Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) One Man Gone

This being Garcia Week (between his birthday and his yahrzeit (anniversary of his leaving) I figure this to be as good a time as any to ruminate on his meaning to the world and his meaning to me.

I didn't snap to the Dead as quick as my friends did, there was so much new music every week, they were just one out of many. I remember a photo spread in Look Magazine on the SF bands, and the Dead looked scary. I heard the first album, it was OK, Anthem and Aoxomoxoa kind of went over my head. In October of 69 we went to the KZAP(underground radio station) 1st birthday party at Cal Expo, in Building A, the amphitheater was years away and the Dead headlined. They had some technical difficulties, but certainly got my attention. Still got memories of an early Cumberland Blues, High Time, Pig Pen singing Good Morning Little School Girl and Weir telling the yellow dog story. Years later I was gifted with a tape of the second set, only High Times was on it from the memories. I was pretty blown away, it seemed like a three ring circus, all seven of them seemed to be doing something significant, who to watch???

Couple months later, night before New Years eve, Paul shows up at my door with a very early copy of Live Dead and some 60s style refreshment. At the proper time we put on Live Dead and I GOT IT!! never been the same since. I had been trying to play free improvised music with my friends for a couple years, it was always more miss than hit but occasionally amazing things happened, but these guys DID IT!!! The Dark Star on Live Dead still blows me away to this day. What a feat of collective improvisation!!

So I started listening to them all the time, went to shows at Winterland when I could. They touched me on so many levels, they seemed to be doing something different than all the other bands. It was like church!! It was so keyed into life and so renewing!

As the years went by I kept on listening and reading everything I could find. When I learned of Garcia's folkie roots a lot of threads of my life were tied together. I came to love them like big brothers I admired from afar and tried to emulate. They were rock stars but not, they seemed to bring their real selves onto the stage, and what a motley crew they were. I loved them all but it was Garcia that got my attention the most.

In early 71 I got a copy of American Beauty hot off the press. I was kind of let down, no more "machine eating" jams, it was a record of songs. As years went by I came to realize that it was a landmark work of art, art for the ages. It seems timeless, never gets old.

As my musical career progressed I pursued jazz and funk. The Dead became a sort of guilty pleasure, one I didn't let on about. I saw em in 74 and a few times in the 80s. I missed the whole Deadhead phenomenon, by the time people "toured" I was a night club musician with shiny shoes and a family to feed.

I remember being in SF in the 80s for my bass lesson and eating in a little cafe I read about Garcia's heroin bust. I was pretty flabbergasted, hard drugs seemed the antithesis of everything they meant to me.

A few years later I remember hearing a live broadcast of a solstice show and Garcia sounded quite awful, sometimes in the wrong key. Hmmmm?? What was happening?????

Later when my hippie reformation began I reconnected. I bought CDs of Anthem, Aoxomoxoa, and Live Dead. They became a soundtrack of what was happening to me. Went to a couple shows at Cal Expo, just loving the communion and fellowship.

Aug 9, 1995 TJ woke me up with a call. She said, please don't flip, but Jerry Garcia died last night. Man, I felt a piece of me die right then, like losing a family member. I went to the garage and brought in a big stack of speakers and my bass amp, turned on the radio and the rock stations were playing nothing but the Dead. I plugged it into my amp turned it up. Went across the street and I couldn't hear it so I went back and cranked it up even louder.

That night we went to a hastily organized vigil in Capitol Park. The radio station basically co-opted the event. I remember the DJ saying "don't bring drugs to the park, thats what jerry would have wanted" yeah right! When we got to the Rose Garden(how perfect) the station had set up a big mobile unit and insisted on playing a long interview from Bob Weir from sometime in the past and plenty commercials. I went looking for Bob Keller(great DJ) and told him how weak that was. But try as they might they couldn't contain the event. it turned into the biggest drum circle I ever saw, with hundreds of people, people dancing, people crying, dozens of people in the trees.

I went home and wrote a song, a blues song called:

One Man Gone

Woke up the other morning, didn't have the blues

Till my baby said "honey I got some real bad news

One more good one has bit the dust and there's nobody left that we can trust"

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

So I got a bunch of speakers from out of my shed

I didn't give a damn about what the neighbors said

Hooked em all up, turned it up to eleven

So they would know who was knocking on the doors of heaven

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

We went down to the park later that

From miles around, from left and right

Dance and drum, sing and shout

Till the heat came 'round and threw us out

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

Dark Star crashes on the Golden Road

I still don't know but I've been told

On the other hand I'm here to say

Don't let the music stop, we won't fade away

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

Rest in peace, and thanks for a lifetime of inspiration!!!

Let there be songs, to fill the air!!!!!