country guitar player in
Buck Owens's "Buckaroos" band of the
1960s, but besides Rich's style, both Garcia's
pedal steel guitar playing (on Grateful Dead records and others) and his standard electric guitar work, were influenced by another of Owens's Buckaroos of that time, pedal-steel player Tom Blumley. And as a improvisational soloist, John Coltrane was one of his greatest personal and musical influences.
Garcia later described his playing style as having "descended from barroom rock and roll, country guitar. Just 'cause that's where all my stuff comes from. It's like that blues instrumental stuff that was happening in the late Fifties and early Sixties, like Freddie King."
Garcia's style varied somewhat according to the song or instrumental to which he was contributing. His playing had a number of so-called "signatures" and, in his work through the years with the Grateful Dead, one of these was lead lines making much use of rhythmic triplets (examples include the songs "Good Morning Little School Girl", "New Speedway Boogie", "Brokedown Palace", "Deal", "Loser", "
Truckin'", "That's It for the Other One", "U.S. Blues", "
Sugaree", and "Don't Ease Me In").
Side projects
In addition to the Grateful Dead, Garcia had numerous side projects, the most notable being the
Jerry Garcia Band. He was also involved with various acoustic projects such as
Old and in the Way and other
bluegrass bands, including collaborations with noted bluegrass
mandolinist
David Grisman (the documentary film ''
Grateful Dawg'' chronicles the deep, long-term friendship between Garcia and Grisman).
Other groups of which Garcia was a member at one time or another include the Black Mountain Boys
[1],
Legion of Mary [2],
Reconstruction, and the
Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. Jerry Garcia was also an appreciative fan of
jazz artists and
improvisation: he played with jazz keyboardists
Merl Saunders and
Howard Wales for many years in various groups and jam sessions, and he appeared on
saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1988 album, ''
Virgin Beauty''.
The album cover of ''
Garcia'' (1972), Garcia's debut solo album. Several of the songs featured on the album eventually became concert staples of the Grateful Dead.
Garcia also spent a lot of time in the recording studio helping out fellow musician friends in session work, often adding guitar, vocals, pedal steel, sometimes banjo and piano and even producing. He played on over 50 studio albums the styles of which were eclectic and varied, including bluegrass, rock, folk, blues, country, jazz, electronic music, gospel, funk, and reggae. Artists who sought Garcia's help included the likes of the Jefferson Airplane (most notably ''
Surrealistic Pillow''), Tom Fogerty, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, David Bromberg, Robert Hunter, Peter Rowan, Warren Zevon, Country Joe McDonald, Ken Nordine, Ornette Coleman, Bruce Hornsby, Bob Dylan and many more. He was also one of the first musicians to really cover in depth motown music in the early-
1970s and probably the most prolific coverer of Bob Dylan songs.
Throughout the early-1970s, Garcia, Grateful Dead bassist
Phil Lesh, drummer
Mickey Hart, and
David Crosby collaborated intermittently with MIT-educated composer and biologist
Ned Lagin on several projects in the realm of early
electronica; these include the album ''Seastones'' (released by the Dead on their Round Records subsidiary) and ''L'', an unfinished dance work.
Garcia also lent pedal-steel guitar playing to fellow-
San Francisco musicians
New Riders of the Purple Sage from their initial dates in 1969 to October 1971, when increased commitments with the Dead forced him to opt out of the group. He appears as a band member on their debut album ''
New Riders of the Purple Sage'', and produced ''Home, Home On The Road'', a 1974 live album by the band. He also contributed pedal steel guitar to the enduring hit "Teach Your Children" by
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, likely the most recognizable piece of music to feature the guitarist. Jerry also played steel guitar licks on
Brewer & Shipley's 1970 album ''
Tarkio''. Despite considering himself a novice on the pedal steel and having all but given up the instrument by 1973, he routinely ranked high in player polls. After a long lapse, he played it once more with
Bob Dylan in 1987.
An avid reader and cinefile, Garcia was particularly fond of Kurt Vonnegut's ''
The Sirens of Titan'' and owned the novel's film rights for many years, struggling to adapt it with the likes of
Al Franken.
Having studied
art at the
San Francisco Art Institute, Garcia embarked on a second career in the visual arts. He offered for sale and auction to the public a number of illustrations, lithographs, and water colors. Some of those pieces became the basis of a line of men's neckties characterized by bright colors and abstract patterns. Even in 2005, ten years after Garcia's death, new styles and designs continue to be produced and sold.
Personal life
Garcia met his first wife, Sara Ruppenthal Garcia, in 1963.
She was working at the coffee house in the back of Kepler's Bookstore where Garcia, Hunter, and Nelson performed. They married on
April 23 of the same year, and had their only child together, a girl, whom they named Heather, on
December 8,
1963.
[18]
Garcia was subjected to a handful of drug busts during his lifetime. On
October 2,
1967, 710 Ashbury was raided after police were tipped off by an informant.
The police action resulted in most of the Grateful Dead being apprehended (sans Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, and Garcia's future wife Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams). Strangely, Garcia and Adams were led out of the residence by the very same informant shortly before it was raided.
Another seizure was experienced in January of 1970, after the Grateful Dead flew to
New Orleans from
Hawaii.
After returning from a recent performance, the band checked into their rooms, only to be quickly raided by police. Around fifteen people were arrested on the spot, including many of the road crew, management, and nearly all of the Grateful Dead (except Garcia, who arrived later, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who wasn't doing substances at the time).
A month later on
February 2,
1970, Adams gave birth to a girl named Annabelle Walker Garcia.
During August of 1970, Garcia's mother Ruth was involved in a lurid car accident near
Twin Peaks in
San Francisco.
Garcia, who was recording the album ''
American Beauty'' at the time, often left the sessions to visit his mother with his brother Clifford. She later died on
September 28,
1970. That same year, Garcia participated in the
soundtrack for the film ''
Zabriskie Point''.
On
September 21,
1974, Adams gave birth to Garcia's third daughter, Theresa Adams Garcia.
In 1975, around the time ''
Blues for Allah'' was being created, Garcia met Deborah Koons, the woman who would much later become his third wife and widow.
He began seeing her while he was still involved with Adams, with whom Koons had a less-than-perfect relationship. Garcia and Koons eventually went different ways.
Influenced by the stresses of creating and releasing ''
The Grateful Dead Movie'' in 1977, Garcia began using
cocaine, later progressing to smokable
heroin. This, combined with the drug use of several other members of the Grateful Dead, produced turbulent times for the band; starting in 1981, the band's chemistry began "cracking and crumbling,"
resulting in poor live performances and group cohesion. The so-called "endless tour," the result of years of financial risks and mistakes, also became extremely taxing. During the same year, Garcia married Adams, making her his second wife.
Garcia's use of
heroin increased heavily over the next seven years, eventually culminating in the rest of the Grateful Dead holding an
intervention in 1984.
Given the choice between the band or the drugs, Garcia readily agreed to check into a rehabilitation center in
Oakland,
California. In 1985, nearing the completion of his program in Oakland, Garcia was arrested for
drug possession in
Golden Gate Park; Garcia subsequently attended a drug diversion program.
Precipitated by an unhealthy weight, bad eating habits, and drug use, Garcia collapsed into a diabetic coma in 1986, waking up five days later.
Garcia later spoke about this period of unconsciousness as surreal: "Well, I had some very weird experiences. My main experience was one of furious activity and tremendous struggle in a sort of futuristic, space-ship vehicle with insectoid presences. After I came out of my coma, I had this image of myself as these little hunks of protoplasm that were stuck together kind of like stamps with perforations between them that you could snap off."
Garcia's coma had a profound effect on him: it forced him to have to relearn how to play the
guitar, as well as other, more basic skills. Within a handful of months, Garcia quickly recovered, playing with the Grateful Dead again in 1987.
Garcia frequently saw a woman named Manasha Matheson during this period. Garcia produced his fourth and final child with Manasha, a girl named Keelin Noel Garcia, who was born
December 20,
1987.
Jerry, Keelin and Manasha toured and shared a home together as a family until 1993.
During the creation of ''
Built to Last'' in 1989, Garcia relapsed. In 1991, Garcia was confronted by the Grateful Dead with another intervention. After a disastrous meeting, Garcia invited
Phil Lesh over to his home in
San Rafael,
California, where he explained that after the meeting, he starting attending a
methadone clinic, citing that he simply wanted to clean up in his own way.
After returning from the Grateful Dead's 1992 summer tour, Garcia became extremely sick, evidently a throwback to his diabetic coma in 1986.
Refusing to go to the hospital, he instead enlisted the aid of an
acupuncturist and a licensed doctor to treat him personally at home. Garcia recovered over the next following days, despite the Grateful Dead having to cancel their fall tour to allow him time to recuperate. Following his episode, Garcia began losing weight to better himself.
In the beginning of the Grateful Dead's 1993 tour, Garcia and his girlfriend Barbara Meier separated after meeting during December of 1992. In 1994, Garcia encountered Deborah Koons, with whom he had been involved around 1975; she married Garcia on
February 14,
1994, in
Sausalito,
California, the wedding of which was attended by family and friends.
Garcia previously divorced Adams in January of 1994.
During the beginning of 1995, Garcia's condition, both physically and mentally, began to decline. His playing ability suffered to the point where he would turn down the volume of his guitar, and he often had to be reminded of what song he was performing.
In light of his drug relapse in 1989 and current condition, Garcia checked himself into the
Betty Ford Center during July of 1995. His stay was limited, however, lasting only two weeks. Garcia, motivated by the experience, then checked into the Serenity Knolls treatment center in
Forest Knolls,
California.
Death
One month later on
August 9,
1995, Garcia's body was discovered on the floor of his room at the rehabilitation clinic at 4:23 a.m.
The cause of death was a
heart attack exacerbated by
sleep apnea.
Garcia had long struggled with
tobacco,
drug addiction,
weight problems, and sleep apnea,
all of which contributed to his physical decline.
Phil Lesh, upon hearing of Garcia's death, remarked in his autobiography: "I was struck numb; I had lost my oldest surviving friend, my brother."
Senator
Patrick Leahy, a longtime
Deadhead, stated that he felt as though he had been "kicked in the stomach."
On the morning of
August 10, Garcia was rested at a funeral home in
San Rafael,
California. On
August 12, at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in
Belvedere, Garcia's
funeral was held.
It was attended by his family, the remaining Grateful Dead and their friends, including former basketball player
Bill Walton and musician
Bob Dylan, and his widow Deborah Koons,
who, unceremoniously, disallowed two of Garcia's other widows admittance.
On
August 13, a municipally-sanctioned public memorial took place in the Polo Fields of San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park, and was attended by about twenty-five thousand people.
The crowds produced hundreds of flowers, gifts, images, and even a bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace"
in remembrance.
On
April 4,
1996,
Bob Weir and Deborah Koons spread half of Garcia's cremated ashes in the
Ganges River in
India,
a sacred site to the
Hindu. Then, according to Garcia's last wishes, the other half of his ashes were poured into the
San Francisco Bay. Deborah Koons disallowed one of Garcia's widows, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, from attending once more.
Guitars
Garcia played many guitars during his career, which ranged from
Fender Stratocasters and
Gibson SGs to custom-made. During his thirty-odd years of being a musician, Garcia used about twenty-five different guitars.
[20]
In 1965, when Garcia was playing with the Warlocks, he used a
Guild Starfire,
which he also used on the
debut album of the
Grateful Dead. Beginning in late 1967 and ending in 1968, Garcia played various colored
Gibson Les Pauls. In 1969, he picked up the
Gibson SG and used it for most of that year and 1970, except for a small period in between where he used a
Sunburst Fender Stratocaster.
In 1972, Garcia used a Fender Stratocaster nicknamed
Alligator for its eponymous sticker on the
pickguard.
The guitar was given to him by
Graham Nash. He continued using Alligator until May of 1973, when he received his first custom-made guitar from
luthier Doug Irwin.
The guitar was nicknamed Wolf for its memorable sticker.
[21]
Wolf was built for Garcia at the cost of $1,500.
The guitar was made with an
ebony fingerboard and featured numerous embellishments like alternating grain designs in the
headstock,
ivory inlays, and fret marker dots made of
sterling silver. The body was composed of western maple wood which had a core of
purpleheart. The electronics inside the guitar were similar to a Fender Stratocaster. It included a system of two plates for configuring pickups: one was made for strictly
single coils, while the other accommodated
humbuckers. Quickly after receiving the instrument, Garcia requested another custom guitar from Irwin with the advice "don't hold back."
During the Grateful Dead's European Tour, Wolf was dropped on several occasions, one of which caused a minor crack in the headstock. Garcia returned it to Irwin to fix; during its two-year absence Garcia played predominantly
Travis Bean guitars. On
September 28,
1977, Irwin delivered the renovated Wolf back to Garcia.
The wolf sticker which gave the guitar its name had now been inlaid into the instrument; it also featured a few new electronics as well as a new coat of finish.
Nearly seven years since he first requested it,
Garcia received his second custom guitar from Irwin in 1979. It was named Tiger from the inlay on the preamp cover.
[22] The body of Tiger was of rich quality: the top layer was
cocobolo, with the preceding layers being maple stripe, vermillion, and
flame maple, in that order.
The neck was made of western maple with an ebony fingerboard. The pickups consisted of a single coil
DiMarzio SDS-1 and two humbucker DiMarzio Super IIs which were easily removable due to Garcia's preference for replacing his pickups every year or two.
The electronics were composed of an effects bypass loop, which allowed Garcia to control the sound of his effects through the tone controls, and an amplifier which rested behind a plate in the back of the guitar. In terms of weight, everything included made Tiger tip the scales at an impressive 13½ pounds. However, this didn't deter Garcia from using it as his principal guitar for the next eleven years.
In 1990, Irwin completed Rosebud, Garcia's third custom guitar.
[23] It was similar to his previous guitar Tiger in many respects, but featured different inlays and electronics, tone and volume controls, and weight. Rosebud, unlike Tiger, was configured with three humbuckers; the neck and bridge pickups shared a tone control, while the middle had its own. Inside of the guitar, a Roland GK-2 synthesizer was used in junction with GR-50 rack mount, producing the
MIDI effects heard during live performances of this period.
Sections of the guitar were hollowed out in order to bring the weight down to 11½ pounds. The inlay, a dancing skeleton holding a
rose, covers a plate just below the
bridge. The final cost of the instrument was a striking $11,000.
In 1993, carpenter-turned-luthier Stephen Cripe tried his hand at making an instrument for Garcia.
After researching Tiger through pictures and films, Cripe set out on what would soon become known as Lightning Bolt, again named for its inlay.
[24] The guitar used Brazilian rosewood for the fingerboard and East Indian rosewood for the body, which, with admitted irony from Cripe, was taken from a 19
th century bed used by opium smokers.
Built purely from guesswork, Lightning Bolt was a hit with Garcia, who began using the guitar exclusively. Soon after, Garcia requested that Cripe to build a backup of the guitar. Cripe, who hadn't measured or photographed the original, was told simply to "wing it."
Cripe later delivered the backup, which was known by the name Top Hat. Garcia bought it from him for the price of $6,500, making it the first guitar that Cripe had ever sold.
However, infatuated with Lightning Bolt, Garcia rarely used the backup.
After Garcia's death, the ownership of his Wolf and Tiger was in question. According his Garcia's will,
his guitars were to go to Doug Irwin, who had constructed them.
[25][26] The remaining Grateful Dead members disagreed—they considered his guitars to be property of the band, leading to a lawsuit between the two parties.
In 2001, Irwin won the case. However, due to being a victim of a
hit-and-run accident in 1998,
Irwin was left nearly penniless. This forced him to set Garcia's guitars up for auction in hopes of being able to start another guitar workshop.
On
May 8,
2002, Wolf and Tiger, among other memorabilia, were placed for auction at
Studio 54 in
New York City.
Tiger was purchased for the astonishing price of $957,500, while Wolf was bought for $789,500. Together, the instruments were bought for 1.74 million dollars, setting a new world record.
Legacy
In
1987,
ice cream manufacturers
Ben & Jerry's came out with
Cherry Garcia, which is named after the guitarist and consists of "cherry ice cream with cherries and fudge flakes." It made history as the first ice cream flavor named after a musician, and it quickly became the most popular
Ben & Jerry's flavor. For a month after Garcia's death, the ice cream was made with
black cherries as a way of mourning.
Garcia was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead in 1994.
In 2003,
Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Jerry Garcia 13
th in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
On
July 21,
2005, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission passed a resolution to name the amphitheater in McLaren Park "The
Jerry Garcia Amphitheater."
[27] The amphitheater is located in the
Excelsior District, where Garcia grew up. The first show to happen at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater was Jerry Day 2005 on August 7, 2005. Tiff Garcia was the first person to welcome everybody to the "Jerry Garcia Amphitheater." Jerry Day is an annual celebration of Jerry in his childhood neighborhood. The dedication ceremony (Jerry Day 2) on October 29, 2005 was officiated by mayor
Gavin Newsom.
On
September 24,
2005, the ''Comes a Time: A Celebration of the Music & Spirit of Jerry Garcia'' tribute concert was held at the
Hearst Greek Theatre in
Berkeley, California.
[28] The concert featured
Bob Weir,
Bill Kreutzmann,
Mickey Hart,
Bruce Hornsby,
Trey Anastasio,
Warren Haynes,
Jimmy Herring,
Michael Kang,
Jay Lane,
Jeff Chimenti, Mark Karan,
Robin Sylvester, Kenny Brooks,
Gloria Jones, and Jackie LaBranch. Two of Garcia's longtime bandmates and friends,
Phil Lesh and
Robert Hunter did not attend. Phil Lesh stated that "my son went away to college and we had all kinds of family things going that week."
About a thousand people have gathered annually since 2002 to celebrate Jerry Garcia's life on the first Sunday of August with an event known as Jerry Day.
[29]
Discography
★ Jerry Garcia
[30]
★
★ ''
Garcia'' - 1972
★
★ ''
Compliments'' - 1974
★
★ ''
Reflections'' - 1976
★
★ ''
Run for the Roses'' - 1982
★
Jerry Garcia Band
★
★ ''
Cats Under the Stars'' - 1978
★
★ ''
Jerry Garcia Band'' - 1991
★
★ ''
How Sweet It Is'' - 1997
★
★ ''
Don't Let Go'' - 2001
★
★ ''
Shining Star'' - 2001
★
★ '' - 2004
★
Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band
★
★ ''
Almost Acoustic'' - 1988
★
Legion of Mary
★
★ '' - 2005
★
New Riders of the Purple Sage
★
★ ''
New Riders of the Purple Sage'' – 1971
★
★ ''
Vintage NRPS'' – 1986
★
Old and in the Way
★
★ ''
Old and in the Way'' - 1975
★
★ ''
That High Lonesome Sound'' – 1996
★
★ ''
Breakdown'' – 1997
★ Jerry Garcia and
David Grisman
★
★ ''
Garcia/Grisman'' - 1991
★
★ ''
Not for Kids Only'' – 1993
★
★ ''
Shady Grove'' - 1996
★
★ ''
So What'' - 1998
★
★ ''
The Pizza Tapes'' (featuring
Tony Rice) – 2000
★
★ ''
Grateful Dawg'' - 2001
★
★ ''
Been All Around This World'' - 2004
★ Compilations
★
★ ''
Garcia Plays Dylan'' - 2005
★
★ ''
The Very Best of Jerry Garcia'' - 2006
★ Pure Jerry — a series of live concert CDs released through the official Jerry Garcia web site.
★
★ ''
Theatre 1839, July 29 & 30, 1977'' - Jerry Garcia Band - 2004
★
★ ''Lunt-Fontanne, New York City, October 31, 1987'' - Jerry Garcia Band and Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band - 2004
(This album is one of 10 "live jam releases of this century" according to the August issue of Guitar One magazine.)
★
★ ''Lunt-Fontanne, New York City, The Best of the Rest, October 15 - 30, 1987'' - Jerry Garcia Band and Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band - 2004
★
★ ''Keystone Berkeley, September 1, 1974'' - Jerry Garcia and
Merl Saunders - 2004
★
★ ''Merriweather Post Pavilion, September 1 & 2, 1989'' - Jerry Garcia Band - 2005
★
★ ''Warner Theatre, March 18, 1978'' - Jerry Garcia Band - 2005
★
★ ''Coliseum, Hampton, VA, November 9, 1991'' - Jerry Garcia Band - 2006
(With
Bruce Hornsby.)
----
★ With other artists
★
★ ''
Hooteroll?'' –
Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia – 1971
★
★ ''Live at the Keystone'' – Merl Saunders / Jerry Garcia /
John Kahn / Bill Vitt – 1973
★
★ ''Keystone Encores, Volume 1'' – Merl Saunders / Jerry Garcia / John Kahn / Bill Vitt – 1988
★
★ ''Keystone Encores, Volume 2'' – Merl Saunders / Jerry Garcia / John Kahn / Bill Vitt – 1988
★
★ ''
Side Trips, Volume One'' – Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia – 1998
★
★ ''
Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions'' – Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions – 1999
See also
★
Grateful Dead
★
Legion of Mary
★
New Riders of the Purple Sage
★
Old and in the Way
★
Tiger (guitar)
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead, , Phil, Lesh, Little, Brown and Company, , ISBN 0-316-00998-9
11.
12.
13.
14. Stories about the "Grateful Dead" appear in many cultures.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
External links
★
The official homepage of Jerry Garcia
★ The homepage of
Jerry Day, an annual celebration of Garcia
★
The Jerry Site
★
Big Brother & The Holding Company Site
★
Dead Lists home page
★ http://jerrygarciaamphitheater.com
★ http://www.jgamp.org
★ http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000999900
★ http://www.dead.net/
★
GDRADIO.NET - Streaming Grateful Dead and more.
★ http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/
★
★
Over 2800 Grateful Dead recordings available in streaming format
★
Gratefuldeadbooks.com
★
Rhino Entertainment - Rhino Records
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
