Happy 75th birthday to Jerry Garcia, wherever he may be

by Jack Brummet

Happy birthday on what would have been his 75th birthday. 

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Jerry Garcia 75th birthday

by Jack Brummet

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

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Embed from Getty Images

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Jerry Garcia memorial litter control

We spotted this great sign outside of Sequim, Wash. this weekend. . .

Jerry's Garcia image from Getty Images (used by permission)

 

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Happy (woulda coulda shoulda) 71st Birthday Jerry Garcia

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Photograph: Jerry Garcia/The Dead and the next generation

[photographer unknown - so far]

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Happy 70th birthday to Jerry Garcia

By Jack Brummet, Music History Editor


Today would have been Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday. . .if only.  Here is a photo from the last time I saw him, with the Grateful Dead, at Seattle's Memorial Stadium on May 26, 1995.  He died two months later, at the age of 53.

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A great photograph of Jerry Garcia, the last time I saw him (Seattle, May 26, 1995)

This is one of my favorite photographs of Jerry Garcia, from the last time I (or anyone) saw him in Seattle, (May 26, 1995).  They played their hearts out that night and sounded great.  The Dead would only play twenty more shows after this. 

click to enlarge

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Remembering Jerry Garcia

Fifteen years ago, Jerry Garcia passed away.  We got to see him a couple of times on his last tour with the dead, in Seattle in May, 1995.  The photo below is from that show,  I still miss the man and the music.

A few Garcia quotes:

"Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. "


"For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part. "

"I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like. "

"Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you've been to some of those places, you think, 'How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?' "

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. "

"It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. "

"I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves."

"What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place. "
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Jerry Garcia/The Grateful Dead play Peggy O ( Fennario)

This is a touchingly fragile 1994 video clip of a long time staple. Jerry tune . .as it turned out, Jerry would barely live another year. Here he is, halting in his vocals, and tentative on the guitar--which actually turns out to be a rambling, and elusive, but great, solo. Maybe this video means more to people who watched the entire arc of his career, but I think it stands on its own, fandom and cultural baggage aside, as a great American musician playing a roots folk song...


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Digital Art: Jerry Garcia in Seattle, 1995

Click Jed to enlarge

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A new music list: My favorite Grateful Dead tunes

Attics of my Life
Bertha
Bird Song
Black Muddy River
Black Throated Wind
Box of Rain
Brokedown Palace
Brown Eyed Women
Built To Last
Cassidy
China Cat Sunflower
Cold Rain and Snow
Dark Star
Dire Wolf
Eyes of the World
Fire On The Mountain
Foolish Heart
Franklin's Tower
Friend of the Devil
From the Heart of Me
Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad
Help on the Way
Here Comes Sunshine
He's Gone
I Know You Rider
Infrared Roses
Jack Straw
Liberty
Looks Like rain
Lost Sailor
Magnesium Night Light
Mexicali Blues
Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodle-oo
Ripple
Riverside Rhapsody
Saint of Circumstance
Scarlet Begonias
Shakedown Street
Silver Apples Of The Moon
Slipknot
St. Stephen
Stagger Lee
Standing On The Moon
Stella Blue
Tennessee Jed
Terrapin Station
The Eleven
The Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion
The Monkey and the Engineer
The Promised Land
The Wheel
Throwin' Stones
Tons of Steel
Touch of Grey
Unbroken Chain
Uncle John's Band
Walk Me Out in the Morning Dew
Wharf Rat
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Jerry Garcia and Ken Kesey Discuss LSD And It's Effects On Creativity, Music, And Writing

Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia discuss LSD and creativity with the late, great Tom Snyder (includes some other video clips of Kesey)...


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Grateful Dead Videos/lyrics: Bird Song from Radio City, NYC 1980, Eyes of the world at Giants Stadium 6-17-91, and Peggy O inVegas 6-26-94

Click J.J. to enlarge

The Grateful Dead perform Birdsong at Radio City Music Hall in 1980. Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia wrote this song about Janis Joplin—not long after her death. I'll put the lyrics following the video.




Bird Song

By Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter

All I know is something like a bird within her sang,
All I know she sang a little while and then flew on,
Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain.

If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why?
Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passin' by,
Laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night.

Don't cry now, don't you cry, don't you cry anymore.
Sleep in the stars, don't you cry, dry your eyes on the wind.

All I know is something like a bird within her sang,
All I know she sang a little while and then flew off,
Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain.
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Fourteen years later, in Las Vegas, on 6-26-94, the Dead perform Peggy O a/k/a Fennario. Jerry's voice is fragile, but he plays an excellent solo on this moving tune, and even his delivery adds to the tenderness of the song.





Peggy O - American folk song

As we rode out to fennario, as we rode on to Fennario
Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove
And called her by a name, pretty Peggy-O.

Will you marry me pretty Peggy-O, will you marry me pretty Peggy-O
If you will marry me, I'll set your cities free
And free all the ladies in the are_-O.

I would marry you sweet William-O, I would marry you sweet William-O
I would marry you but your guineas are too few
And I fear my mama would be angry-O.

What would your mama think pretty Peggy-O,
What would your mama think pretty Peggy-O,
What would your mama think if she heard my guineas clink
Saw me marching at the head of my soldiers.

If ever I return pretty Peggy-O, if ever I return pretty Peggy-O
If ever I return your cities I will burn
Destroy all the ladies in the area-O.

Come steppin' down the stairs pretty Peggy-O,
Come steppin' down the stairs pretty Peggy-O,
Come steppin' down the stairs combin' back your yellow hair
Bid a last farewell to your William-O.

Sweet William he is dead pretty peggy-O, sweet William he is dead pretty Peggy-O,
Sweet William he is dead and he died for a maid
And he's buried in the Louisiana country-O.

As we rode out to fennario, as we rode out to Fennario
Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove,
And called her by a name, pretty Peggy-O
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The Dead perform Eyes Of The World at Giants Stadium 0n 6-17-91, almost a year after Brent Mydland's death. Bruce Hornsby joined the band for the next year or so, helping to break the new pianist Vince Welnick (R.I.P.) in. The breaking in never worked, but it was always wonderful to see Bruce in the band, and many of their late shows became great due to the interaction between Hornsby and Garcia. Bruce knew his way around the Steinway.



Eyes of the World
by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter

Right outside this lazy summer home
you ain't got time to call your soul a critic no.
Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home,
wond'rin' where the nut-thatch winters,
wings a mile long just carried the bird away.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.

There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own
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