On Aug. 1, Rolling Stone released a list of Jerry Garcia’s 50 greatest songs.
In the story, Rolling Stone reprinted parts of a 2015 interview with Garcia collaborator, Robert Hunter.
Hunter told Rolling Stone in 2015, “That man had an agony almost that he had to fight. I suppose it had something to do with losing his dad so young, and possibly his finger getting chopped off. Who knows, but there was a decided darkness to him. But you know, what great man doesn’t have that? His bright side, his ebullient side, far seemed to outweigh [it]. The darkness came into his music a lot. And without it, what would that music have been?”
Garcia, iconic guitarist and lead singer of the Grateful Dead, died 25 years ago today on Aug. 9, 1995, of a heart attack while he was at Serenity Knolls Treatment Center in California. He was 53 years old.
Garcia was born on Aug. 1, 1942, in San Francisco, Calif.
According to jerrygarcia.com, when Garcia was 5 years old, he lost most of his middle finger on his right hand as the result of a wood chopping accident with his older brother.
Garcia’s father, Jose Ramon Garcia, drowned while fly fishing in the winter of 1947.
In 1950, Garcia acquired a five-string banjo.
For his 15th birthday in 1957, he received an accordion.
“Disappointed, he complains, until the instrument is exchanged for an electric guitar and amplifier, and his stepfather soon introduces him to an open-tuning style.”
At the age of 17 in 1960, Garcia enlisted in the Army. He was discharged the same year on the basis of “lack of suitability to the military lifestyle.”
On Feb. 20 in 1961, “Jerry narrowly survives a major car accident which changes his focus. He later cites it as a ‘slingshot for the rest of [his] life.’ This revelation causes him to choose the guitar over his hobby of painting and drawing.”
In May of 1965 Jerry and others form a band called The Warlocks who have their first performance at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park, Calif. Later in the year, in December, the band changes its name to Grateful Dead.
Twenty years later the band held an intervention because of Garcia’s longtime use of heroin. He agreed to check into a rehab center but before he could start the program, he got arrested for drug possession.
On July 10, 1986, Garcia lapsed into a diabetic coma for five days. When he woke up, he had to relearn how to play the guitar, according to the website. Five months later, the Grateful Dead was performing again.
Garcia was honored this week during a nine-day livestream event by the Rex Foundation and his family.
“Daze Between” will wrap up today with a celebration for Garcia’s 75th birthday, which was Aug. 1.
The Rex Foundation is Grateful Dead’s nonprofit created in 1984.
Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead performs at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Jan. 7, 1979. (AP Photo)AP
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