Garcia: An American Life

by Blair Jackson

  With any luck, the bad times will recede into the distance as the years pass, and Garcia’s friends and family will be left with mostly fond thoughts and golden memories. And of course there are some who carry a part of him with them wherever they go. It’s somehow heartening to know that daughter Heather is a violinist, Theresa a budding artist, and that, in July 1997, nine-year-old Keelin had her first piano recital, performing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a tune her dad sang in coffeehouses when he was twenty and on Broadway when he was forty-five.

  And then there’s Annabelle—spittin’ image of Jerry, with the plucky spirit to match. Always an artist, in the summer of 1997 she discovered something else inside of her:

  “I busted up my leg this summer and I had a lot of time sittin’ on my butt, so I picked up the five-string banjo and I’ve been playing that. And that’s my own personal connection with the old man. I taught myself out of a book and it’s going pretty well. I’m playing one of my dad’s banjos that he gave me years ago—the one he didn’t like. But I’ve never played music in my life, and my mom always tried to keep us away from the guitars because she didn’t want us to knock ’em over. And I always figured, ‘Well, Dad kind of covered the whole music scene. I don’t want to get involved with that.’ Plus, I wasn’t attracted to the guitar.

  “But right after I broke my leg I had a dream about him handing me a banjo, so I picked up a book and three months later I’ve got a pretty good repertoire, and my neighbors are starting to applaud instead of sneer. I haven’t quite started singing yet; I think I’ll learn how to play and then maybe I’ll croak out a few tunes. But either way, it’s just fun, and I can feel sometimes that I’m connecting with my grandfather and my great-grandfather and my dad and the whole thing. I’m actually happier now that I’ve picked up the banjo. It’s actually made me more mellow. It’s the funnest thing that’s happened to me in a long time, and it makes me feel like my dad is always nearby.”

  No doubt there will be endless dissections of Garcia in the years to come, as other biographers try to explain this charismatic and enigmatic figure, and his friends and colleagues write their memoirs, each offering different glimpses into Garcia’s character. As David Grisman noted, “It’s just hard to describe the enormity of his personality and the depth of the guy. Because basically his shtick was trying to be invisible in a way, trying to be nothing special.”

  “Even though Jerry was quite obviously a great virtuoso player,” Mickey Hart says, “he would be the first to tell you that his greatest strength was playing in the ensemble, weaving in and out. He wasn’t a guy who asked for the spotlight, musically speaking, but he wasn’t uncomfortable if the spotlight fell on him, either. When he was ‘on’ he could really take command. But he was happy just being one of the guys in the band; we all were and that’s one reason it lasted for thirty years.”

  What will survive every deconstruction of the Garcia myth is his music—that sublimely soulful guitar wordlessly speaking volumes, saying different things to each person who listens to it; and his ragged voice, creaky as a back-porch rocking chair, spinning old tales and modern parables, wisdom from and for the ages.

  “Jerry got a lot of flack for that voice,” Robert Hunter said after Garcia’s death. “People kept putting it down because it wasn’t a trained voice; it was thin, it was reedy. I never knew what they were talking about. I thought that was one of the most glorious voices in popular music or folk. Maybe I had to believe that to write [for] it; but I still do.”

  “My heartfelt prayer is that Jerry’s music will retain its freshness and excitement forever,” M.G. says. “When it’s all said and done, the music is what’s left—that music, that sound and the memories of the wonderful thing that Grateful Dead music could do and the way it all felt. And so much of that was Jerry. That sweetness he had is something that just emanated from him, and it’s so much in the music. It was such a unique thing. God, he could be amazing! He could play these musical tricks that would absolutely dumbfound you. You weren’t even quite sure what he’d just done half the time. He would pluck these melodies from the air and you’d wonder, ‘Where did that come from?’ They had a life of their own, he’d play them once and then they were gone. That’s pretty high art. Thank God for the tapes!”

  In the thousands of hours of tapes and CDs that survive Garcia’s corporeal departure there is an infinite and inexhaustible bounty of emotions to be experienced, from frightening hells to transcendent realms of ecstasy, from deep blues to the most buoyant and uplifting rock ’n’ roll imaginable. His guitar could cry tears born of existential longing one moment and roar like a fire-breathing dragon the next. Sometimes one crystalline, perfectly formed note was all it took to draw a tear or a smile or even ask a question. Often the search was as interesting as the final destination. Whether it was a Dead concert, a JGB show or a quiet night with Garcia and Grisman, at the end of the night you always felt as if you’d been somewhere special and learned something about yourself and what it means to be a thinking and feeling person. The tapes and CDs have that power as well, though they lack the immediate, real-time experience of being in a room with the musicians and thousands of people twirling, swirling, bopping and sometimes singing together—the ancient ritual reenacted anew each time.

  “In the music there is room for space, there’s room for quietness, room for sorrow, room for passion, anger, hate, violence,” Garcia said in 1981 when a particularly hostile British interviewer told him that he found the Dead’s music “dead dull.” “It’s not my desire to say there is only this or that. For me it’s a full range of experiences, and within that it includes things like boredom. Sometimes boredom is what is happening in life; that’s what it’s about sometimes. Sometimes the tension between boredom and discovery is an interesting thing. The idea of noodling around aimlessly for fifteen minutes—and we are notorious for that—and then hitting on some rich vein of something that we might never have got to any other way—that’s the reward. I want there to be a complete vertical experience. I want it to be the full range.”

  “There was a quality to his playing that made you want to trust it,” comments Steve Silberman. “You wanted to go where it was going. Part of that was that Garcia was an incredibly subtle musician, so you would be rewarded for expecting novelty at every moment. Also, even though he certainly had a lot of blues sensibility, I heard an essential optimism or buoyancy in his note choices. I remember when I heard ‘Eyes of the World’ for the first time, it contained a kind of brightness that seemed slightly tropical, but I’d never heard anything quite like it before. ‘Uncle John’s Band,’ too. It was a kind of optimism that didn’t seem to surrender any intelligence to get to its positive place. It owned all of the quizzical nature of being human and yet it still said ‘yes’ on some level.

  “Also, he always had a way of making you feel included—that there was a cosmic joke that you were both getting, and that you were included in a wry understanding of the goofy quality of fate or existence, and that you and he were both enjoying it. William Blake had this phrase: ‘Energy is eternal delight.’ I felt that Garcia’s personal presence communicated that feeling—a sort of delight in the varieties of experience. He radiated engagement and delight in the next thing.”

  He was both guide and participant on a personal and collective journey of exploration, as vulnerable as the rest of us, maybe a little more fearless, but always goin’ down the road with the hope and belief that there might be sunshine around the next bend and better days ahead. To believe otherwise would be to give in to despair, and that was not an option—not as long as there was love and friendship to experience, not as long as there were “songs to fill the air,” as he sang in “Ripple.” And though now he’s gone—and “nothin’s gonna bring him back”—there is still solace to be found in what he left behind; in a note, a chord, a turn of phrase. As he sang so beautifully in the heartbreaking but reassuring ballad “Like a Road”:

  When the dark clouds start to b
low

  And you need somewhere to go

  And you want some company

  That really cares

  Turn around, turn around

  Turn around and I’ll be there

  Like a road, like a road

  Leading home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing this book was a tremendously challenging and cleansing experience for me. Begun in the sad aftermath of Garcia’s death, this project stretched over two and a half years and occupied a part of my brain every second of those years, even in my dreams. Although writing is a solitary, soul-searching craft, there are many people to thank for their generous help and support.

  First of all, this book would not have been written if it hadn’t been for my friend (and agent) Dan Levy. It was his idea; blame him!

  Many thanks to my good friends and fellow chroniclers of the Dead scene, David Gans and Steve Silberman, who offered so much valuable advice and information along the way. I have learned much from David during the twenty-plus years we’ve known each other. He has long been one of the Dead scene’s brightest lights, and it has been my great fortune to have worked on a parallel track with him. And the passion and poetry that spill so naturally out of Steve is a never-ending source of inspiration to me.

  My sincere gratitude to the good people I interviewed specifically for the book (whose names appear in the Bibliography). These interviews ranged from a few minutes on the phone to many hours in person, deep into the night. Thank you for sharing your memories and your hearts at a difficult time. Special thanks to a handful of interviewees who put up with an unending stream of follow-up queries: Carolyn Garcia (aka Mountain Girl), Sara Ruppenthal, Barbara Meier, David Nelson, Owsley Stanley, Alan Trist, Steve Brown and Vince and Gloria DiBiase. John Kahn gave me a wonderfully soulful interview just a week before his untimely passing; may he rest in peace.

  Thanks also to those good souls who, while not sitting down for formal interviews, were very helpful resources: Robert Hunter, Steve Parish, Willy Legate and Nora Sage.

  Several writers were nice enough to provide me with tapes or unpublished transcripts of interviews they had done with Garcia—merci beaucoup to Joel Selvin, Alice Kahn, Oliver Trager, Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers and Paul Grushkin. And a special tip o’ the hat to Dick Latvala for sending some rare interview tapes my way.

  I’d also like to sing the praises of the following folks for their encouragement and/or assistance: Eileen Law, Robert Greenfield, Tiff Garcia, Daniel Grayson, Kris Clifford Crow, Jack Ortman, Michael Zipkin, David Housden, Len Dell’Amico, Rick Sullivan, Robert Wagner, Michael Getz, Lou Tambakos, David Dodd, Jeremy Marre, Peter Albin, Ron Rakow, Jay Blakesberg, John Dwork, Michael Bailey, Herb Greene, Rae Lyn Winblad, Harvey Kubernik, Eric Levine, Nick Meriwether, Rick and Jerry Melrose, Jon Sievert, Peter Toluzzi, Dave McLean and all my co-workers at Mix magazine.

  Salutations to my old show buddies, with whom I’ve shared a million profound, funny, scary, transcendent, embarrassing, tearful and joyous moments: MZ, Jon and Deb Hoffman, John Larmer, Alyssa DiFilippo, Carol Gould, John Leopold, T’res Buika, Steve Schmid, Jim Buika, Barb Treadwell, Ken Schwartz, Chris Fuller, Chuck Culbertson, Andrew Wernick, Bill and Kristy Buckley, Paul and Melanie Nichols, Hale and Ann Milgrim, Bobby Lawrence, Bennett Falk, Mary Eisenhart, Barbara Lewit, the Sundance Books gang, Dave Leopold, Mark Leviton and Aloha Steve Lipschultz.

  I am indebted to my original editor at Viking, David Stanford, and to the many fine people there who nudged this book toward publication.

  My heartfelt appreciation to Sandy Rothman—one of Garcia’s old pickin’ pals in the mid-’60s and late ’80s—who served as a first editor on my manuscript. Sandy, your insights were invaluable, your instincts always correct, and thanks for all the jokes in the margins. In the immortal words of JG, “We appreciates it!”

  Finally, thanks to my family for cheering me on: Mom, Pop, Kathleen, Roger, Pam, Ian and Uncle Ted. My loving wife, Regan, was with me every step of the way—hashing out ideas, helping me gather research materials, making countless great suggestions about every aspect of the book, editing each chapter, lifting my spirits when I was down and, most difficult of all, giving me the time and space I needed to complete this mammoth undertaking. Regan, I’m sure you know what I was singing all those late nights and weekends: “I’d rather be with you . . .”

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INTERVIEWS BY THE AUTHOR

  Ozzie Ahlers (1996); Peter Albin (1992); Brooks Arthur (1995); Ken Babbs (1990, 1996); Todd Barkan (1996); Steve Barncard (1996); Bill Belmont (1996); Bernie Bildman (1985); Elvin Bishop (1995); Jay Blakesberg (1995); Bob Bralove (1996); Steve Brown (1996); Betty Cantor-Jackson (1997); Vassar Clements (1996); Dennis Clifford (1996); Tom Constanten (1984); Emily Craig (1995); Thayer Craw (1995); Susan Crutcher (1995); John Dawson (1985, 1996); Len Dell’Amico (1987, 1996); Dave Dennison (1995); Gloria DiBiase (1997); Vince DiBiase (1997); Rodney Dillard (1996); Spencer Dryden (1985); Martin Fierro (1996); Annette Flowers (1993); Paul Foster (1996); David Freiberg (1996); David Gans (1996); Annabelle Garcia (1992, 1996); Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia (1985, 1996, 1998); Daniel Garcia (1996); Jerry Garcia (1981 [twice with David Gans], 1985, 1987 [twice, once with Paul Grushkin], 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993), Tiff Garcia (1996); Leon Gast (1996); David Getz (1996); Donna Godchaux MacKay (1985, 1996); Bill Graham (1985); Laird Grant (1993, 1996); Phoebe Graubard, (1996); Richard Greene (1996); Paul Grushkin (1996), Gary Gutierrez (1985); Don Hall (1997); Mickey Hart (1979, 1991, 1998); Dave Hassinger (1985); Dan Healy (1985); Tom Heckley (1997); Wally Hedrick (1996); Levon Helm (1996); Bruce Hornsby (1996); George Hunter (1985); Robert Hunter (1988, 1991, 1992); Gloria Jones (1992); John Kahn (1986, 1992, 1996); Linda Kahn (1997); Henry Kaiser (1996); Paul Kantner (1996); Bill Keith (1996); Alton Kelley (1984); Ken Kesey (1986, 1991); Kenny Kosek (1996); Bill Kreutzmann (1989); Nikki Lastretto (1995); Dick Latvala (1996); Eileen Law (1993, 1996); Marshall Leicester (1996); Phil Lesh (1990, 1994); Charles Lloyd (1996); Richard Loren (1996); Gary Lyons (1995); Alan Mande (1996); Greg Mann (1995); Steve Marcus (1992); Manasha Matheson (1997); Bob Matthews (1993, 1996); Rosie McGee (1996); Jon McIntire (1987, 1993); Barbara Meier (1996); Sanjay Mishra (1995, 1996); Victor Moscoso (1997); Brent Mydland (1987); David Nelson (1993, 1996); Art Neville (1986); Keith Olsen (1996); Brooks Adams Otis (1996); Dave Parker (1996); Ron Rakow (1996); Jonathan Reister (1996); Danny Rifkin (1993); Neil Rosenberg (1996); Leonor Garcia Ross (1996); Sandy Rothman (1988, 1996); Sara Ruppenthal (1996); Ralph Sall (1991); Ira Sandperl (1996); Merl Saunders (1996); John Scher (1996); Rock Scully (1990, 1993); Melvin Seals (1985); Bob Seideman (1995); Steve Silberman (1996); Owsley Stanley (1996); Sue Swanson (1992); Peter Thea (1995); Eric Thompson (1996); Peter Toluzzi (1996); Alan Trist (1996, 1997); Sally Van Meter (1997); Danya Veltfort (1996); Bill Vitt (1996); Howard Wales (1996); Bill Walker (1987); Butch Waller (1996); Rob Wasserman (1992); Bob Weir (1985, 1989, 1992, 1993); Roberta Weir (1997); Wendy Weir (1996); Vince Welnick (1997); Roland White (1996); Suzy Wood (1996); William Wynans (1995).

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  Gans, David. Conversations with the Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book. Citadel Press, 1991.

  ———, ed. Not Fade Away: The On-line World Remembers Jerry Garcia. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995.

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<
br />   Greenfield, Robert. Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia. William Morrow & Co., 1996.

  Greenfield, Robert, and Bill Graham. Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out. Doubleday, 1992.

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  ———. The Dead, Vol. II. The Archives Press, 1980.

  Hart, Mickey, with Jay Stevens. Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion. HarperCollins, 1990.

  Hunter, Robert. Box of Rain. Penguin, 1993.

  Jackson, Blair. Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped. Delilah, 1983. (Out of print.)

  Lee, Martin, and Bruce Shlain. Acid Dreams. Grove Weidenfeld, 1985.

  Perry, Paul, and Ken Babbs. On the Bus. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1990.

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  Scott, John W., Mike Dolgushkin, and Stu Nixon. DeadBase IX: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Songlists. DeadBase, 1995. (Also, DeadBase VI, 1992.)

  Sculatti, Gene, and Davin Seay. San Francisco Nights: The Psychedelic Music Trip, 1965–1968. St. Martin’s Press, 1985.

  Scully, Rock, with David Dalton. Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Little, Brown, 1995.

  Selvin, Joel. Summer of Love. Dutton Books, 1994.

  Shenk, David, and Steve Silberman. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads. Doubleday, 1994.

  Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. Perennial Library, 1991.