Jerry Garcia

Jerry García (front) and Mickey Hart (1987)

Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia (born August 1, 1942 in San Francisco , † August 9, 1995 in Lagunitas-Forest Knolls , California ) was an American musician who was best known as the band leader of the rock group Grateful Dead .

biography

Jerry García was the son of the nurse Ruth (née Clifford) and the Spanish swing musician José Ramon García and was named after the Tin Pan Alley composer Jerome Kern .

At the age of four, Garcia lost the middle finger of his right hand when his older brother cut it off with an ax while chopping wood. A year later, García saw his father drown in a fishing accident. He grew up with his grandparents in the years that followed while his mother went to work.

music

On his 15th birthday in 1957, he got his first guitar. Jerry Garcia took drawing lessons in college and played guitar in his spare time , mostly country , jazz , folk and blues .

In 1960, he dropped out of high school and entered the military, but was soon released after repeatedly failing to show up for duty. He returned to San Francisco and met the poet Robert Hunter there , with whom he later wrote almost all of his songs for the Grateful Dead and his solo projects. García bought a banjo in Dana Morgan's music store from the young employee Bill Kreutzmann , who later became the drummer for the Grateful Dead. García was playing in several bluegrass bands at the time . It was around this time that he formed the bluegrass band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions with Bob Weir , Bob Matthews, Marshall Leicster, Tom Stone and Ron McKernan (aka Pigpen ), all of whom frequented Dana Morgan's music store . At Pigpen's insistence, Mother McCree turned more and more towards the electric, and so the formation became the Warlocks in 1965 and the Grateful Dead later that year .

Solo projects

In 1972 Jerry Garcia began actively working on his solo career. Already in 1971 he had recorded a solo album with Howard Wales , but in which all the songs were written by Wales. His first real solo album then mainly contained Garcia / Hunter compositions, some of which found their way into the Grateful Dead repertoire . On this album, García also plays all the instruments (guitars, keyboards, vocals) himself, making it one of the rare recordings where you can hear Jerry García on a keyboard instrument. Only the drums are played by Grateful Dead colleague Bill Kreutzmann .

In the following years Garcia played regularly with his Jerry García Band . He was also a member (or band leader) of Legion of Mary and Old and in the Way . John Kahn on bass and Merl Saunders on keyboards accompanied him on almost all of his solo projects . Members of the Grateful Dead were also often guest musicians with García's solo bands. His solo work was also strongly influenced by his friendship with David Grisman , a mandolin player who had also played with jazz icons like Stephane Grappelli . In Old And In The Way García had worked with Grisman. In 1990 they got in touch again and since then have jammed a lot together and given concerts. Her style included jazz, folk and bluegrass, but was always acoustic. In 1991 they released Garcia / Grisman , followed by several more albums and the film Grateful Dawg in 2000. The pizza tapes deserve special mention here . This is a recording of a jam session that was stolen from the musicians by a pizza delivery man. As the bootleg became more and more popular, the session was officially published.

Equipment

Guitars

“You could lose an amplifier, you could break things - and sometimes we have. But I could never have looked Jerry in the eye and said, 'I don't have your guitar.' "

- Steve Parish, Jerry Garcías Equipment Manager

Jerry Garcia owned about 25 guitars. His first guitar, which he got for his 15th birthday, was a Danelectro . In 1965 he played with the Warlocks on a red guild starfire , which can also be heard on the first Grateful Dead album The Grateful Dead from 1967. Later that year he moved to a black Gibson Les Paul 1957 with P90 -Tonabnehmern and Bigsby - Tremolo . The following year, he played on a gold-top Les Paul with P90 single coil - pickups . In the summer of 1968 he switched to a different, black Les Paul , this time without a tremolo. In 1969 he played on a Gibson SG , with which he can also be heard on the album Live / Dead . In 1970 he was seen with a '63 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster before he went back to his Gibson SG in May . During the acoustic recordings that year he played a Martin D-18 and a ZB Pedal Steel . In 1971 he switched again, this time to a Sunburst Gibson Les Paul . In March and April he was also seen with a custom-made product that is said to have come from the Alembic company . In May he showed himself with a 57 Strat that he got from Graham Nash .

Garcia kept switching back and forth between all of these guitars and was never entirely satisfied with the factory products until 1972 when he bought the first guitar that guitar maker Doug Irwin ever made. It cost 850 $ and is known as 001 . He ordered another guitar from Doug Irwin that was specifically tailored to his needs and received it in May 1973 for $ 1,500. Like many of his other guitars, he gave away the 001 . Her new owner was the crew member Ramrod. His new guitar was named Wolf because of a corresponding inlay . No sooner had Garcia in his hands the new guitar than he ordered another guitar from Doug Irwin. He did not have any special requirements, but relied fully on Doug. After trying out a Travis Bean aluminum guitar for a while, he played the Wolf again in 1977 and replaced it with the Tiger in 1979 . Doug Irwin had spent six years building it and Jerry García played the 7kg instrument for 11 years. The Tiger allowed Jerry Garcia to control his effects devices from the guitar. The guitar also had a hidden preamp . 1988 was Wolf temporarily reactivated for Jerry MIDI - synthesizer to serve experiments. Jerry used the MIDI devices to make his guitar sound like a trumpet or other instruments. In 1989, Doug Irwin shipped the Rosebud , which cost $ 11,000 and is considered his masterpiece. These guitars, made for Jerry Garcia, were equipped with the pickups Di Marzio Super II ( humbucker ) or Di Marzio SDS-1 (single coil).

In 1993, Jerry's next guitar came in the mail: Stephen Cripe, a Florida carpenter who had spent years building custom interiors for Caribbean yachts , had built a guitar. To do this, he copied Doug Irwin's design of the tiger and changed it slightly. He built the guitar from a single piece of East Indian rosewood obtained from an opium bed from the 19th century. Garcia was delighted. He had the electrical inner workings reworked, but otherwise he was blown away by the guitar. He called it "the guitar I had always waited for" and played almost exclusively on this instrument. It became known as the Lightning Bolt . García met Cripe at a concert in Florida and ordered another guitar known as the Top Hat for $ 6,500 , although García almost never played on it.

Jerry Garcia's last concert in Chicago began with Irwin's Rosebud, but problems arose during the concert and Garcia resorted to the tour's replacement guitar - the Tigers - and finished his last concert with his old, familiar tools of the trade. Less is known about the acoustic guitars Garcia used. In addition to the Martin mentioned above, he played various Takamine instruments and a 1939 Gibson Super 400N , which is believed to be the last guitar García played.

In his will , Jerry Garcia decreed that Doug Irwin should get all five guitars he had built for García. The other band members, with the exception of Phil Lesh , objected. Since the band's money would have bought the guitars, they couldn't have been García's sole possession. This controversy angered many fans who have always prided themselves on the band's non-commercial nature. It was finally agreed in January 1996 that Irwin could keep the Tiger and Wolf models . Since Irwin became impoverished in a car accident in 1998, he decided to auction these guitars. Together, they raised $ 1.74 million, with buyers unknown.

From Rolling Stone , he was on the 46th place of the 100 best guitarists and together with Robert Hunter at number 36 of the 100 best songwriters of all time selected.

Effects devices

In the early 1970s, Garcia used almost only one Vox wah-wah pedal. In the late 1970s he added a Mutron Octave Divider, MXR Distortion and some other devices, e.g. B. the Mutron III Auto-Wah, which can be heard on Estimated Prophet . On the epic Terrapin Station , Garcia also uses a synthesizer controlled directly by his guitar , with which he produces extremely fast, spacey tone sequences. In the late 1980s he mainly used Boss effects devices, such as Octave Divider, Turbo Overdrive and two effect loops. He also used Lexicon effects machines, which were actually made for use in the studio.

illness

Jerry Garcia became acquainted with marijuana in 1957 and had been using drugs regularly since 1965 . He fought for a long time, especially against his heroin addiction . In 1986 he fell into a coma lasting several days. The diagnosis was diabetes . In 1991 he had another breakdown. In 1992 even the autumn tour had to be canceled because Garcia was too seriously ill.

In the summer of 1995, he went to a drug rehabilitation center 50 km north of San Francisco. He had told his bandmates that he was going on vacation to Hawaii with his wife . At 4:23 am on August 9, 1995, Jerry Garcia was found lying on the floor in his room by a nurse. She found that he was no longer breathing. Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful. The cause of death was a heart attack . A memorial service was held in Golden Gate Park on August 13, attended by band members, family and friends, and thousands of fans. US President Bill Clinton honored him as an "American icon".

family

Jerry Garcia married Sarah Ruppenthal in 1963, with whom he had his first daughter. From December 31, 1981 to January 1994, he was married to Carolyn Adams Garcia , also known as Mountain Girl . He had already had two daughters with her beforehand. Another daughter was born on December 20, 1987 from the extramarital relationship with Manasha Matheson. After the divorce, he married Deborah Koons García, with whom he was married from February 14, 1994 until his death. After his death, a bitter dispute broke out between his last two wives over his estate. Garcia had left a sizable fortune to his ex-wife, Carolyn. His last wife doubted his sanity because of his drug addiction and claimed the fortune for herself. The court ruled according to Garcia's will and awarded Carolyn her portion of the estate.

art

Jerry Garcia was also very active as a painter and draftsman. He created over 500 pictures and drawings. He studied art at the California School of Fine Arts , now called the San Francisco Art Institute . He worked with watercolors, pencil and ink, but also enjoyed digital art , as evidenced by the cover of the Grateful Dead album Infrared Roses .

There is a series of ties in the United States that feature Jerry Garcia's art. In addition, his pictures are printed on labels of wine bottles.

Cherry García

Cherry Garcia

In his honor, the famous ice cream producer Ben & Jerry’s named an ice cream and a low fat frozen yogurt after him. The ice cream was named after him while Garcia was still alive in 1987. It has a cherry flavor with pieces of cherry and crunchy chocolate. After Garcia's death, the black late bird cherry was used instead of the Bing cherry .

Discography

• 1971 - Hooteroll? (in cooperation with Howard Wales )
• 1972 - Garcia
• 1973 - Live at the Keystone
• 1974 - Garcia (Compliments of Garcia)
• 1976 - Reflections
• 1978 - Cats Under The Stars
• 1982 - Run For The Roses
• 1988 - Keystone Encores Vol. 1
• 1988 - Keystone Encores Vol. 2
• 1988 - Almost Acoustic
• 1988 - Live at the Keystone Vol. 1
• 1988 - Live at the Keystone Vol. 2
• 1991 - Garcia / Grisman
• 1991 - Jerry Garcia Band
• 1993 - Not for Kids Only
• 1996 - Shady Grove
• 1997 - How Sweet It Is

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 18, 2015, accessed August 7, 2017 . 
2. ↑ The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Rolling Stone , August 2015, accessed August 7, 2017 . 

Web links

Commons : Jerry Garcia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Literature by and about Jerry Garcia in the catalog of the German National Library