Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead
Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead
Jerome John Garcia was born in 1942, in San Francisco's Mission District.
His father, a spanish immigrant named Jose "Joe" Garcia, had been a jazz clarinetist and Dixieland bandleader in the thirties, and he named his new son after his favorite Broadway composer, Jerome Kern. In the spring of 1948, while on a fishing trip, Garcia saw his father swept to his death by a California river. After his father's death, Garcia spent a few years living with his mother's parents, in one of San Francisco's working-class districts. His grandmother had the habit of listening to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts on Saturday nights, and it was in those hours, Garcia would later say, that he developed his fondness for country-music forms-particularly the deft , blues-inflected mandolin playing and mournful, high-lonesome vocal style of
Bill Monroe, the principal founder of bluegrass. When Garcia was ten, his mother, Ruth, brought him to live with her at a sailor's hotel and bar that she ran near the city's waterfront. He spent much of his time there listening to the drunks', fanciful stories; or sitting alone reading Disney and horror comics and pouring through science-fiction novels.
When Garcia was fifteen, his older brother Tiff - who years earlier had accidentally chopped off Jerry's right-hand middle finger while the two were chopping wood - introduced him to early rock & roll and rhythm & blues music.
Garcia was quickly drawn to the music's funky rhythms and wild textures, but what attracted him the most were the sounds that came from the guitar; especially the bluesy "melifluousness" of players such as; T-bone Walker and
Chuck Berry. It was something he said that he had never heard before. Garcia wanted to learn how to make those same sounds he went straight to his mother and told her that he wanted an electric guitar for his next birthday.
During this same period, the beat period was going into full swing in
the
Jerome John Garcia was born in 1942, in San Francisco's Mission District.
His father, a spanish immigrant named Jose "Joe" Garcia, had been a jazz clarinetist and Dixieland bandleader in the thirties, and he named his new son after his favorite Broadway composer, Jerome Kern. In the spring of 1948, while on a fishing trip, Garcia saw his father swept to his death by a California river. After his father's death, Garcia spent a few years living with his mother's parents, in one of San Francisco's working-class districts. His grandmother had the habit of listening to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts on Saturday nights, and it was in those hours, Garcia would later say, that he developed his fondness for country-music forms-particularly the deft , blues-inflected mandolin playing and mournful, high-lonesome vocal style of
Bill Monroe, the principal founder of bluegrass. When Garcia was ten, his mother, Ruth, brought him to live with her at a sailor's hotel and bar that she ran near the city's waterfront. He spent much of his time there listening to the drunks', fanciful stories; or sitting alone reading Disney and horror comics and pouring through science-fiction novels.
When Garcia was fifteen, his older brother Tiff - who years earlier had accidentally chopped off Jerry's right-hand middle finger while the two were chopping wood - introduced him to early rock & roll and rhythm & blues music.
Garcia was quickly drawn to the music's funky rhythms and wild textures, but what attracted him the most were the sounds that came from the guitar; especially the bluesy "melifluousness" of players such as; T-bone Walker and
Chuck Berry. It was something he said that he had never heard before. Garcia wanted to learn how to make those same sounds he went straight to his mother and told her that he wanted an electric guitar for his next birthday.
During this same period, the beat period was going into full swing in
the