Interesting Garcia Article By Gans

[New York Steve]

The Burden of Being Jerry

TWO WRITERS - BOTH INSIDERS IN THE GRATEFUL DEAD COMMUNITY - DISCUSS THE TROUBLE BEHIND THE LATE JERRY GARCIA.

By David Gans

For the last ten years of Jerry Garcia's life, his health and lifestyle were major topics of discussion in the Grateful Dead world. From the innermost sanctum to the far edge of the parking lot and beyond -- the band, its extended family, the Dead's business organization, the businesses that did business with the Dead and the Deadheads, and the legendary community of Grateful Dead fans -- whenever two or more Dead-lovers engaged in conversation, news and gossip about Garcia were of primary interest.

Garcia nearly died from a diabetic coma in July 1986. Following his return to the stage, his health -- and the creative vigor of the Grateful Dead -- fluctuated greatly, alternating between periods of sweet creativity and deeply worrisome spells of forgotten lyrics, vocal problems, weight gain, and retreat from the intrepid musical explorations of the past.

Despite news reports of Garcia eating healthy gourmet food on tour, scuba diving in Hawaii, enjoying his burgeoning career in the visual arts -- and a giddy People magazine spread on his wedding to filmmaker Deborah Koons -- his music just kept getting harder and harder to listen to. Whatever the cause -- addiction to heroin (as the rumors had it) or a loss of interest in the Grateful Dead -- Garcia's failing command of his musical gifts was the subject of great concern and controversy in the Deadhead subculture, where rumor battled with hope and denial.

Whatever was going on behind the scenes, and despite occasional cancellations due to "flu" or "exhaustion," the Dead kept touring, season after season; as one former manager put it, the band had become "addicted to affluence."

As the producer of the Grateful Dead Hour (a nationally syndicated weekly radio program), a member of the online community of Deadheads on the Net, and the author of three books on the subject, I heard most of the rumors and some of the facts; I encountered concern, anger, and denial inside the Dead organization as well as out among the fans. I kept the radio show focused on the music and did what I could to control misinformation in the online world, but as time went by the tale of the tapes became undeniable. Listeners wrote in to request this or that favorite moment from a just-completed tour, and I often felt my heart sink as I evaluated those shows in search of presentable performances.

Giving up hope was not an option. As a friend, fan, and musical disciple, I was in it for the long haul. To the more optimistic among us, Garcia seemed indestructible, having bounced back so many times. The rest of the Grateful Dead seemed to grow in power as Garcia receded, and on those magical occasions when Jerry engaged us musically, he brought us all a few days' peace of mind. Although his stamina was failing and his performances often seemed uninspired, Garcia had immense reserves of good will to draw on: the famously uncritical majority of the audience continued to radiate unconditional love as long as Garcia kept showing up on stage.

This is not your garden-variety rock-star worship we're talking about here. An eloquent guitarist, an engaging vocalist, and a gifted composer/improviser, Garcia was charismatic, articulate, generous, well read, and a born leader. Beginning in the fabled ballrooms of the psychedelic sixties, he and his partners forged a complex and constantly evolving musical continuum, taking chances onstage with the support of an audience as committed to the long haul as the musicians themselves. The fierce intimacy among members of the Dead was shared by the audience, and built a profound sense of mutual belonging over three decades of peak experiences.

So what happened on the morning of August 9, 1995, wasn't just the death of a beloved guitarist: it was the end of a long, strange, intimate and deeply rewarding relationship. Only the most diligent denialists could have been surprised by the news, but it was a painful reckoning just the same -- maybe even more so because we knew it was coming and had tried so hard to wish it away.

The truth -- well, some of the truth -- about Garcia's life has begun to emerge since his death. In Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia, Robert Greenfield (co-author of Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out, the promoter's autobiography) has assembled recollections from sixty-eight witnesses, including the people who did the often heartbreaking work of keeping Garcia's scene together over the years. Greenfield called, wrote and faxed the members of the Dead, but they never responded. What emerges in Dark Star, as Greenfield says, "is a sense of the arc of Jerry's life, separate from the band."

I was first seduced by Garcia's music in 1972, and by his personal charisma in various encounters over the years. So I was hurt and frustrated by his inaccessibility over the last decade or so. He gave me some exhilarating interviews in the early eighties, and he encouraged me to get more involved in the Dead scene as a writer and later as a radio producer. But although he supported me in the contract negotiations to syndicate the Dead's radio show, he refused to be interviewed. It was hard not to take it personally, and so it was with a sad sort of relief that I read Greenfield's concatenated dialog describing the depths of Garcia's struggle over those last years: it seems just about everybody was closed out.

Gans: Reading Dark Star, I got the impression that Jerry didn't enjoy touring with the Dead in the last few years.

Greenfield: The constant conflict in the band was, "Jerry, we're going on the road again." And he would say, "More money, man? Really, what for?" He had no financial incentive to go on the road with the Dead. The Jerry Garcia Band was selling out venues that the Dead had previously sold out. His artwork and ties were earning him money. And he had royalties from Cherry Garcia ice cream. He could have stayed home, made music, and painted. He had to ask himself, "What am I doing here with people who think I'm God, who are thirty years younger than me, who worship me but don't know me?" Jerry talked about it with Laird Grant, who was the Dead's first roadie: "This scares me," Jerry said. "I don't want this. It's too much weight."

Every time Jerry went out on the road with the Dead, it either broke up the relationship he was in or got him involved with heroin again. It's the basic conflict of a musician's life: the thing they do is often the thing that kills them.

Gans: I think the burden on Jerry was on all of them. Nobody wanted to pull the plug on this thing -- especially when it was raking in $50 million a year. The number of people on their payroll was one burden; the hundreds of other people whose income derived from the Grateful Dead was another planet's worth of weight; and then there was the happiness that the band brought to hundreds of thousands of people in the world.

Greenfield: Still, what's inscrutable about Garcia is his incredible artistic nature, and what drove him to heroin. Everybody who loved him, and everybody who knew him, liked him less when he was on heroin -- and told him so. [Famed LSD chemist] Owsley went right into his face and said, "You know, Jerry, you're not very nice when you're on this drug "

He didn't inject it; he always smoked this very pure form of it. And he constantly tried to get straight. His coma in '86 marks the end of his darkest period, when he really lived in a drug stupor. He told Justin Kreutzmann [son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann] that had it not been for the band, he would have been a guy on a street corner who would do anything to score. For the last ten years of his life, you get this back-and-forth: I'm clean, I'm up, I'm back in it.

Gans: And you can hear that in the music. Sometimes he was sharp and animated, and other times he was vague and disconnected.

Greenfield: This is a guy who carried a lot of emotional weight. At age four, his older brother Tiff chops his finger off. It's an accident; they're playing with an ax. So he's maimed -- a kid has to be sensitive about that. A year later, Jerry's on the beach when his father drowns. Jerry's mother loves him, but she's running a bar. She remarries, an ex-stevedore who can't really relate to Jerry or his brother. And Jerry is cast adrift. He's on his own from the time he's eight or nine, and he doesn't even finish high school. He joins the army at the age of sixteen, but he's such a bad soldier it's hysterical. "Private Garcia, you left the tank in the . . . " "Oh, I'm sorry." "Private Garcia, you were supposed to be back here three days ago." "I'm sorry." He apologized his way out of the army.

Now he's seventeen and living in his car in Palo Alto. You could make a good argument that everything recognized as a unique part of American culture lumped under the term "the sixties" came out of Palo Alto. Ken Kesey's at Stanford, and Robert Stone and all these high-powered writers are getting weird. And Jerry is part of this street scene. Jerry said to me, "The Kesey people were Apollonian and we were Dionysian." In other words, these people don't have any limits. And they're taking acid before anybody. They were living in a beatnik culture of coffee houses and literature. Jerry was quoting from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. He had sections of it memorized. This guy was a self-educated, full-blown intellectual who was dedicating his life to making music.

There was no place for somebody like Jerry to go at that point. No one who wasn't alive in the early sixties can imagine what show business was like. It was completely straight. It was all, you know, The Ed Sullivan Show. There was no Dylan yet. So there was not much Jerry could do.

I don't think people understand that Jerry didn't have to take LSD to become Jerry. This guy was fully formed by the time he got himself thrown out of the army. And everybody who met him knew this. When [Grateful Dead bassist] Phil Lesh met Jerry, he said, "I don't like him. He's too powerful." Jerry had so much charisma. People always looked at him. They always wanted to hang out with him.

A story I really like from that era is told by Sandy Rothman, a bluegrass musician who played with Jerry. Jerry was working at Dana Morgan Music, and a guy came into the music store, took a guitar off the wall and just started playing really fast and furious. Then all of a sudden he stopped. He put the guitar back on the wall and Jerry said, "What's the matter, man? Run out of talent?" He had this cutting edge. He was a very sardonic guy. Poked fun at every thing. Saw through it all.

Gans: Yet the public image of Jerry Garcia is this easygoing, soulful, gentle and generous man.

Greenfield: To the outside world, Jerry was the Dead. Everybody knew he was the leader. But he didn't want to be the leader. And that's where the famous Grateful Dead way of making decisions came about: "If everybody doesn't want to do it, we're not going to do it." But the reason they got to that concept wasn't so much the hippie social experiment but the fact that Jerry, the one guy who ran the show, who knew more about business than anybody, refused to make decisions on his own.

Marmaduke [John Dawson] of the New Riders of the Purple Sage said something I thought was hysterical: "Every hippie had to talk to Jerry. They either had a trip they wanted to lay on him or a trip they needed him to explain." And Jerry would do it. He would talk to a kid with long hair from Indiana with no shoes, even though there were twelve lawyers in the other room who needed to know if he was going to sign a record deal. There's something sweet about that. This guy was very democratic, with a small "d." He was not your typical rock star.

Gans: You spoke to a lot of the women in Jerry's life. What did you learn from them?

Greenfield: Every woman who was with Jerry understood that the Grateful Dead was the "other woman." He certainly had a lot of incredible women who were willing to give him their lives. But it wasn't enough.

The high point of Jerry's life -- creatively and personally -- was when he lived in Stinson Beach in the early seventies. He had the best house in town, he was living with [ex-Merry Prankster] Mountain Girl, they had two kids, and he was playing acoustic music with Peter Rowan and David Grisman. Everybody who met him during that period said, "Wow, this guy's got it wired." But then he started seeing another woman.

Jerry had so many faces, so many different personalities. I don't think anybody close to him understood him. Everybody was a little scared of him. You didn't want to get on Jerry's wrong side, because he could cut you so badly it would take a long time to recover.

His ability to intimidate was matched by his ability to inspire. John Perry Barlow [Grateful Dead songwriting partner] talks about being with the Dead at the funeral of Brent Mydland [the Grateful Dead keyboardist who died of a drug overdose in 1990]. They're acting like a bunch of high school basketball players between the halves. They're cracking jokes, playing grab-ass, and then they carry the casket into the hearse. Barlow, who goes in and out of the Dead scene, is just horrified by this behavior. But then he gets into the limo with Jerry, and as soon as Jerry's alone, he becomes the caring, sensitive guy. Barlow says to him, "You know, Jerry, I don't think I can do this anymore. What's happening is the Deadheads are becoming all sweetness and light, love and peace, good vibes and let's-help-each-other, and we're becoming really dark. I think I'd rather be out front in the audience than on stage." And Jerry says, "You know, man, I think I would, too. But I can't."

Gans: I have a friend who worked with the Grateful Dead many years ago. I was recounting my latest soul-wrenching attempt to do something reasonable with the Grateful Dead organization, and he said to me, "That's why I got out of there twenty years ago. I realized that Jerry was never going to control his people, and I couldn't stand to work in that sort of craziness."

Greenfield: The Dead hated to fire anybody. They almost never threw anybody out. You practically have to die to get booted out. When Pigpen died, Garcia said, "That's not Pigpen in that coffin. That's the Grateful Dead." But two weeks later they were back in the studio and out on the road. When it came to being survivors, they were experts.

Jon McIntire [manager from the late sixties to the mid-eighties] points out that the great contribution of the hippie culture was this projection of joy. The beatnik thing was black, cynical, and cold. It was amphetamines and black coffee, and nobody was nice to you. If you look at the way those people -- Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Cassady -- treated each other, it wasn't so great. But Jerry was interested in doing something else. He was interested in creating art out of happiness, out of ecstasy, out of pleasure. When Jerry was doing that, he could bring everybody into that space. That's the basis of the Deadhead phenomenon.

Gans: Somewhere along the line, it seems,Jerry stopped enjoying it. I saw him being pretty surly with people at times in the nineties. When do you think it stopped being fun for him?

Greenfield: I would say the turning point comes when Garcia is given what he is told is a very pure form of opium -- which turns out to be Persian heroin. And he likes it. He really likes it. Garcia didn't do anything moderately. He didn't eat moderately and he didn't smoke moderately. But he didn't die from heroin. He was a diabetic who ate sugar all the time. He was someone with emphysema who smoked. So Jerry doesn't just smoke this form of heroin occasionally and feel good about it. He goes so far into this that it's amazing he survived as long as he did. He was so bloated he couldn't get his shoes on.

When Jon McIntire, who hadn't seen Jerry for a couple years, came to visit him, Jerry opened the door and said, "I've been a stone junkie for the past few years. What have you been doing?"

But even in that condition, Jerry could still get the drop on anyone. Barlow visited him during the same period and told Jerry that since he was almost dead anyway, he should just go ahead and finish the job. Garcia didn't say a word. Instead, he got up, walked down the hall, went into his room and put a sign on the door: "Do Not Disturb."

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David Gans is the author of Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead; Conversations with the Dead; and Not Fade Away: The Online World Remembers Jerry Garcia.

[Evangeline]

Even though I know all this already from having read about it in various GD books, and speaking with people who know the "lore" well, it still breaks my heart to read this and once again take it into my consciousness. Good article--thanks for posting, Steve (I think!).

[Dstone5553]

Even though I know all this already from having read about it in various GD books, and speaking with people who know the "lore" well, it still breaks my heart to read this and once again take it into my consciousness.

Then, honestly, you shouldn't read this stuff.

Maybe I'm taking you too literally but that's how I feel.

I stay away from anything like this, if for nothing else, it's a bunch of half truths.

The main reason I can't read any of it, whether it's the plethora of books since '95 or articles like this is because whenever I do, all hear after finishing a sentence is Garcia groaning (that famous groan of his)!

Weird hugh?

It's true though.

And usually I don't have a problem with hearing voices...it's just part of my day. :}

[New York Steve]

Then, honestly, you shouldn't read this stuff.

Maybe I'm taking you too literally but that's how I feel.

I stay away from anything like this, if for nothing else, it's a bunch of half truths.

The main reason I can't read any of it, whether it's the plethera of books since '95 or articles like this is because whenever I do, all hear after finishing a sentence is Garcia groaning (that famous groan of his)!

Weird hugh?

It's true though.

And usually I don't have a problem with hearing voices...it's just part of my day. :}

Interesting take from Garcia nut.

I love anything about Garcia, find it fasinating. It is really sad, but personally, is a good reminder of demons unchecked...

[tbones]

I think this article sucks... Any focus on jerry not wanting to play or not enjoying playing or only playing because he was addicted to affluence is a waste of print. One of my bummers in life is for the people who did not see jerry because they were too young, often have the impression of the last years sucking. On tour with Jerry I was boggled by the "old schoolers" bitching about the show that had blown me away. I have wondered if I just accepted it all as gold because of the experience of a dead show being so awesome overall....However I have recently gotten most all of the sbds of '93 so I've been listening more than I ever have to my era of the dead. They are crackling! Jerry sounds happy, energetic, insane guitar purity shining through.....Later on in the year he started to play a new guitar which at the time people were complaining about...It was a whole new beginning for Jerry. The sound is different and I swear that his style evolved. Anyway....after cruising through these shows that I was at in 93 i now understand why I was so pleased with the shows...They are awesome!

[New York Steve]

I think this article sucks... Any focus on jerry not wanting to play or not enjoying playing or only playing because he was addicted to affluence is a waste of print. One of my bummers in life is for the people who did not see jerry because they were too young, often have the impression of the last years sucking. On tour with Jerry I was boggled by the "old schoolers" bitching about the show that had blown me away. I have wondered if I just accepted it all as gold because of the experience of a dead show being so awesome overall....However I have recently gotten most all of the sbds of '93 so I've been listening more than I ever have to my era of the dead. They are crackling! Jerry sounds happy, energetic, insane guitar purity shining through.....Later on in the year he started to play a new guitar which at the time people were complaining about...It was a whole new beginning for Jerry. The sound is different and I swear that his style evolved. Anyway....after cruising through these shows that I was at in 93 i now understand why I was so pleased with the shows...They are awesome!

Fair enough, I'm a product of the 90's, 93-95 being in my wheel house. There was usually a moment or a chord, or a lyric or a song that got me, and I was and am still mesmerized by Garcia.

But he was a junky, and in the end, that affected his life, health and musical performance.

[tbones]

But he was a junky, and in the end, that affected his life, health and musical performance.

I know this is not a popular idea but i was listening to 4/21/86 the other day and found Jerrys voice and energy to be lacking so I put on some spring '93 and BOOM...there was the sound that I was looking for. Precision and clarity....and happiness.

With that being said I would mention that 94 and 95 are not as consistent. Good moments like you said....

[lookyloo]

I miss Jerry

[John A]

'93 does not suck (well, the Vince material does). '94 and '95 are a different story, which I notice you do acknowledge, tbones.

[tbones]

'93 does not suck (well, the Vince material does). '94 and '95 are a different story, which I notice you do acknowledge, tbones.

My thing with vinnie isn't that "long way" is that bad. Its that his background singing is really loud and would be better without it. With Jerry and Bobby seeming so into making the shows good you would think they might listen to a recording or two and hear that vinnie could chill a bit....I wonder why Jerry let that pass...

[New York Steve]

My thing with vinnie isn't that "long way" is that bad. Its that his background singing is really loud and would be better without it. With Jerry and Bobby seeming so into making the shows good you would think they might listen to a recording or two and hear that vinnie could chill a bit....I wonder why Jerry let that pass...

china white

[Dstone5553]

Interesting take from Garcia nut.

It is really sad, but personally, is a good reminder of demons unchecked...

I check my demons every morning..and a few times on the weekend.

[Tom Banjo]

I never had the privelage to get to see Jerry play. There are moments in 92-95 of which Garcia acheives complete magic in my mind based off of recordings. I think the negative opinion is mostly based off of inconsistency. Nothing in 92-95 really compares with the magic of may of 77 or any of 69 in my opinion once again based off of recordings. That being said, any night with Garcia, including an off night, the magic shines through at some point. Regardless of when you saw Garcia, you are one of the privalgized. Garcia is a legend beyond the GD. Garcia is up there with the greatest musical minds of all time. Bach, Mozart, Garcia should be discussed in the same breathe. I really like how the articles emphasized that Garcia was an intellectual. Self-taught but an intellectual. He was truly brilliant and his brilliance should not be underestimated. He was truly a genius and Gans knows this and the herion doesn't change that. Yes he was a junky, but he deserved to be left alone. So many people benefited from his brilliance and got rich because of his brilliance so what if he wanted to enjoy himself in the manner he enjoyed himself. I never saw Garcia but I miss him dearly. However, I understand the desire to do what makes you happy even if it destructive. Only the good die young. We love you Jerry and we will never forget you.

I edited the post John. I have heard several shows from 91 that I thought were consistently good. I also have heard ones I didn't think were so great but thats true of any era.

[John A]

Rick,

Good post - I would just edit it to read "92-95". The genius was not only on full display still in '91 but it was pretty damn consistent as well. Then there was Bill Graham's death in the Fall, a pretty weak New Year's run, a train wreck of a Spring tour the following year, and more or less steady decline from then on. And by '94, the moments of brilliance were grossly outweighed by the ho-hum and downright lack of inspiration.

[Muddy Waters]

I stay away from anything like this, if for nothing else, it's a bunch of half truths.

+1

not enjoying playing or only playing because he was addicted to affluence is a waste of print.

+1

[Evangeline]

My first GD show was March of 1988 and I loved every one of the 100+ shows I was fortunate enough to attend. And I was extremely lucky to also see the JGB about 15-20 times during that period! People who began to see the GD in the 70s may have had a point about some of the shows in the later years not being as good. I never "knew" that every show I saw wasn't amazing. There was always something magical from Garcia. Genius he was, yes indeed. His melodies, the phrasing and tone of his playing--they were exceptional and very few have been able to recreate this sensability. His singing was so heart felt that you could feel his raw emotion flowing right out of his mouth on some of the ballads. From everything I have read and heard and deduced, he unfortunately did not get to do what he wanted in the later years as the GD machine was so huge and so many people in the organization depended upon him that he felt he couldn't stop touring with that band, even though it was detrimental to his health, and do projects that he would have rather done, such as JGB and more acoustic stuff with David Grisman. I admire him so much for taking care of everyone around him in this way. I do not think in any way, shape or form that he kept touring with the GD for money. He did it so that all the people in the organization by that time could receive their salaries and be able to send their kids to school, etc. Jerry may not have been perfect, but I believe in my heart that he was a very good man and very generous with his time and effort. I will always miss him. And I am tremendously grateful for DSO!

[Still Truckin]

Jerry may not have been perfect, but I believe in my heart that he was a very good man and very generous with his time and effort. I will always miss him.

So say we all.

(Passable guitar, too.)

[August West]

His singing was so heart felt that you could feel his raw emotion flowing right out of his mouth on some of the ballads. And I am tremendously grateful for DSO!

In any way, shape or form am I trying to compare the two.....but I get that same feeling from Jeffrey, Randi. We are very blessed to be able to take that ride again.

As far as all the things written about Garcia is concerned, its all old news. I don't really care, he did alot of things, for alot of people. Rest In Peace Jerry.

I'm trying to come out of my post-tour depression.......... Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

[Teacher Matt]

I agree with August West... sometimes it is like beating a dead horse...

but I will say this .... I enjoy to read about things that interest me...

when I see an article about the Civil War - I read it ... when I see an article about the Berlin Air Lift - I read it .. .when I see a new book on Andrew Jackson - I read it...

so when I see an article on Jerry - I read it..

but the North still wins the war, the Soviets gave in when it came to Berlin, and Andrew Jackson still chewed nails for lunch...

and Jerry .. well he still makes that guitar sing to me ....

[chuckvegas]

There's nothing you can hold for very long...

But we try.

[Octal]

The reason there is probably so much discussion over the "real" reason of the decline is probably because there is no single right answer. There were more than one factor that affected it, hence anyone can say "it wasn't that it was this" and still maintain a level of truth.

[cm_hayden]

The reason there is probably so much discussion over the "real" reason of the decline is probably because there is no single right answer. There were more than one factor that affected it, hence anyone can say "it wasn't that it was this" and still maintain a level of truth.

The only person who could give the complete story is Jerry and maybe Mountain Girl. The rest including band members is questionable.

[Octal]

The only person who could give the complete story is Jerry and maybe Mountain Girl. The rest including band members is questionable.

I'm sure with everyone's collaboration we could get a well-rounded story: Dead crew/members, JGB crew/members, and at home family/friends. There should be enough information out there to fulfill it, so all that is needed is to read the many biographies that exist and then melt them all together into a well-rounded opinion, unless a good deal of the information is nonfactual and needs to be reevaluated (I'm sure Jerry would love everyone getting together to reevaluate all the questionable information on what caused him to play badly/killed him.).

Another issue with a reporter/a single source giving an account of Jerry is that Jerry from a very early time thought he was rarely conveyed well during interviews and etc.

[Guest jazz-man]

I've read the books and interviews, warts and all, and I still love to read more in case there is some new diamond to find. Jerry gave us all such highs and sometimes some lows too. It's bittersweet to be sure. But when I hear the music, my soul just soars and the smile is on my face and in my heart! Thank God DSO is out there to bring the joy.