If nothing else, Jerry Garcia was an encyclopedia of American music. Unlike a lot of the more highly regarded guitar players, he didn’t force his style onto the music but rather studied the genre, understanding its nuances, capturing its feel, but also making it his own.
Whether it was blues, gospel, soul, R & B or country, he made it fit without forcing it. Evident in his rendition of Hank Williams’ “You Win Again” on Europe ‘72, Johnny Cash’s “Big River” on any given night in late 1973, Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” from 4-22-78, or Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” from 11-17-72, here is a guy who studied the music. He understood the essence of what made it great. And if ever there was a doubt he could shred, his solo on Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" from 8-6-71 eviscerates any blues guitar solo I can think of.
It wasn’t just his deep study of those who came before him. Blending that American sound into his own space jazz, he used his American roots sound to explore and grow the music. On a “Dark Star” from 11-11-73 or a “Playing in the Band” from 8-27-72 or a “The Other One” from 4-26-72, here is a guy who with his band took music out to its furthest frontiers, further than even Coltrane or Miles or Sun-Ra, which to me is saying a lot.
Garcia understood dynamics and the subtlety of phrasing. His singing voice is debatable, but his impeccable phrasing unparalleled. It wasn’t just that he studied the notes. He got the feel and all the space between the notes right.
All great musicians have to work hard but it felt like Garcia worked even harder. He didn’t seem like a natural born genius, but rather someone approachable who gave his heart and soul to the music. Or at least that’s what came off when he played. And music was his life. I just think of a year like ‘73 in which the Dead played close to 100 shows. Garcia played banjo in dozens more with his bluegrass group Old & In the Way and spent his free time running up and down the Peninsula and East Bay playing electric in clubs. It’s conceivable he played close to 250 maybe even 300 gigs that year and a number of other years in the 70s. And in between shows and sets, you could always find him with a guitar in his hands.
I won’t say Garcia was the greatest guitarist of all time, though certainly he deserves a mention for Top 5. What we have with Garcia is the musician who most embodied the American ideal--that wild footloose adventure of freedom both buoyant with carefree exuberance and tumescent with a dark self-destructive tragedy. His music was populated by rambling, gambling ne'er-do-wells exploring the geography of hope, that restless frontier. These wanderers are compelling, endearing, complex, worthy of novels. They embody the concept of the Grateful Dead, one of the oldest in religion, folklore, literature and music. “A person dies and leaves a promise unfulfilled,” explained Garcia once in an interview. “That person becomes restless in the grave and strikes a deal with a living person to fulfill the terms of the promise. Once that promise is fulfilled, the dead become ‘the grateful dead.’” When they were great, the Dead were like that promise fulfilled, a spiritual renewal could be felt in their music, a sort of redemption for all that wildness.
In Garcia, we have the essence of American music and so much more than the circus that sprung up around him and followed him wherever he went.
