Something very cool is happening in Marin County. At Bob Weir’s TRI Studios and Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads—a few miles apart in San Rafael—a wave of new, younger musicians has been hooking up with the old guard and reimagining the GD’s repertoire in new and exciting ways.
Jerry's dead
An era has ended
And here we are...still.
All these years,Made manifest,
“Talk to me, David…you should talk to me a little bit in my solo…” Garcia was asking me to converse with him musically during the guitar solo he’d been playing after the first verse of Blue Yodel #9, the Jimmie Rodgers classic that we had never played together before.
“Hi, Jerry, nice solo you’re playing,” I quipped. We were kidding around, exchanging light-hearted banter like we always did when we got together in the small recording room that used to be my garage.
“To honor the Grateful Dead’s wishes, I’d like to have a moment – a moment of silence – for somebody who brought a lot of love to the world, our dear departed brother, Jerry Garcia.”
At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I dedicated my performance to Jerry. It was hard to do, but I was so excited. It was a sad reason that I played, but Jerry was someone really special, and I was honored that the Grateful Dead wanted me to do this.
In the time since Jer shuffled off his sorry old meat and flew away, I have found myself incapable of writing about it, or even talking about it very much.
I’ve been silent as a flat coon on this, one of the most important deaths of my death-shadowed life. I’ve received hundreds of e-messages from my fellow bereaved, nearly all of them more eloquent in their grief than I could be in mine, despite their never having personally known the guy.
To all our very dear friends everywhere,
Your many kind letters and calls have eased our sorrow during this difficult time. To everyone who wrote to us or sent us your wonderful, compassionate healing energy, we thank you and hope these words can serve as a return communication to the many we know are sharing this loss with us.
I remember laughing so hard I got the hiccups. Of course, that might have had something to do with the big sticky buds, but we were a pair of odd ducks anyway, and we cracked each other up a lot.
Jerry, Phil Mickey, and Bill all came to Wally Heider’s many nights when I was recording “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” So much fun, so MUCH music…
What did we lose? One of the best minds in music: articulate, always thinking fresh, original thoughts. Jerry didn’t tell you what he thought you wanted to hear, he told you what he thought.
Bill Kreutzmann appearance and weekend celebration of special events surrounding Grateful Dead exhibit powered by McIntosh
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will host a weekend of events surrounding the Museum’s special exhibit devoted to Grateful Dead powered by McIntosh. The weekend will take place Friday, August 3 through Sunday, August 5, during the days between Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jerry Garcia’s 70th birthday and the 17th anniversary of his passing.
What if on August 10, 1995, you opened up your morning newspaper and read the following: “Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia was rushed to a Marin County, California, hospital late last night and underwent successful quadruple bypass surgery. Garcia, 53, was said to be resting comfortably and joking with doctors and nurses.
