He manages to translate the famous vocal melody of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ into a wailing guitar solo, and the transition into the Cale song that Clapton popularised in 1970 is genuinely mind-blowing. Cale’s ‘After Midnight’ is a stellar example of a musical jam.Ĭalculated, but with elements of Garcia’s improvisational ability peppered amongst it – this is a clear example of his proficiency as a musician and not just a guitarist. The album was formulated through an acid-drenched haze wherein band members Garcia and Phil Lesh, alongside sound tech Dan Healy, would create something resembling a collage of music by splicing together a separate studio and live performance takes to create an altogether new recording.Įleanor Rigby into After Midnight (Reprise) – Jerry Garcia Band 2/28/80 (2004)Ī high-point from the iconic 2004 live album, After Midnight: Kean College, 2/28/80, the Jerry Garcia band’s segue from the Beatles classic into J.J. It includes the Dead’s trademark dovetailing guitars, backed by a jazzy rhythm provided by the band’s second drummer, Mickey Hart. The opener of the Dead’s second album, 1968’s Anthem of the Sun, the piece fully entitled ‘That’s It for the Other One’ is on record, is a seven-minute psychedelic wonder. Jerry Garcia’s five best guitar moments: ‘The Other One’ – (Winterland 10/17/74) Join us then, on his birthday, as we list Jerry Garcia’s five greatest guitar moments.

Although he infamously declined to attend the event, the rest of the Dead jokingly reacted to this by bringing out a cardboard cutout of him on stage in absentia. However, this is just a footnote compared to two Jerry Garcia moments that are seared into the mainstream consciousness.Īs a member of the Grateful Dead, Garcia was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He influenced so many, with just one example of this being Soundgarden’s 1996 B-side to ‘Pretty Noose’ entitled ‘Jerry Garcia’s Finger’. The man’s spirit did not die with his earthly form, though.

In fact, he was staying at a Belvedere, California drug rehabilitation clinic when he died of a heart attack on August 9th, 1995, aged only 53. Following this life-changing health scare, his health improved slightly, but his struggles with obesity, nicotine, cocaine and heroin continued to plague him. In 1986 he went into a diabetic coma that nearly took his life. Throughout his career, particularly later in life, Garcia struggled with health issues. Detailing his reasoning further, he explained: “With more than 2,200 Grateful Dead concerts, and 1,000 Jerry Garcia Band concerts captured on tape – as well as numerous studio sessions – there are about 15,000 hours of his guitar work preserved for the ages”. According to the respected Bay Area guitarist Henry Kaiser, Garcia is “the most recorded guitarist in history”. He had also mastered a variety of instruments as well as the guitar, including the banjo and pedal steel. His skill was not limited to the guitar, though. “The idea of picking, of eliminating possibilities by deciding, that’s difficult for me”. “My own preferences are for improvisation, for making it up as I go along,” he once commented. It allowed him to enact brilliant spur of the moment riffs that he would never have dreamt of attempting in a rigid, structured setting. Informed by the infamous ‘Acid Tests’, and typical of his stature as the godfather of the hippies, he believed that improvisation took the stress away from his playing. A defining feature of Garcia’s musicianship was long, sustained improvisations on stage with the Grateful Dead.

China cat sunflower guitar