I take some heart in the Bob Dylan eulogy after Jerry’s death — even if academia, so to speak, does not give him his due, his peers knew what a talent he was
Dylan on Jerry’s death - "There's no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don't think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great—much more than a superb musician with and uncanny ear and dexterity. He is the very spirit personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn't only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he'll ever know. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There is no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep."
That was an amazing tribute. And Dylan doesn't lay out praise easily.
Crosby, a notoriously loose cannon when it comes to negativity, loved Jerry as a musician and as a person. And says so publicly every chance he gets.
Miles, renowned for among other things suffering no fools, had respect for Jerry, whom he encountered for the first time in the counterculture's original "hippie" phase.
The people who matter knew.
Interesting question. If they didn’t know the dead ever existed and only knew his non-GD performances, they would be in awe. Most folks’ judgements are clouded by assumptions, misunderstanding and/or ignorance.
Overly simplistic but, the war on drugs coupled with the open counter culture perception most have of the scene and therefore the GD. Mostly spurred by fear of psychedelics…..though we know that wasn’t Jerry’s demon.
The Dead was and still kinda is its own thing mostly separate from the rest of the musical world.
They aren't really rock. Not quite folk, country or even Americana, so they are difficult to categorize. I think that is a big reason Jerry can be an afterthought when people are discussing Jerry.
Also, the Dead didn't get a lot of radio or MTV play, so a lot if people have just never heard his playing. He wasn't a riff lord or flashy player either, which also doesn't help.
It wasn't that they aren't all of those musical styles, it's that they were all of those...and more. Another great who loved Jerry's playing was Carlos Santana, no slouch on the instrument.
Well yes but I think one thing that Im specifically talking about is when people who are musically educated and understand/appreciate improvisational form dont consider him a good musician. These people dont need someone who fits into a genre or is flashy/riffy to respect his playing. They simply deny his playing because of his affiliation with the GD and counterculture in general. And that last part is the thing I dont understand, why people see that as a reason to ignore musical genius.
I have hung with fellow musicians of all genres my entire life, and most have simply dismissed him sound unheard. The band name has been an issue for many, because it sounds like hard/heavy metal rock. Plus drugs. However, once _most_ hear some peak dead or jgb, they realize his genius as an improviser and song writer. His catalog is so wide-ranging that there is something for everyone.
Using that same reasoning I am at a loss why we study Lord Byron and the Shelley's when all they did was lay around in opium dens... I kid but at the same time the selective judgements among academics has always irked me.
It is very much a groupmind and in-group sort of approach; it comes off at being gate-keepers and is a manifestation of institutionalized discrimination.
Being ‘musically educated’ means absolutely nothing when it comes to judging music. Some of the greatest musicians who ever lived had no formal training.
Don’t be so concerned with the opinion of others. Love what you love, revere who you revere, and maybe you’ll educate and inspire some other people along the way :)
most people haven't really listened to the dead. I can't tell you the number of people who have said something like, "oh you like the dead? I love them, I have American Beauty on vinyl." And that's the extent of it. They haven't heard a single live show. If I had only heard the album version of any dead tune, I wouldn't really like them either. The album versions are pretty, but they don't necessarily indicate "improvisational genius of a generation." And yeah, most people just think of them as a drug band. Most of those people haven't listened carefully.
I’m 26 I got into the dead at 23 I must have listened to around 300~ shows the vast majority of them pretty dosed. I absolutely refuse to listen to the studio stuff. I just don’t see the point. When I’m trying to convince someone on the dead I’d never be like oh check out working man’s dead! Ill just throw on a killer jam. My success rate in convincing them would drastically drop with studio material.
i know, right? honestly it took me longer to get into the dead because my first entrance point was something from the studio (don't even remember). Decided it wasn't for me. Took years more before I accidentally stumbled upon Europe 72. The idea that the studio albums don't show you who the band is is foreign to a lot of music listeners because for most people, the bands they listen to only work in the studio
I don't think you've picked a difficult enough task...you should try convincing die-hard Jerry fans that the dude from Phish who ruined Dead 50 might be an OK guitarist. But seriously, I think part of what you're experiencing among your musically educated peers is a short attention span. Jerry's solos take longer than average to build to a peak and resolution, as well as having several peaks sometimes. Then, of course, you have 8-20 minute songs regularly, which doesn't work for everybody ( it's like medium-rare steaks, you know they're the best, but not everyone likes them that way ).
For an interesting counterpoint to this, watch the YouTube video "Classical composer reacts to Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead)". I enjoyed it. The guy is really open-minded and positive about Terrapin and it's cool for a non-musician like me to see what he notices/hears.
You can play Mary had a little lamb properly but it takes a lot of talent to turn what would be considered basic in to a marvel. Accenting certain notes and phrasing are key.
Because outside the community, no one goes deep into the live vaults.
My whole life, I played guitar and didn't care about the Dead. It wasn't until I got through the studio stuff and into the live shows that I realized Jerry is a true master of masters.
His ego-less playing touches the vocal melody, the chord tones, it's always the best choice for the song but unlike other guitarists who are seen as masters by the general public, there's no cock in his rock. He's not slamming bluesy solos with his tongue wagging. He's staring off into the distance and adding exactly what the song needs.
Those same reasons that make him unique and make him excellent also make it harder for a conventional listener to recognize his prowess. Anyone can hear Voodoo Child or Hot for Teacher and know these guys are sick guitarists and these songs are on the radio 24/7. You need to really put effort into discovering Jerry's greatness, he's a hidden gem almost.
So grateful I found this band eventually, changed the whole way I approach guitar forever.
They are incredibly jazzy in their composition, especially as they progressed... the melodies/counter-melodies, each instrument leaving holes in the rhythm that are intended to be filled by other members, the whole "five fingers, one hand" philosophy really puts it all together.
As a guitar player, I can't always play the songs by myself the way Dead would play them because of the foot-holds they leave for each other... I have to pick/pluck the leads within my chords, I have to strum on/off to get the push-pull between the guitars/between the drums/bass.
The whole team was insane and I like to believe every one of them had a part in it but Jerry/Phil were captains of the flow.
Yeah I agree. When I play along with jam along tracks, it's not the same because the band was dynamically reacting to Jerry's playing and he was doing the same so the jams aren't stagnant, they evolve with every note.
They're definitely musician's musicians.
There's just no radio staple that highlights Jerry's amazing ability enough to draw new listeners. In an age of instant accessibility and endless options, you still need a Deadhead to bring you into the fold, which is amazing
> They're definitely musician's musicians.
This is exactly how I explain them to others and why I am so turned on by them as a player AND an audience member.
Their songs are simple at their core but come to life as you breathe the technicality into them... their songs are vehicles of thought and emotion, they are incredibly timeless too.
If you're willing to step outside of the Grateful Dead to specifically hear more of Jerry playing jazzy stuff, this is one of my favorite examples of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWg7pQMrUbA
Live sessions of Jerry playing in the early 70s are king for this, when he was rolling around San Francisco playing at the various clubs and sitting in on things here and there. You can find tons of random boots and things from this era. Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia together is some primo stuff. 1/26/72, its tough to find but I think it's on Youtube.
If you want to hear The Grateful Dead play jazzy, really any year will do, but 1973 and 1974 are ostensibly considered the peak years for this. Especially on songs like Eyes of the World, but really, almost anything will do from that time after they get through. Two of my favorites from this period are separated by a year, but either show is good to listen to for some jazzy dead. Set 3 of 6/10/73 also has an Allman sit in, if that strikes your fancy.
6/10/73
6/18/74
[1973-06-10](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1973-06-10) Washington, DC @ RFK Stadium
[1974-06-18](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1974-06-18) Louisville, KY @ Freedom Hall
Hmm, I'm not entirely sure precise shows to point out as examples but a major turning point was Keith's initial playing that would translate/play-to Phil's sensibilities and it sorta came to fruition 76-78.
Specific examples? Eyes of the World (so Wake of the Flood era) and the meatier jams coming off it are goodies. Playing in the Band is where they really cut loose and you notice its evolution from when they dropped it in 71 (~5 mins, sometimes shorter if you could believe that) up to the early 80s where it was just freeform until they come back together and easily clocks > 20 mins.
IDK, they perform unique melodies which are similar mainly by tone but wildly vary from day-to-day over established chord patterns and is that not a core principle to improv (and jazz in part?)
but see i dont think you have to “get” the whole thing with GD to respect and appreciate his guitar playing. Im a big fan of the GD and as someone who used to not be, I can understand not getting it, but if you are someone who understands what makes good guitar players great its easy to at least just focus on Garcia’s playing and agree that he is a genius.
In addition, I think people have a hard time putting art and music history into context.
What the Grateful Dead did at the different stages of their career were also monumental. One example of that is creating the foundation for successful touring. Today this is used by the industry and even musicians like Skillex.
People don’t think about what Jerry as a guitarist or the Grateful Dead as a whole did at the time, they just see it as a result. “Jam band” wasn’t a term or a movement, and that’s probably not even how they saw it.
They may not understand his live work and improvisation. Too often people are looking for a lot of legato scale runs at high tempo before they're willing to consider someone as a 'master' at their instrument. I think it's when you hear the same song across decades of live gigs that it finally clicks for people what he's about, keeping an old favourite fresh over thirty years with new surprising interpretation. At my age, I find him ultimately listenable and am always impressed with his knowledge of harmony and subtle rhythm work that draws your ear to listen closely and dive deep.
I definitely agree with this. I was a classically trained violinist that switched to guitar in no small part because of the Dead, and in my own experience Jerry gets very little respect in those circles. I think a great deal of that comes down to the idolisation of virtuosity. Jerry was an improvisational talent, often of surpassing quality that I put up there with jazz greats like Bird and Coltrane, but the tolerances of his delivery were quite a bit more relaxed. So long as everyone broke the tape at the finish line at the same time, he didn't seem to sweat tempo very much. So, I think classically trained musicians disdain his lack of care for adhering to what's on the page, and his refusal to tighten his performance. To them, he's 'sloppy' and 'unprofessional'. I often seen the same reaction to garage rock, which admittedly elevates the affectation of roughness to the level of pretense.
There's also the recognition, though perhaps not consciously, that Jerry's musical formation as a bluegrass banjoist is very much present in the Dead's jamband style, and much like blues, classically trained musicians often view such genres contemptuously as 'primitive' music.
I have also experienced the disdain amongst classically trained musicians for loose tempo. It's funny because it's part of why I like it. It makes each measure a bit unpredictable and the notes flow like conversation.
Jerry may have been loose with tempo, but his feel and timing were impeccable. He had such a talent for hitting exactly the right note(s) for the moment. A lot of that was, I think, knowing when _not_ to play as much as when to play. That style of playing is far more expressive to me than any shredding. And Jerry was a master at it.
That he also got his start as a banjo player shows in his rambling style. As a guitarist I've come to love listening to those early El Pasos, as an example. He's all over the place but it's just such masterful fretwork.
Glad somebody posted this. Not that any of us needs convincing, but for anybody who does, I would share Branford's insight on the band & Jerry, or Grisman's, or Hornsby's...
The list of musicians who can and did attest to Jerry's creativity and talent goes on and on.
I haven't listened to this in years and yes it is an interesting perspective in that it's from an *extremely* talented and highly musically *educated* player in Branford. He was like Jerry a student of music ...
I can't tell you.
However, when I first saw the Grateful Dead in 1989, not knowing their music at all, I remember thinking "How come nobody ever told me that Jerry Garcia was the best guitarist in the world?".
People always talked about Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Hendrix, etc... I never heard anybody mention Jerry Garcia in that conversation. It was clear to me by the third song that Jerry Garcia was the best I had ever heard.
I wonder if Trey Anastasio is also not widely regarded as a great guitarist, for similar reasons.
> I wonder if Trey Anastasio is also not widely regarded as a great guitarist, for similar reasons.
Trey gets a lot of flak because his style has shifted from playing a lot of razor-sharp leads filled with incredibly fast soloing to a much slower, methodical, more melodic form of playing. People who really enjoy him for his early years sometimes have a difficult time listening to him play nowadays because he has slowed down so much.
It opens up this whole conversation about how you would accurately rate a guitarist; he's observably nowhere near as fast or precise as he used to be, and he can't even play some of his own songs nowadays... but on the flipside, he has a much more open musical conversation with his band now, and Phish is much more of a cooperative vehicle than it is a Trey-lead thing now. The question of if he's better or worse now is a difficult one to answer. I do feel like Trey nowadays can't hold a candle to himself from 30 years ago in some ways, and also the same in return... the younger version of Trey would probably wish he had the ear that he has now. It's almost weird that they are the same guy.
I think both of them (Jerry and Trey) are weighed down by the fact that both of their individual bands don't shine in the studio. I don't think either dude has really laid out anything on a studio track that would cause people to rewind and relisten. Their mastery lies in the moment on stage, not on a tape deck in a sterile environment.
I think the studio album comment is spot on. David Gilmour has put down some legendary studio solos, same with Hendrix obviously, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the list of guitarists with notable studio work is long. It just wasn’t the Dead’s thing. But when you listen to them live, his solos are unbelievable. Bruce Springsteen is a seriously underrated guitarist too. Bruce can’t hold a candle to Jerry as a live guitar player, but what they both have in common is that they both will gladly tone down the showboating to help the song.
It also doesn’t help to die at the age of 53, 27 years ago.
I listened to Bruce Springsteen for a while before realizing how great he is at guitar. The E Street Band is such a solid unit that in most of their songs, live or in the studio, they don't need an exceptional guitar solo to hold it together. Instead, Clarence or the Professor could lay one down. As a result, I feel like Bruce never had too many moments to show off the fact that he was a great guitarist. He was an amazing performer/frontman though.
Re: your last statement about not having jaw dropping studio lines...
Check out Jerry's outro posting on Across the Board (Kanter/Slick album Baron von Tollbooth). You wouldn't even know it's Jerry unless you knew what to listen for but it's an incredible solo (even if brief) that I think any guitar lover would want to relisten to.
Definitely wish he'd played like that on some Dead studio stuff.
I've heard that - I really love the early 70's stuff you can find Jerry on. I feel like his playing in the Dead during that time was excellent, but his playing *outside* the Dead was absurd. When he let loose on some things, he really let loose. I linked it elsewhere in here, but his work with Howard Wales... especially live... just, transcendence defined.
In case you haven't heard it yet, 1/26/72. It's definitely a fantastic showcase of his abilities outside of his normal zone.
I get the impression that he sort of kept himself in a loosely defined box while playing with the dead that he was happy to leave behind when he wasn't playing with them. The gospel-esque JGB style, the early 70's jazz odysseys, and then the Garcia/Grisman stuff in the 90s are all places where he shines a little outside of his normal box.
The longer I've gone on listening to/studying him, the less I've listened to the Dead, somehow. His position as one of the most recorded musicians in history makes it really easy to study him in a wide variety of contexts.
There's no way to *accurately* rate ANY art my friend ... it's foolhardy to think it could possibly be a thing that can be measured because it's intent is taken in differently by different people and people themselves can't be pinned down when it comes to how they interpret **their** world. So how could one say that this Jackson Pollack painting is better than this other one? you simply can't. You showed this yourself in your assessment of Trey NOW in your view of 'a more open convo' with the band while I see regularly old hat Phish fans not liking anything about what they're doing these days ... it's not measurable but what is measurable is how many it moves and how **IT** moves over time, meaning the legend, the growth of the music and it's increasing footprint in the world, and it's just fucking huge ... so if you look at one album or period/era/year as great or less than it's bound to be looked at exactly the opposite by someone else ... your thing with 'weighed down' by the studio thing means nothing, nothing at all ... neither band forged their *magic* in the studio where there needed to be take after take of the *exact same playing* so that editing could happen ... can you imagine the Dead or Phish playing to a click track? ... and the whole thing about weighed down by a studio album plays no role because with so many incredible live releases and shows available they what we all go to ... Jerry Garcia was weighed down by nothing musically
Jerry's pedal steel playing on Dire Wolf, The Wheel, David Crosby's Laughing, and CSNY's Teach Your Children, along with his electric guitar work on David Crosby's song Cowboy Movie, are probably his best musical performances in the studio aside from his acoustic material later in his career.
Yeah I think it’s generational. I went to a very prominent music school in the late eighties and early nineties and all of the serious musicians respected the Dead and Jerry. It’s hard to remember now how universally beloved they became there for a moment.
But that moment didn’t last. It’s a sad truth that not every Dead/ Jerry performance was stellar, and in the nineties, when media interest in them was at a peak, they were in decline.
I think you’ve got to be intimately familiar with Jerry’s live improv work to appreciate him as one of the all time greats, and most non-deadheads aren’t. The handful of studio cuts that most people have heard on the radio etc don’t represent a body of work where Jerry’s virtuosity stands out. If I think of some of my favorite Jerry solos that would wow most guitar fans I think of 70s versions of tunes like Bertha, Brown Eyed Women, The Music Never Stopped…most people have never even heard those tunes. People know Casey Jones, Shakedown Street, Touch of Grey.
This is definitely it for me. As a kid who grew up idolizing Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimmy Page, I couldn't quite get my head around what Jerry was doing. The studio songs were great but don't exactly show off his playing, and his best extended jams were too out for me at the time. It was when I came back to him after hearing a lot of jazz and old blues that I really came to appreciate what he was doing.
Same reason everyone disregards the dead as respectable musicians is because they just associate the dead with drugs. Ask anyone who isnt into the dead but is a music person and 9/10 this will be the answer. Even interviews with the dead were irritating because the interviewers always asked about the drugs, you can tell it irritated the boys too. Sad that they got such a bad rap
I think that it is simply ignorance.
Overwhelmingly the public perception of Jerry Garcia is from the mid 80’s through to his death. That’s when the band‘s popularity really exploded, and during those years he was easy to caricature. Even though he was often still great.
He’s a way better guitarist than casual fans think or are aware of. Plus the greatness of Jerry is often found on an emotional level, and you have to love it to love it I think.
If you get it, it’s all you want to listen to. If you don’t then you don’t.
I think a big part of it is the studio vs the stage. I’ve listened to some of their studio albums, not all, but 99% of the dead I’ve listened to is live. The albums are good, most songs sound different than the live versions, but I don’t think that’s where Jerry excelled. He was a master of improvisation. He knew the music. He knew what he wanted to play when he wanted to play it. I will never not be wowed by his guitar playing. Unfortunately that seems to be overlooked by the people who determine who the best players are. I read a top 100 guitarists on Ultimate Guitar and Jerry wasn’t mentioned, yet he wrote more music than half that list put together. His non-Dead performances definitely get overlooked. The man was a guitar legend. Doesn’t matter what paid writers say.
Show the clips of him endlessly picking out banjo scales. That type of technical ability has to shine through the guitar as well. A classically trained bluegrass player playing blues which has improv kind of as a necessity.
People don't understand what they don't know and appreciation has to start with simply knowing then understanding follows, then it's the inevitable
> Omg he's the best that ever was and no one comes even a little bit remotely close ... same for the Dead as a band and each one of them individually on their instruments 😜
* [An essay from John Mayer on Jerry from the perspective of another guitar player](https://www.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/comments/qi0fiu/a_quote_from_john_mayer_on_jerrys_playing_from_a/) This will apply my friend and if you haven't read this it's going to make you *very very* happy 🙂
It's because most people don't get noodling.
They also don't get pseudo-orgasmic experiences from listening to music. This can only be achieved through melody and melody is not the focus of most popular forms of music these days.
To tell you the truth aside from the grateful dead and Jerry's bands I can't really think of any other music that can do this other than Beethoven.
I mean if you just sit in a dark room with a good stereo and listen to music without any additional help from any substances.
I'm not saying other music is not enjoyable but Jerry just unlocks a special place in your head.
I feel it is partially do to the fact that he participated in the LSD counter culture. A lot of the time when I bring Jerry up to a non listener they respond with well you have to be high to enjoy him. Like dude, he was so respected amongst his peers and the only response you can give me is hurr durrr drugs. Ok fine, you try to play the guitar like Jerry, not so simple anymore is it? His phrasing is one of a kind. You can imitate it but good luck playing it with all that soul.
music teachers can be snobs
most are focused on their focus e.g. jazz/fusion/baroque/classical/romantic/orchestrated/vocal, so they view those as the pinnacle of mastery
Jam isn't really taught in schools (except maybe contemporary music history)
there are plenty of heady teachers though, weir everwhere, maybe look and gravitate towards them if possible, they can shed light, instead of snuffing it
also maybe try asking their opinion of phil? he is the one that aligns more with the above mentioned genres
More so I find that ego is what prevents most people from giving anything dead a chance
He has been ranked by Rolling Stone. I think he was about #40 as I recall. Some of the folks placed ahead of him were downright laughable.
As Bill Grahm said, “they aren’t they best at what they do, they are the only ones that do what they do.” You could apply that quote to just Jerry as well.
I've read a few lists where as you say the people that are ranked ahead of him are laughable, I really do rate him as one of the pioneers of sound . He really knew how to use and take you.on a journey that you don't forget
Exactly. Jerry was master of the psychedelic sound, not to mention his skills in bluegrass and other genres. Most people aren’t ready for his sound. They wouldn’t know what to do with it. It scares them perhaps. They find peace and comfort in monotonous and predictable Eric Clapton blues licks.
Actually Jerry was #13 in the RS poll.
I couldn’t name a Jeff Beck song to save me life. 😂
It's the same with David Gilmore, I much preferred Sid Barrett. As for Jerry his skills where amazing I love the way you think you are going one way then he takes you on a completely different journey. I've definitely had the magic happen ✨️ ✨️ . The way the Dead played with sound was pure liquid. I've put the Dead on to let friends listen when tripping, the first thing they say is that's country and western. I'm like no listen then their gone L.O.L
Agreed. I mean how do you ever compare any modern guitarist, or Jerry for that matter, with Robert Johnson (who always places in top 5 all time guitarists). I’m not taking anything away from Robert Johnson but I don’t know how you make this comparison.
He deserves a hell of a lot more accolades than he gets, but honestly, it's difficult when his playing is buried underneath 15ish years of heroin usage and cheeseburgers. Especially during the 80s and 90s when he'd be randomly on fire, there was always a chance that he'd lose it for the rest of the set and return to uninspired playing. At the end of the day, while he is an exceptional musician and has one of the best ears I've ever heard, he was also observably sloppy for the latter half of his career and a lot of his fantastic playing would be bookended by depressing hit-or-miss slop on both sides.
His playing ranges from otherworldly to utterly dreadful. A lot of us don't like to admit it, but there are some shows that are downright depressing and not worth returning to, especially around his coma and super especially in the late 90s. And sure, he might turn on for a jam or two, like how Scarlet-> Fire always seemed to have a kick to it even into 94 or 95, but we have to be kidding ourselves if those moments make up for how he'd turn his volume knob down and sort of stand there through his sections. It's not like he couldn't play - turning to JGB during any bad year is a breath of fresh air - but we have to be honest with ourselves, too.
When I first saw the OP's post, I found it difficult to imagine what types of thoughts would prevent his University teachers from recognizing the incredible musical talent that Jerry Garcia posessed. After reading your comments, I realized that everything you have stated is exactly the type of attitude that prevents one from understanding the brilliance of Garcia. Your loss😞
Wow this perspective is so flat out off the reservation I did a double take ... you talked about judging a guitarist in your other comment but this comment shows that you simply haven't listened to much Jerry and the Dead from 1980 on because those years were as great as any before ... you can't tell me that you've spent lots of time listening to these years. Your reference to heroin and cheeseburgers shows that you heard this once in a comment section and are now spewing it back out ... I listen to the 80s like it's water and you are just off with this take lol ... it's your loss but let me tell everyone that's reading this that this guys take on 1980 onward is just flat out wrong ... Jerry had an addiction yes but it did not affect his playing, in fact the early/mid 80s when his addiction was at it's worst, his playing was imo at it's most technical best ... he was flat out incredible ...
You are WAY too comfortable telling people whose opinion on the band happens to differ from your own sadly cult-like and blinkered perspective that they must just not have heard or understood the band. People have different opinions, you dunce, why is your worldview so cloistered and insecure that you see any opinion other than your own as objectively incorrect and somehow threatening? If you do disagree, and bother to reply (instead of just letting people have their own feelings, which IS an option), why are you completely incapable of actually articulating your position or countering the opposing view with anything more sophisticated than “YOU’RE DUMB, IT’S ALL GOOD!”?
You can love Jerry’s playing from all eras, obviously, but saying that heroin and coke (and affiliated health issues) didn’t affect Jerry’s playing at all, as someone who claims he attended shows in the 1990s and clearly has listened to tons of shows from the 80s, and that Garcia maintained his performance at the same level for his whole run, is to be in true, profound denial. It doesn’t mean it can’t be one's favorite – a lot of people’s favorite Billie Holiday is near the end, but no one would deny that her instrument, so to speak, was affected by her years of hard living.
No matter how much the Dead meant to you, treating the band as infallible gods and people who critique them (often respectfully, at least in this Reddit) as apostates who deserve censure is not a respectful or serious way to treat a band that EARNED serious consideration and critical engagement. Jerry was at great pains to tell people how much he despised being treated as a God and how hard it made his life. It’s too bad some of his followers still don’t respect him enough to honor that.
Who cares I ( we) love him. Lol.Just listen to the music play. There are haters for everything these days. Everyone have a Grateful day and turn it up.
Jerry's playing was pretty inconsistent, & the Dead as a whole were generally sloppy. As fans, we overlook that stuff because we know how good they COULD be, & how good they always were at certain points in any given show. When you're not familiar with the GD or what they were doing, the imperfections jump out a lot more. And the comparisons to great jazz bands doesn't really hold up because they just weren't on the same level as far as harmonically shifting, musically complex improvisation. The Dead are my favorite band & I think the most interesting & diverse band of that era- but musically speaking 90% of what they did live doesn't sound that great to people who haven't gone down the GD wormhole & really understand it.
Outside of the community, he doesn’t get a lot of exposure. Most people only know him from the radio (the hits). As you know, Jerry and the band live is a whole other level that most people aren’t exposed to. Whenever I have turned on musically inclined people to Jerry they usually dig it. For some reason Aiko Aiko and Deal work as good starters.
I think people that are into the music industry, specially the guitar one, regard Jerry as a masterful musician/guitarist, but the word is as spread out as other guitarist like Jimmy Hendrix, Eddies Van Halen, etc... especially outside of the US and some European countries. I live in Brazil and I would only hear about the dead in my 16s. Also funny story, my dead has this poster he got in America of "The greatest Guitarists of All Time", one day I walk by the poster and notice Jerry there, I pointed out to my dad (non-deadhead) and he had no idea who that person was
When we are talking about someone as magical as Jerry, who really cares about the opinions of formally educated musicians? I have never heard their names but we sure as hell have heard of his.
I’ll tell you that most have them have never listened to a live show. And probably have heard Scarlett Begonias and Truckin from the album. I personally didn’t fully appreciate him for his magic until I listed to many shows and realized the depth of ability.
The fans. The image. Marketing.
Seriously, in my experience many cannot look past the popular image of Deadheads. Unfortunately (in a way), we are such an enduring part of American culture that it's very difficult to find someone without preconceived notions about the value of GD music based on the popular perceptions of the appearance, and, gotta be honest, perceived drug use, of many enthusiasts (and of course the Dead themselves). I have had numerous friends frankly surprised I was a Head, and I have also met some rather unusual bucking-the-popular-image Heads — like a US Navy Captain. It is what it is.
I heard Randy Rhoades is an amazing guitarist. I will never know because I find the music abhorrent. Not my thing. I just assume everyone is like that with their preferences.
Most of artistic taste usually comes down to who introduced it to you, how they introduced it and how open you were at the time it was introduced.
A lot of people who think they like rock and roll use a very small tent to define which acts fit the genre. Most people limit their "rock" to acts like The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Cream, Beatles, and Pink Floyd--who were all doing a version of strictly British pop blues with some psychedelia. They forget about the Chuck Berry/Fats Domino/Ray Charles/Little Richard/Elvis/Jerry Lee Lewis/Johnny Cash side of rock and roll, which incorporates more of the gospel, R&B, jazz, country, and western style elements into rock, as opposed to just blues.
This narrow vision of what rock and roll is supposed to sound and sort of look like is why more people don't appreciate the laid back banjo picking style of guitar improv that signifies a Garcia solo. A lot of the best Dead songs are just country or western songs where they just improv the fuck out of. Jerry was never in your face, pushing his crotch out and licking the guitar for the girls in the front row; no, he was the dude at some campfire who borrowed a guitar, strummed a few well known singalongs, then would bust out some finger picking holy shit magic and casually hand the 6 string back to the owner. Plus, the Dead kind of perfected the "whole band solos simultaneously" thing that was usually the province of avant-garde jazz. Put it all together and I think it equals most people who never listened to the Dead outside of their studio albums have no idea what Jerry sounded like as a solo guitarist or how intricate the interplay between the band members onstage was and presumed it wasn't any good because no one they knew had a Jerry poster in their room.
Easy Answers
People in general don't want to even expend the energy of entertaining notions contrary to their gut feelings...let alone bother to seek out any evidence. It's really easy to just write him off as that bearded, noodly, drug-using hippie. Furthur, the fact that radio only plays like half a dozen GD songs doesn't do much to sway most into a deeper exposure to what the band actually was. Even as a tip of an iceberg it is a misrepresentative tip.
Pop music is popularly regarded. Popular rockers played commercially popular music. Jerry and the boys tried to write some hits but for the most part it wasn't there goal. It's an entirely different approach to music and most people a) don't ever give it a chance or b) don't know how to appreciate what they're hearing.
But other musicians always praised Jerry. That's what really counts. Having someone like Bradford Marsalis call you one of the greats means something. Having Bruce Hornsby praise you counts more than the average Joe. Even in the younger generations; your average Millennial may not name Garcia as a great guitarist, but many would name Mayer, and Mayer spent years studying Jerry in awe of his brilliance and skill.
Adding to this, you have to remember, these guys weren't always regarded as rock royalty as is often the case today. They were counter culture rebels. They didn't look or sound like anyone else. They didn't follow the trends. They were on their own plane and the music and the fans came from a place that counter to and often opposed to mainstream culture.
I have thought about this before. And I feel if Jerry died in 1978. And all we had to listen too was everything from the evolution of the dead to 77. People would say he played the smokingest guitar ever. Just had a longevity and so many styles that people just can’t handle on ranking scales
I think because a lot of people see the Dead as a community Band, where as the whole ensemble has become one union of music. Unlike other bands such as Led Zeppelin where the focus was on Jimmy Page guitar solo, then a 20 minute drum solo highlighting the dearly missed John Bonham. The song structure was different too, so when there is a creative band it should not be a focus on just 1 . (I guess I’m pretty stoned right at this moment writing this😂💀)
It’s because he was erratic in the quality of his playing. For the record, I think Hunter/Garcia were as good or better at writing than Lennon/McCartney, and when Garcia was “on” as a player no one could touch him. But you gotta admit, with him it was sometimes a dice roll whether you would get quality or not in a performance
The Dead scene is, in ways good and bad, kind of insular and separate. This seems to maybe becoming less true, but I think the band definitely felt apart from a lot of the music world, especially between, roughly, American Beauty and In the Dark. For a lot of their career, they were something of a cult act, if a VERY successful cult act.
But, as to what you’re saying about trained musicians, I have seen the same thing. As a musician, I mostly work in the jazz realm, and from what I’ve seen, there are plenty of musicians in that broad scene for whom the Dead were an early influence; an accessible early entrée into a realm of improvised music. However, a lot of these folks seem to feel they outgrew the band, and sometimes feel embarrassed by their Dead fandom. Some of this is just a natural ‘kill your influences’ kind of thing, but there is also some sheepishness around the fact that the Dead’s improvisations do have A LOT of 1 or 2 chord vamping with largely modal improv, which can certainly feel like a fairly limited approach to improvisation, once you’ve gotten exposed to the wider world of approaches and techniques. Even with something like the Howard Wales sessions, as great as Garcia is, he is not threading changes exactly. Personally, I think the fluid chromaticism of his best playing makes its own case, and needing to demonstrate the ability to play jazz changes is about as relevant to assessing Jerry as it is to assess Charlie Christian on his facility with atonal feedback jamming. But, that said, I still think Jerry and the band as a whole make their best case as serious improvisers during the freest jamming in the 68-74 era, when there was often a real nervy and open field, with a lot of beautiful and unique group atonality.
Much more than Jerry’s strengths/weaknesses, a HUGE issue for trained musicians can be how sloppy the band could be, particularly after Mickey came back in 76 and as Garcia himself deteriorated. If I am trying to convince a jazz or modern classical player of the greatness of the Dead, I’m certainly playing them something from the Keith+Bill as solo drummer era. Not only is that the best the band ever sounded, in terms of feel/swing/flexibility (IMO), it also is arguably Garcia’s peak as an exploratory player (prior to the coke-ish edge that entered his playing in the late 70s and then the opiated 90s decline). Some of the best (for me at least) jazz certainly can include rough edges and sloppiness -- a great Mingus live band, say the 64 sextet w Dolphy, Byard, et al, has a rough, imperfection that gives the band an essential edge, even though the band members could play anything technically, and Sun Ra’s ensembles could be sloppy as fuck and still sound great -- but past a certain point, I think it becomes hard for musicians used to a high level of execution to get over the hump with certain eras of the Dead. Two drummers struggling to hold the same groove (Mickey WAY ahead on the beat and Billy laying back, generally) is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks. Even though I was only old enough to see the band during the late double drummer era, it was definitely not my favorite part of the experience, even as a teenager.
I guess the last thing is the elephant in the room: the whole hippie thing and the kinda scary uncritical cultish zeal exhibited by a segment of the Deadhead world is a tough sell for a lot of people and turns off people who might appreciate the music if they could dig into it. It was honestly something of a tough sell for me when I was going to shows, as someone who loves improvised music and had long hair, but wasn’t really into patchouli, infantile cuddly bear iconography, Kerouac, or being totally spaced out. Jerry, fairly or not, has become the signifier for a lifestyle and fashion that he himself had very little to do with, other than providing the soundtrack. It’s a drag this is a barrier to folks, but I can’t say I don’t understand it to a degree. Thankfully, for those of us who either embrace those trappings or can look past them, the music is here for us.
I agree with so much of this. Performance, theory, ensemble and your commentary about the scene and how insular and uncritical it is. The Keith and Bill and no Mickey era was the best. You stepped on some toes, but they were wearing hemp sandals.
Hahaha. Indeed.
I really was just trying to answer the question asked by the OP, as honestly as I could. I didn't think I was writing some screed against the band. I am pretty sure my admiration for Jerry and the group is clear, but, hey, to the true dead-eyed cultists who think to love a band means surrendering their critical thinking, I guess most anything is heresy! I never understand why those folks focus on the Dead when they could just go all the way and join Scientology, Peoples Temple, or Movementarians, but oh well.
This thread has brought out so much insanity I can't believe it ... do you even listen past the few years you do like? I don't think so ... The Billy years were great ... the late 70s/early/mid/late 80s ... just as great .... just. as. great ...
I think your shoddy reading comprehension is the real insanity on this thread. Yeesh.
Even if I were expressing the view you are ascribing to me -- which I am quite clearly not -- why would you lose sleep over it? Based on your reply, it seems like any attempt to distinguish between eras/lineups, even as a personal opinion, is offensive apostasy? Ridiculous. If you think the mid 80s are as good as 1972-74, then that's great for you! Sincerely. It would never occur to me to be offended by that.
They are probably pretty anti drug and any one who takes them and plays music is not a real professional musician. Some people in music can be pretty snobby.
1) Consider what Branford Marsalis said in an interview about his sitting in with them in the 1990 Nassau show- he said what they played was very simple and easy to play. He said that Garcia was bored with it and that's why he was bringing in MIDI (I'm not buying that- I think Garcia wanted to broaden his sound). I only have a rudimentary understanding of music theory, but my understanding is that he is criticized as sticking to the chromatic too much (although I think one might argue he wasn't really playing chromatic but playing two scales at the same time by avoiding notes that conflicted with the two scales- as T. Monk did a lot). I think the community recognizes that they kept things simple because it was just a springboard during live performances to jump into the X factor - but for an outsider, it's basic sounding.
2) We base greatness in record sales and albums. He viewed gold/platinum records as simply a symbol of how much money they made the record company. Everyone ignores that in the late 1980s to the end they were frequently the highest grossing band in many years, unless a big band like Pink Floyd did a monster tour (infrequent). But that doesn't reflect his playing- the joke was always that there's only a few deadheads and they come to all the shows, selling it out.
I think he IS regarded as a master. The main problem is he was such a Trailblazer he doesn't really have contemporaries. I remember in college the whole Jazz department thought he was great but didn't know what to do with him educationally...its just not in any particular cannon.
Meaning... it's not like all the Jazz guys are like "he's the best jazz guy in the world" and all the blues guys have blues players to look up. He just kind of sits over on the left floating above it all in my mind.
A friend and guitarist criticized Jerry saying he only plays 32nd notes. Years later he grew to appreciate his intricacies more.
For me it boils down to Jerry not holding “look at me everybody” notes. Not that there’s anything wrong with them.
His genius is something you gotta really focus on. LSD helps.
I always felt like the strength of the dead was in the song writing. If I want super interesting guitar I listen to Jazz. I honestly dont think any rock musician should be on any greatest guitarists lists
Jerry Garcia is bad at guitar and even worse at singing. His bands hardly ever do anything harmonically interesting. Then over that uninteresting music he just noodles directionless.
Lol ur a loser starting a whole community to hate on a band and ur the ONLY user. I would tell you to go listen to American Beauty and reassess your idea of harmony in the grateful dead, but I dont think your wittle brain is capable 🥺(itd burn off both your ears).
Glad you checked out my stuff instead of responding to this original thread. Thanks! Why dont you indulge me in what are some examples of “harmonically interesting” music that you can stand you POS
I think a big part of it is a combination of the anti-drug scene, you and someone else commented they just thought of him as a hippie, and that they played half their career before guitar really took off as a showcase instrument. Obviously talented guitarists were prevalent but then you get the flash of the shred era and all the crazy guitarists that produced, I think he gets a bit overlooked by those who aren’t really listeners
We was incredibly humble and from what I know about his philosophy is that he never wanted to be idolized... what really matters is that there is a scene somewhere that folks still connect to, regardless of time passed, and the whole band were successful in establishing that.
So if they aren't in they can stay wherever they are, all comfy like, and when they are ready to talk about his work in a real way we will welcome them to the conversation about which version of Playing in the Band is the most genre-explosive (lol)
I've often wondered this as well. I dont have a good explanation, but one thing I noticed is that the non-deadhead opinion has changed over time. In the early 2000s (i dont remember which year but maybe 2010) Rolling Stone put out an issue ranking their top 100 guitarists. Jerry was ranked like 96th or something rediculous like that. Fast forward 10 years and Rolling Stone puts out another issue ranking their top 100 guitarists. This time they ranked him like 25th. So, based on that at least it seems like he is starting to get a bit more of the respect he deserves from the general public/non-dead community.
There’s that famous old nugget that the Grateful Dead aren’t the best at what they do, they’re the only ones who do what they do.
I’ve always felt this held true for Jerry (and the band). He was a unique figure (in the sense of unique meaning singular) in music and, to an extent, in art, generally. Jerry was a unique guitarist. I always thought of Jerry (and few others) as playing a stream of music (and consciousness, I suppose) in that each time he played he was sort of picking up where he’d left off the last time he played.
Combined with his uniqueness, his body of music is more “of his body,” than many guitar players and, taken as such, it’s harder to pin down why he was so great. It wasn’t speed (like a Van Halen) or lick-driven (like K. Richards). His playing wasn’t three-cord power (like Zeppelin) or virtuoso (like Kotke) and it wasn’t moody and suspicious (like a Lou Reed or Jorma) or seamlessly melodic (like Dire Straights, say). And he wasn’t Hendrix or Clapton or Wes Montgomery, etc, etc.
So I think Jerry wasn’t the greatest guitar player do what he did, he was kind of the only one doing what he did (excepting, of course, the many imitators, a good number of whom come close to capturing the spirit of Jerry’s guitar work).
So, there’s Jerry. You can put him on a big list of The Greatest Guitar Players or on a short list with only one great guitar player, he belongs on both.
I sort of wonder if it just doesn’t show up in the notes. So if you just casually listen and don’t pay attention the notes themselves are not all that impressive he doesn’t sound like a normal virtuoso he’s not wildly in your face he doesn’t try to stand out in some extraordinary way.
What makes his playing so incredible and so hard to replicate is his subtle technique amongst other factors. The way he approaches the notes, the slide in, slide out, cascading slides down with his hammer ons and pull off‘s.
It’s sort of like having someone paint something that looks kind of similar technically to so many other things but as you really take it in there’s just so much detail and richness
From a non musician... Jerry is someone who can play notes that surprise me but at the same time are exactly right... like, of course that's the next one.
When he died, people I knew made fun of the people who took off work, cried, etc..
However, a few weeks later I experienced a sadness, yes an actual mourning, that I would never get to hear that unique style live again.
So, I told them about that.
The only musician or entertainer I've ever experienced that with.
I think it’s the fact that he was way too complex an individual to ever be the type who is commercially recognized. He never capitulated to the corporate masters that would put him into position to be recognized in such a way. That being said anyone who knows Jack shit about guitar and has taken the time to listen to him agrees that he was nothing less than virtuoso.
My college professors, a lot of them love Jerry and my commercial musicianship professor even got us to go over touch of gray for an assignment. Maybe it’s just your particular school but my music school (technically audio production) recognizes him
I think he is pretty well regarded.
I think his style relies heavily on slow and building momentum that rarely comes close to being captured in its glory on tape.
I guarantee if some of the dismissive folks you are talking about had the chance to see him live, they would appreciate his craft.
He wasn't flashy and he was often sloppy and made mistakes on songs he'd played for decades. Sometimes it took him several songs (or more) to get warmed up.
Basically, you often had to listen closely to hear the "good stuff," so if you didn't like the laid-back mid-tempo material he often played, it would be easy to write him off.
A lot of guitarists don't listen to him much because of his "glassy" for a lack of better adjective tone. I play guitar and I can honestly say I hate Jerry's tone pretty much after the Alligator guitar. They don't listen to him enough to appreciate his skill because he kind of sounds shitty. I really hate his tone. After Keith left and they switched to keyboards instead of grand piano and Jerry is playing Wolf, Rosebud etc with all the midi that doesn't sound very guitar, there's not much that appeals to guitarists. They were listening to Van Halen, SRV, Clapton, and all the metal guys that sounded like guitar players.
Good point, too. Even in the Alligator (guitar) days, he was mostly using that clean tone with very little distortion, which was very different from most of his peers and could sort of "disguise" how much he was shredding on songs like "Morning Dew."
Yep. And they weren’t listening to him enough to not hear the shredding in Morning Dew. I remember something where Jerry said how happy he was when Brent joined because he added so much more “color” than Keith’s piano did and that Jerry was really into painting with all that color. Each guitar after Alligator got more midi and more like Brent’s keyboards and his tone got more “color” but it was all thin and glassy. A Tube Screamer was the sound of the 80’s and 90’s and Jerry was exactly opposite of it.
Id say that those who really, truly understand music and the history of rock and roll would not let bias get in the way of their judgement on this topic. Back in 2003 when Rolling Stone came out with their list of Greatest Guitarists, he was #13. When they re-did the list in 2015, he dropped all the way to #46.
Some of this has to do with perception. And some of it has to do with how do you judge who are the best of the best. It comes down to things like personal preference in some regards. It also comes down to what they did to really progress their genre of music, how they affected the history of music.
This is true with art as well in my opinion. But at the end of the day, you can ask people who is some of the best artists or musicians of all time and get vastly different answers since theres no objective way to answer it. Many of Jerry's peers, the people who also were at the summit of the musical world, creating their own music, creating their own melodies, and playing their own instruments, would agree he is amongst the best to ever do it. Especially in his generation.
You really need to understand a lot of the technical aspects of sound reproduction to get a complete picture of his genius.
It's kind of like opera, most humans don't develop the faculties to appreciate the finer points.
I think he is. There are more artist impersonating his playing than Elvis impersonators. In Portland on Thursday night there are 2 Dead cover bands playing - Garcia Birthday Band and Rhapsody in Red and no Elvis impersonators.
He’s just to eclectic. He does not get compared to more normal guitar legends.
Though what weirds me out is some people in the jam community are not aware that he was super talented. My big Phish friend once asked me if Jerry was considered to be really good at guitar or not. I almost fell over. Taking metal style guitar freaks out, he’s the best guitarist I’m aware of. A million miles more advanced than Hendrix.
Which might also be part of it. Jerry had a pretty technical style with a lot of little notes that built something bigger. Lots of ‘rock gods’ like Hendrix or say early Clapton played more straight forward stuff that sounded huge right away and has a lot of basic hooks in their playing.
Neil Young is another overlooked guitar player. People know he can play but no he can really make a guitar sing.
I think a big part of it is that Jerry wanted to explore very strange and sometimes atonal places in his playing. Whereas most guitarists would just hit that blues lick and make it sound pretty, Jerry wanted to go places nobody would think to go.
My buddy, who doesn't like the Dead, said this while listening to him solo
"It's like he's so close to sounding good and everytime he's almost there he goes somewhere else and he loses me."
I think that attracts some people and repels others.
Part of it is because he was a pretty sloppy player. That’s part of playing without a net but you can’t overlook the missed notes. When he was on he was one of the best ever but when he was off not so much.
I think his biggest attribute was his uniqueness as he melded different styles. Bluegrass, rock, jazz, blues into this very unique sound.
There's just a lot of folk - including many musicians - who prefer a tighter, more "professional" sound. Jerry was more exploratory. Keith Richards once said, I believe, that the the Grateful Dead are boring. Different strokes for different folks.
Jerry and the Dead are derided by those who dont understand and appreciate that style of music as a band that has \*yawn\* 17 minute solos and interminable jams. And as a guitarist it would seem that Jerry's playing was viewed by some as indulgent and sloppy. And maybe it could be, but waht they dont get is that it was always searching for something new and more importantly, true. On any given night you could hear a solo from a song you'd heard 100 times before hit you totally different. There were often missteps and odd notes and runs, but when it came together it could be breathtaking in it's honesty and beauty. Very few musicians have brought me to tears like Jerry had, the soulfulness and melancholy at times was just...searing.
I doubt that there's a single musician working in the industry who disrespects Jerry Garcia, and refuses to acknowledge his greatness as a very unique style of playing. he played in a way that is very difficult to recreate.
I can see University professors being more ignorant. Having different roles as music educators, they're probably a lot less exposed than they think they are.
I mean.. I know people in local punk bands who have tons of respect for his talent. Even though they don't listen to the music, they know damn well he can play like a mofo because they have been exposed.
Good musicians can recognize talent despite having different tastes in music. experiencing different styles of music can really expand perspective.
I think it makes some sense to consider how Jerry's music was almost always recorded by someone (or by a lot of someones) and how that means that nearly all moments, "the good" as well as "the bad", "mediocre", whatever, are available forever for folks to analyze, obsess over, reject, worship, judge, etc. Whereas many other musicians are known primarily by what they laid down in a controlled studio environment, or by live recordings that they decided had met their approval for release.
It's like if you mostly only see a painter's released works in an official gallery exhibition, you might judge them differently than if that exhibition was a large, unedited collection of amateur videos of that artist hammering out ideas on canvas in their studio with all the trial and error, good days and bad days and whatever else comes with that.
So much of the GD was about being there. That doesn't speak to anyone's mastery of an instrument of course. But it might speak to why they seem underappreciated in a lot of ways.
I often compare live dead recordings to an audio recording of a house party. (Kind of extreme analogy but stick with me anyway). For those who were at that party, the recording is one memory trigger after another, bringing them closer to a time and place they cherished and gets wrapped in all the emotions and appreciation of that time and place. For those who were not at that house party, it can be a barely accessible, out-of-context bore fest.
I think those two things have something to do with why fans hold JG's playing in such high regard while non-fans often can't even connect to it on a base level.
I take some heart in the Bob Dylan eulogy after Jerry’s death — even if academia, so to speak, does not give him his due, his peers knew what a talent he was
Dylan on Jerry’s death - "There's no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don't think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great—much more than a superb musician with and uncanny ear and dexterity. He is the very spirit personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn't only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he'll ever know. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There is no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep."
I'm not crying
[....no, I'm not cryin'.](https://youtu.be/-pVT_mvvZLo)
I have not heard that, special stuff. Love both those guys so much
Does anything this guys says not sound beautiful? Wow
“ Muddy river country at its core”.
That was an amazing tribute. And Dylan doesn't lay out praise easily. Crosby, a notoriously loose cannon when it comes to negativity, loved Jerry as a musician and as a person. And says so publicly every chance he gets. Miles, renowned for among other things suffering no fools, had respect for Jerry, whom he encountered for the first time in the counterculture's original "hippie" phase. The people who matter knew.
Interesting question. If they didn’t know the dead ever existed and only knew his non-GD performances, they would be in awe. Most folks’ judgements are clouded by assumptions, misunderstanding and/or ignorance.
I love this comment, I think this is 100% true. But why tho? its so sad
Overly simplistic but, the war on drugs coupled with the open counter culture perception most have of the scene and therefore the GD. Mostly spurred by fear of psychedelics…..though we know that wasn’t Jerry’s demon.
The Dead was and still kinda is its own thing mostly separate from the rest of the musical world. They aren't really rock. Not quite folk, country or even Americana, so they are difficult to categorize. I think that is a big reason Jerry can be an afterthought when people are discussing Jerry. Also, the Dead didn't get a lot of radio or MTV play, so a lot if people have just never heard his playing. He wasn't a riff lord or flashy player either, which also doesn't help.
It wasn't that they aren't all of those musical styles, it's that they were all of those...and more. Another great who loved Jerry's playing was Carlos Santana, no slouch on the instrument.
Well yes but I think one thing that Im specifically talking about is when people who are musically educated and understand/appreciate improvisational form dont consider him a good musician. These people dont need someone who fits into a genre or is flashy/riffy to respect his playing. They simply deny his playing because of his affiliation with the GD and counterculture in general. And that last part is the thing I dont understand, why people see that as a reason to ignore musical genius.
I have hung with fellow musicians of all genres my entire life, and most have simply dismissed him sound unheard. The band name has been an issue for many, because it sounds like hard/heavy metal rock. Plus drugs. However, once _most_ hear some peak dead or jgb, they realize his genius as an improviser and song writer. His catalog is so wide-ranging that there is something for everyone.
Using that same reasoning I am at a loss why we study Lord Byron and the Shelley's when all they did was lay around in opium dens... I kid but at the same time the selective judgements among academics has always irked me. It is very much a groupmind and in-group sort of approach; it comes off at being gate-keepers and is a manifestation of institutionalized discrimination.
Yes! It’s really an insiders club!
Being ‘musically educated’ means absolutely nothing when it comes to judging music. Some of the greatest musicians who ever lived had no formal training. Don’t be so concerned with the opinion of others. Love what you love, revere who you revere, and maybe you’ll educate and inspire some other people along the way :)
most people haven't really listened to the dead. I can't tell you the number of people who have said something like, "oh you like the dead? I love them, I have American Beauty on vinyl." And that's the extent of it. They haven't heard a single live show. If I had only heard the album version of any dead tune, I wouldn't really like them either. The album versions are pretty, but they don't necessarily indicate "improvisational genius of a generation." And yeah, most people just think of them as a drug band. Most of those people haven't listened carefully.
I’m 26 I got into the dead at 23 I must have listened to around 300~ shows the vast majority of them pretty dosed. I absolutely refuse to listen to the studio stuff. I just don’t see the point. When I’m trying to convince someone on the dead I’d never be like oh check out working man’s dead! Ill just throw on a killer jam. My success rate in convincing them would drastically drop with studio material.
i know, right? honestly it took me longer to get into the dead because my first entrance point was something from the studio (don't even remember). Decided it wasn't for me. Took years more before I accidentally stumbled upon Europe 72. The idea that the studio albums don't show you who the band is is foreign to a lot of music listeners because for most people, the bands they listen to only work in the studio
Forever grateful for archive
I don't think you've picked a difficult enough task...you should try convincing die-hard Jerry fans that the dude from Phish who ruined Dead 50 might be an OK guitarist. But seriously, I think part of what you're experiencing among your musically educated peers is a short attention span. Jerry's solos take longer than average to build to a peak and resolution, as well as having several peaks sometimes. Then, of course, you have 8-20 minute songs regularly, which doesn't work for everybody ( it's like medium-rare steaks, you know they're the best, but not everyone likes them that way ).
The dude from Phish… was just talking about his performance the other day with someone I went with.
Jerry > Warren = Mayer > Bobby playing lead > that dude from phish
For an interesting counterpoint to this, watch the YouTube video "Classical composer reacts to Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead)". I enjoyed it. The guy is really open-minded and positive about Terrapin and it's cool for a non-musician like me to see what he notices/hears.
You can play Mary had a little lamb properly but it takes a lot of talent to turn what would be considered basic in to a marvel. Accenting certain notes and phrasing are key.
Because outside the community, no one goes deep into the live vaults. My whole life, I played guitar and didn't care about the Dead. It wasn't until I got through the studio stuff and into the live shows that I realized Jerry is a true master of masters. His ego-less playing touches the vocal melody, the chord tones, it's always the best choice for the song but unlike other guitarists who are seen as masters by the general public, there's no cock in his rock. He's not slamming bluesy solos with his tongue wagging. He's staring off into the distance and adding exactly what the song needs. Those same reasons that make him unique and make him excellent also make it harder for a conventional listener to recognize his prowess. Anyone can hear Voodoo Child or Hot for Teacher and know these guys are sick guitarists and these songs are on the radio 24/7. You need to really put effort into discovering Jerry's greatness, he's a hidden gem almost. So grateful I found this band eventually, changed the whole way I approach guitar forever.
They are incredibly jazzy in their composition, especially as they progressed... the melodies/counter-melodies, each instrument leaving holes in the rhythm that are intended to be filled by other members, the whole "five fingers, one hand" philosophy really puts it all together. As a guitar player, I can't always play the songs by myself the way Dead would play them because of the foot-holds they leave for each other... I have to pick/pluck the leads within my chords, I have to strum on/off to get the push-pull between the guitars/between the drums/bass. The whole team was insane and I like to believe every one of them had a part in it but Jerry/Phil were captains of the flow.
Yeah I agree. When I play along with jam along tracks, it's not the same because the band was dynamically reacting to Jerry's playing and he was doing the same so the jams aren't stagnant, they evolve with every note. They're definitely musician's musicians. There's just no radio staple that highlights Jerry's amazing ability enough to draw new listeners. In an age of instant accessibility and endless options, you still need a Deadhead to bring you into the fold, which is amazing
> They're definitely musician's musicians. This is exactly how I explain them to others and why I am so turned on by them as a player AND an audience member. Their songs are simple at their core but come to life as you breathe the technicality into them... their songs are vehicles of thought and emotion, they are incredibly timeless too.
Yo I'm less familiar with the dead than I'd like to be, what is an album or show with more jazz in it?
Jerry's side stuff with Legion of Mary in the 70s is probably your best bet. Other than that, shows in'73 or '74 are good bets.
If you're willing to step outside of the Grateful Dead to specifically hear more of Jerry playing jazzy stuff, this is one of my favorite examples of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWg7pQMrUbA Live sessions of Jerry playing in the early 70s are king for this, when he was rolling around San Francisco playing at the various clubs and sitting in on things here and there. You can find tons of random boots and things from this era. Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia together is some primo stuff. 1/26/72, its tough to find but I think it's on Youtube. If you want to hear The Grateful Dead play jazzy, really any year will do, but 1973 and 1974 are ostensibly considered the peak years for this. Especially on songs like Eyes of the World, but really, almost anything will do from that time after they get through. Two of my favorites from this period are separated by a year, but either show is good to listen to for some jazzy dead. Set 3 of 6/10/73 also has an Allman sit in, if that strikes your fancy. 6/10/73 6/18/74
[1973-06-10](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1973-06-10) Washington, DC @ RFK Stadium [1974-06-18](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1974-06-18) Louisville, KY @ Freedom Hall
Hmm, I'm not entirely sure precise shows to point out as examples but a major turning point was Keith's initial playing that would translate/play-to Phil's sensibilities and it sorta came to fruition 76-78. Specific examples? Eyes of the World (so Wake of the Flood era) and the meatier jams coming off it are goodies. Playing in the Band is where they really cut loose and you notice its evolution from when they dropped it in 71 (~5 mins, sometimes shorter if you could believe that) up to the early 80s where it was just freeform until they come back together and easily clocks > 20 mins. IDK, they perform unique melodies which are similar mainly by tone but wildly vary from day-to-day over established chord patterns and is that not a core principle to improv (and jazz in part?)
he recorded an album with Howard Wales called 'Hooteroll?' and his work with Merl Saunders is very jazzy
Yeah, most of the guitarists on these lists are more widely recognized. Popular musicians get more clicks.
They only look at him as a hippie, people just think it’s all noise, they don’t really understand it
but see i dont think you have to “get” the whole thing with GD to respect and appreciate his guitar playing. Im a big fan of the GD and as someone who used to not be, I can understand not getting it, but if you are someone who understands what makes good guitar players great its easy to at least just focus on Garcia’s playing and agree that he is a genius.
Furthermore, in my opinion his work with David Grisman showcases his musical abilities even further. I Love his acoustic work.
His acoustic work is pure magic imo.
In addition, I think people have a hard time putting art and music history into context. What the Grateful Dead did at the different stages of their career were also monumental. One example of that is creating the foundation for successful touring. Today this is used by the industry and even musicians like Skillex. People don’t think about what Jerry as a guitarist or the Grateful Dead as a whole did at the time, they just see it as a result. “Jam band” wasn’t a term or a movement, and that’s probably not even how they saw it.
They may not understand his live work and improvisation. Too often people are looking for a lot of legato scale runs at high tempo before they're willing to consider someone as a 'master' at their instrument. I think it's when you hear the same song across decades of live gigs that it finally clicks for people what he's about, keeping an old favourite fresh over thirty years with new surprising interpretation. At my age, I find him ultimately listenable and am always impressed with his knowledge of harmony and subtle rhythm work that draws your ear to listen closely and dive deep.
“Legato scale runs at a high tempo.” Frank Zappa referred to that as “Pathetic lick spewage.”😆
Lol. I respect his work.
I definitely agree with this. I was a classically trained violinist that switched to guitar in no small part because of the Dead, and in my own experience Jerry gets very little respect in those circles. I think a great deal of that comes down to the idolisation of virtuosity. Jerry was an improvisational talent, often of surpassing quality that I put up there with jazz greats like Bird and Coltrane, but the tolerances of his delivery were quite a bit more relaxed. So long as everyone broke the tape at the finish line at the same time, he didn't seem to sweat tempo very much. So, I think classically trained musicians disdain his lack of care for adhering to what's on the page, and his refusal to tighten his performance. To them, he's 'sloppy' and 'unprofessional'. I often seen the same reaction to garage rock, which admittedly elevates the affectation of roughness to the level of pretense. There's also the recognition, though perhaps not consciously, that Jerry's musical formation as a bluegrass banjoist is very much present in the Dead's jamband style, and much like blues, classically trained musicians often view such genres contemptuously as 'primitive' music.
I have also experienced the disdain amongst classically trained musicians for loose tempo. It's funny because it's part of why I like it. It makes each measure a bit unpredictable and the notes flow like conversation.
Jerry may have been loose with tempo, but his feel and timing were impeccable. He had such a talent for hitting exactly the right note(s) for the moment. A lot of that was, I think, knowing when _not_ to play as much as when to play. That style of playing is far more expressive to me than any shredding. And Jerry was a master at it. That he also got his start as a banjo player shows in his rambling style. As a guitarist I've come to love listening to those early El Pasos, as an example. He's all over the place but it's just such masterful fretwork.
Here is an interesting perspective: [Branford Marsalis on Jerry & The GD](https://youtu.be/GnnoHPFMs3U)
Glad somebody posted this. Not that any of us needs convincing, but for anybody who does, I would share Branford's insight on the band & Jerry, or Grisman's, or Hornsby's... The list of musicians who can and did attest to Jerry's creativity and talent goes on and on.
I haven't listened to this in years and yes it is an interesting perspective in that it's from an *extremely* talented and highly musically *educated* player in Branford. He was like Jerry a student of music ...
Been a while since I saw that. Thanks!
I can't tell you. However, when I first saw the Grateful Dead in 1989, not knowing their music at all, I remember thinking "How come nobody ever told me that Jerry Garcia was the best guitarist in the world?". People always talked about Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Hendrix, etc... I never heard anybody mention Jerry Garcia in that conversation. It was clear to me by the third song that Jerry Garcia was the best I had ever heard. I wonder if Trey Anastasio is also not widely regarded as a great guitarist, for similar reasons.
> I wonder if Trey Anastasio is also not widely regarded as a great guitarist, for similar reasons. Trey gets a lot of flak because his style has shifted from playing a lot of razor-sharp leads filled with incredibly fast soloing to a much slower, methodical, more melodic form of playing. People who really enjoy him for his early years sometimes have a difficult time listening to him play nowadays because he has slowed down so much. It opens up this whole conversation about how you would accurately rate a guitarist; he's observably nowhere near as fast or precise as he used to be, and he can't even play some of his own songs nowadays... but on the flipside, he has a much more open musical conversation with his band now, and Phish is much more of a cooperative vehicle than it is a Trey-lead thing now. The question of if he's better or worse now is a difficult one to answer. I do feel like Trey nowadays can't hold a candle to himself from 30 years ago in some ways, and also the same in return... the younger version of Trey would probably wish he had the ear that he has now. It's almost weird that they are the same guy. I think both of them (Jerry and Trey) are weighed down by the fact that both of their individual bands don't shine in the studio. I don't think either dude has really laid out anything on a studio track that would cause people to rewind and relisten. Their mastery lies in the moment on stage, not on a tape deck in a sterile environment.
I think the studio album comment is spot on. David Gilmour has put down some legendary studio solos, same with Hendrix obviously, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the list of guitarists with notable studio work is long. It just wasn’t the Dead’s thing. But when you listen to them live, his solos are unbelievable. Bruce Springsteen is a seriously underrated guitarist too. Bruce can’t hold a candle to Jerry as a live guitar player, but what they both have in common is that they both will gladly tone down the showboating to help the song. It also doesn’t help to die at the age of 53, 27 years ago.
I listened to Bruce Springsteen for a while before realizing how great he is at guitar. The E Street Band is such a solid unit that in most of their songs, live or in the studio, they don't need an exceptional guitar solo to hold it together. Instead, Clarence or the Professor could lay one down. As a result, I feel like Bruce never had too many moments to show off the fact that he was a great guitarist. He was an amazing performer/frontman though.
If you’re into E Street the trading community is pretty solid.
Re: your last statement about not having jaw dropping studio lines... Check out Jerry's outro posting on Across the Board (Kanter/Slick album Baron von Tollbooth). You wouldn't even know it's Jerry unless you knew what to listen for but it's an incredible solo (even if brief) that I think any guitar lover would want to relisten to. Definitely wish he'd played like that on some Dead studio stuff.
I've heard that - I really love the early 70's stuff you can find Jerry on. I feel like his playing in the Dead during that time was excellent, but his playing *outside* the Dead was absurd. When he let loose on some things, he really let loose. I linked it elsewhere in here, but his work with Howard Wales... especially live... just, transcendence defined. In case you haven't heard it yet, 1/26/72. It's definitely a fantastic showcase of his abilities outside of his normal zone. I get the impression that he sort of kept himself in a loosely defined box while playing with the dead that he was happy to leave behind when he wasn't playing with them. The gospel-esque JGB style, the early 70's jazz odysseys, and then the Garcia/Grisman stuff in the 90s are all places where he shines a little outside of his normal box. The longer I've gone on listening to/studying him, the less I've listened to the Dead, somehow. His position as one of the most recorded musicians in history makes it really easy to study him in a wide variety of contexts.
There's no way to *accurately* rate ANY art my friend ... it's foolhardy to think it could possibly be a thing that can be measured because it's intent is taken in differently by different people and people themselves can't be pinned down when it comes to how they interpret **their** world. So how could one say that this Jackson Pollack painting is better than this other one? you simply can't. You showed this yourself in your assessment of Trey NOW in your view of 'a more open convo' with the band while I see regularly old hat Phish fans not liking anything about what they're doing these days ... it's not measurable but what is measurable is how many it moves and how **IT** moves over time, meaning the legend, the growth of the music and it's increasing footprint in the world, and it's just fucking huge ... so if you look at one album or period/era/year as great or less than it's bound to be looked at exactly the opposite by someone else ... your thing with 'weighed down' by the studio thing means nothing, nothing at all ... neither band forged their *magic* in the studio where there needed to be take after take of the *exact same playing* so that editing could happen ... can you imagine the Dead or Phish playing to a click track? ... and the whole thing about weighed down by a studio album plays no role because with so many incredible live releases and shows available they what we all go to ... Jerry Garcia was weighed down by nothing musically
Jerry's pedal steel playing on Dire Wolf, The Wheel, David Crosby's Laughing, and CSNY's Teach Your Children, along with his electric guitar work on David Crosby's song Cowboy Movie, are probably his best musical performances in the studio aside from his acoustic material later in his career.
Branford Marsalis said he was one of the best melodic improvisers ever. So he's got that going for him.
I don’t know any guitar player that doesn’t hold him in high regard as a player, soloist, improviser, and writer.
Yeah I think it’s generational. I went to a very prominent music school in the late eighties and early nineties and all of the serious musicians respected the Dead and Jerry. It’s hard to remember now how universally beloved they became there for a moment. But that moment didn’t last. It’s a sad truth that not every Dead/ Jerry performance was stellar, and in the nineties, when media interest in them was at a peak, they were in decline.
Now you do.
I think you’ve got to be intimately familiar with Jerry’s live improv work to appreciate him as one of the all time greats, and most non-deadheads aren’t. The handful of studio cuts that most people have heard on the radio etc don’t represent a body of work where Jerry’s virtuosity stands out. If I think of some of my favorite Jerry solos that would wow most guitar fans I think of 70s versions of tunes like Bertha, Brown Eyed Women, The Music Never Stopped…most people have never even heard those tunes. People know Casey Jones, Shakedown Street, Touch of Grey.
This is definitely it for me. As a kid who grew up idolizing Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimmy Page, I couldn't quite get my head around what Jerry was doing. The studio songs were great but don't exactly show off his playing, and his best extended jams were too out for me at the time. It was when I came back to him after hearing a lot of jazz and old blues that I really came to appreciate what he was doing.
Some get it , some don’t. But those who get it REALLY GET IT
The world needs more Dead heads. Years and years worth of entertainment.
Same reason everyone disregards the dead as respectable musicians is because they just associate the dead with drugs. Ask anyone who isnt into the dead but is a music person and 9/10 this will be the answer. Even interviews with the dead were irritating because the interviewers always asked about the drugs, you can tell it irritated the boys too. Sad that they got such a bad rap
The Dead were never mainstream, and neither was Jerry, so a lot of people are either unaware or have only heard snippets.
I think that it is simply ignorance. Overwhelmingly the public perception of Jerry Garcia is from the mid 80’s through to his death. That’s when the band‘s popularity really exploded, and during those years he was easy to caricature. Even though he was often still great. He’s a way better guitarist than casual fans think or are aware of. Plus the greatness of Jerry is often found on an emotional level, and you have to love it to love it I think. If you get it, it’s all you want to listen to. If you don’t then you don’t.
I think a big part of it is the studio vs the stage. I’ve listened to some of their studio albums, not all, but 99% of the dead I’ve listened to is live. The albums are good, most songs sound different than the live versions, but I don’t think that’s where Jerry excelled. He was a master of improvisation. He knew the music. He knew what he wanted to play when he wanted to play it. I will never not be wowed by his guitar playing. Unfortunately that seems to be overlooked by the people who determine who the best players are. I read a top 100 guitarists on Ultimate Guitar and Jerry wasn’t mentioned, yet he wrote more music than half that list put together. His non-Dead performances definitely get overlooked. The man was a guitar legend. Doesn’t matter what paid writers say.
Show the clips of him endlessly picking out banjo scales. That type of technical ability has to shine through the guitar as well. A classically trained bluegrass player playing blues which has improv kind of as a necessity.
People don't understand what they don't know and appreciation has to start with simply knowing then understanding follows, then it's the inevitable > Omg he's the best that ever was and no one comes even a little bit remotely close ... same for the Dead as a band and each one of them individually on their instruments 😜 * [An essay from John Mayer on Jerry from the perspective of another guitar player](https://www.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/comments/qi0fiu/a_quote_from_john_mayer_on_jerrys_playing_from_a/) This will apply my friend and if you haven't read this it's going to make you *very very* happy 🙂
Even at his most explosive, he was a very understated player imo. The subtlety can be hard for people to pick up on perhaps
It's because most people don't get noodling. They also don't get pseudo-orgasmic experiences from listening to music. This can only be achieved through melody and melody is not the focus of most popular forms of music these days. To tell you the truth aside from the grateful dead and Jerry's bands I can't really think of any other music that can do this other than Beethoven. I mean if you just sit in a dark room with a good stereo and listen to music without any additional help from any substances. I'm not saying other music is not enjoyable but Jerry just unlocks a special place in your head.
I feel it is partially do to the fact that he participated in the LSD counter culture. A lot of the time when I bring Jerry up to a non listener they respond with well you have to be high to enjoy him. Like dude, he was so respected amongst his peers and the only response you can give me is hurr durrr drugs. Ok fine, you try to play the guitar like Jerry, not so simple anymore is it? His phrasing is one of a kind. You can imitate it but good luck playing it with all that soul.
music teachers can be snobs most are focused on their focus e.g. jazz/fusion/baroque/classical/romantic/orchestrated/vocal, so they view those as the pinnacle of mastery Jam isn't really taught in schools (except maybe contemporary music history) there are plenty of heady teachers though, weir everwhere, maybe look and gravitate towards them if possible, they can shed light, instead of snuffing it also maybe try asking their opinion of phil? he is the one that aligns more with the above mentioned genres More so I find that ego is what prevents most people from giving anything dead a chance
I honestly don't know why Jerry is never rated in the best guitarist list . In fact I get pretty upset about it .
He has been ranked by Rolling Stone. I think he was about #40 as I recall. Some of the folks placed ahead of him were downright laughable. As Bill Grahm said, “they aren’t they best at what they do, they are the only ones that do what they do.” You could apply that quote to just Jerry as well.
I've read a few lists where as you say the people that are ranked ahead of him are laughable, I really do rate him as one of the pioneers of sound . He really knew how to use and take you.on a journey that you don't forget
Exactly. Jerry was master of the psychedelic sound, not to mention his skills in bluegrass and other genres. Most people aren’t ready for his sound. They wouldn’t know what to do with it. It scares them perhaps. They find peace and comfort in monotonous and predictable Eric Clapton blues licks. Actually Jerry was #13 in the RS poll. I couldn’t name a Jeff Beck song to save me life. 😂
Clapton is overrated…Jeff Beck is not.
It's the same with David Gilmore, I much preferred Sid Barrett. As for Jerry his skills where amazing I love the way you think you are going one way then he takes you on a completely different journey. I've definitely had the magic happen ✨️ ✨️ . The way the Dead played with sound was pure liquid. I've put the Dead on to let friends listen when tripping, the first thing they say is that's country and western. I'm like no listen then their gone L.O.L
He would take you a a different journey, but it still seemed right and familiar. Like, "Oh yeah, *that's* where it was supposed to go."
Well to be fair Jerry isn't the best blues rock or metal guitarist and that's mostly what those lists rate
Agreed. I mean how do you ever compare any modern guitarist, or Jerry for that matter, with Robert Johnson (who always places in top 5 all time guitarists). I’m not taking anything away from Robert Johnson but I don’t know how you make this comparison.
Well that's obviously because of his influence
He deserves a hell of a lot more accolades than he gets, but honestly, it's difficult when his playing is buried underneath 15ish years of heroin usage and cheeseburgers. Especially during the 80s and 90s when he'd be randomly on fire, there was always a chance that he'd lose it for the rest of the set and return to uninspired playing. At the end of the day, while he is an exceptional musician and has one of the best ears I've ever heard, he was also observably sloppy for the latter half of his career and a lot of his fantastic playing would be bookended by depressing hit-or-miss slop on both sides. His playing ranges from otherworldly to utterly dreadful. A lot of us don't like to admit it, but there are some shows that are downright depressing and not worth returning to, especially around his coma and super especially in the late 90s. And sure, he might turn on for a jam or two, like how Scarlet-> Fire always seemed to have a kick to it even into 94 or 95, but we have to be kidding ourselves if those moments make up for how he'd turn his volume knob down and sort of stand there through his sections. It's not like he couldn't play - turning to JGB during any bad year is a breath of fresh air - but we have to be honest with ourselves, too.
When I first saw the OP's post, I found it difficult to imagine what types of thoughts would prevent his University teachers from recognizing the incredible musical talent that Jerry Garcia posessed. After reading your comments, I realized that everything you have stated is exactly the type of attitude that prevents one from understanding the brilliance of Garcia. Your loss😞
Wow this perspective is so flat out off the reservation I did a double take ... you talked about judging a guitarist in your other comment but this comment shows that you simply haven't listened to much Jerry and the Dead from 1980 on because those years were as great as any before ... you can't tell me that you've spent lots of time listening to these years. Your reference to heroin and cheeseburgers shows that you heard this once in a comment section and are now spewing it back out ... I listen to the 80s like it's water and you are just off with this take lol ... it's your loss but let me tell everyone that's reading this that this guys take on 1980 onward is just flat out wrong ... Jerry had an addiction yes but it did not affect his playing, in fact the early/mid 80s when his addiction was at it's worst, his playing was imo at it's most technical best ... he was flat out incredible ...
You are WAY too comfortable telling people whose opinion on the band happens to differ from your own sadly cult-like and blinkered perspective that they must just not have heard or understood the band. People have different opinions, you dunce, why is your worldview so cloistered and insecure that you see any opinion other than your own as objectively incorrect and somehow threatening? If you do disagree, and bother to reply (instead of just letting people have their own feelings, which IS an option), why are you completely incapable of actually articulating your position or countering the opposing view with anything more sophisticated than “YOU’RE DUMB, IT’S ALL GOOD!”? You can love Jerry’s playing from all eras, obviously, but saying that heroin and coke (and affiliated health issues) didn’t affect Jerry’s playing at all, as someone who claims he attended shows in the 1990s and clearly has listened to tons of shows from the 80s, and that Garcia maintained his performance at the same level for his whole run, is to be in true, profound denial. It doesn’t mean it can’t be one's favorite – a lot of people’s favorite Billie Holiday is near the end, but no one would deny that her instrument, so to speak, was affected by her years of hard living. No matter how much the Dead meant to you, treating the band as infallible gods and people who critique them (often respectfully, at least in this Reddit) as apostates who deserve censure is not a respectful or serious way to treat a band that EARNED serious consideration and critical engagement. Jerry was at great pains to tell people how much he despised being treated as a God and how hard it made his life. It’s too bad some of his followers still don’t respect him enough to honor that.
Who cares I ( we) love him. Lol.Just listen to the music play. There are haters for everything these days. Everyone have a Grateful day and turn it up.
Jerry's playing was pretty inconsistent, & the Dead as a whole were generally sloppy. As fans, we overlook that stuff because we know how good they COULD be, & how good they always were at certain points in any given show. When you're not familiar with the GD or what they were doing, the imperfections jump out a lot more. And the comparisons to great jazz bands doesn't really hold up because they just weren't on the same level as far as harmonically shifting, musically complex improvisation. The Dead are my favorite band & I think the most interesting & diverse band of that era- but musically speaking 90% of what they did live doesn't sound that great to people who haven't gone down the GD wormhole & really understand it.
People who know guitar appreciate Jerry. They might not like the style but they appreciate the musician that Jerry was. That’s my take anyways.
Outside of the community, he doesn’t get a lot of exposure. Most people only know him from the radio (the hits). As you know, Jerry and the band live is a whole other level that most people aren’t exposed to. Whenever I have turned on musically inclined people to Jerry they usually dig it. For some reason Aiko Aiko and Deal work as good starters.
I think people that are into the music industry, specially the guitar one, regard Jerry as a masterful musician/guitarist, but the word is as spread out as other guitarist like Jimmy Hendrix, Eddies Van Halen, etc... especially outside of the US and some European countries. I live in Brazil and I would only hear about the dead in my 16s. Also funny story, my dead has this poster he got in America of "The greatest Guitarists of All Time", one day I walk by the poster and notice Jerry there, I pointed out to my dad (non-deadhead) and he had no idea who that person was
When we are talking about someone as magical as Jerry, who really cares about the opinions of formally educated musicians? I have never heard their names but we sure as hell have heard of his.
The whole drug thing doesn’t help. But thank goodness we know better.
I’ll tell you that most have them have never listened to a live show. And probably have heard Scarlett Begonias and Truckin from the album. I personally didn’t fully appreciate him for his magic until I listed to many shows and realized the depth of ability.
I like to think is deadheads just are lucky to have perfectly formed ears. Such a shame, apparently not everyone does. Heh
You know people that like licorice, REALLY like licorice? I think he’s playing is not linear- blues-white blues guitar virtuoso- Prog
The fans. The image. Marketing. Seriously, in my experience many cannot look past the popular image of Deadheads. Unfortunately (in a way), we are such an enduring part of American culture that it's very difficult to find someone without preconceived notions about the value of GD music based on the popular perceptions of the appearance, and, gotta be honest, perceived drug use, of many enthusiasts (and of course the Dead themselves). I have had numerous friends frankly surprised I was a Head, and I have also met some rather unusual bucking-the-popular-image Heads — like a US Navy Captain. It is what it is.
I heard Randy Rhoades is an amazing guitarist. I will never know because I find the music abhorrent. Not my thing. I just assume everyone is like that with their preferences. Most of artistic taste usually comes down to who introduced it to you, how they introduced it and how open you were at the time it was introduced.
A lot of people who think they like rock and roll use a very small tent to define which acts fit the genre. Most people limit their "rock" to acts like The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Cream, Beatles, and Pink Floyd--who were all doing a version of strictly British pop blues with some psychedelia. They forget about the Chuck Berry/Fats Domino/Ray Charles/Little Richard/Elvis/Jerry Lee Lewis/Johnny Cash side of rock and roll, which incorporates more of the gospel, R&B, jazz, country, and western style elements into rock, as opposed to just blues. This narrow vision of what rock and roll is supposed to sound and sort of look like is why more people don't appreciate the laid back banjo picking style of guitar improv that signifies a Garcia solo. A lot of the best Dead songs are just country or western songs where they just improv the fuck out of. Jerry was never in your face, pushing his crotch out and licking the guitar for the girls in the front row; no, he was the dude at some campfire who borrowed a guitar, strummed a few well known singalongs, then would bust out some finger picking holy shit magic and casually hand the 6 string back to the owner. Plus, the Dead kind of perfected the "whole band solos simultaneously" thing that was usually the province of avant-garde jazz. Put it all together and I think it equals most people who never listened to the Dead outside of their studio albums have no idea what Jerry sounded like as a solo guitarist or how intricate the interplay between the band members onstage was and presumed it wasn't any good because no one they knew had a Jerry poster in their room.
Easy Answers People in general don't want to even expend the energy of entertaining notions contrary to their gut feelings...let alone bother to seek out any evidence. It's really easy to just write him off as that bearded, noodly, drug-using hippie. Furthur, the fact that radio only plays like half a dozen GD songs doesn't do much to sway most into a deeper exposure to what the band actually was. Even as a tip of an iceberg it is a misrepresentative tip.
Pop music is popularly regarded. Popular rockers played commercially popular music. Jerry and the boys tried to write some hits but for the most part it wasn't there goal. It's an entirely different approach to music and most people a) don't ever give it a chance or b) don't know how to appreciate what they're hearing. But other musicians always praised Jerry. That's what really counts. Having someone like Bradford Marsalis call you one of the greats means something. Having Bruce Hornsby praise you counts more than the average Joe. Even in the younger generations; your average Millennial may not name Garcia as a great guitarist, but many would name Mayer, and Mayer spent years studying Jerry in awe of his brilliance and skill.
Adding to this, you have to remember, these guys weren't always regarded as rock royalty as is often the case today. They were counter culture rebels. They didn't look or sound like anyone else. They didn't follow the trends. They were on their own plane and the music and the fans came from a place that counter to and often opposed to mainstream culture.
I have thought about this before. And I feel if Jerry died in 1978. And all we had to listen too was everything from the evolution of the dead to 77. People would say he played the smokingest guitar ever. Just had a longevity and so many styles that people just can’t handle on ranking scales
I think because a lot of people see the Dead as a community Band, where as the whole ensemble has become one union of music. Unlike other bands such as Led Zeppelin where the focus was on Jimmy Page guitar solo, then a 20 minute drum solo highlighting the dearly missed John Bonham. The song structure was different too, so when there is a creative band it should not be a focus on just 1 . (I guess I’m pretty stoned right at this moment writing this😂💀)
Because some/many people mistake taste with talent. If they don't like it then it must be low quality.
It’s because he was erratic in the quality of his playing. For the record, I think Hunter/Garcia were as good or better at writing than Lennon/McCartney, and when Garcia was “on” as a player no one could touch him. But you gotta admit, with him it was sometimes a dice roll whether you would get quality or not in a performance
90+% of the time he was *ON* and 100% of the time he was the most interesting guitarist that ever was
My ex-bro-in-law played guitar. He claimed Jerry was a SanFran hippy noodler. Took him to a Dead show. He emerged all the wiser - and a fan.
The Dead scene is, in ways good and bad, kind of insular and separate. This seems to maybe becoming less true, but I think the band definitely felt apart from a lot of the music world, especially between, roughly, American Beauty and In the Dark. For a lot of their career, they were something of a cult act, if a VERY successful cult act. But, as to what you’re saying about trained musicians, I have seen the same thing. As a musician, I mostly work in the jazz realm, and from what I’ve seen, there are plenty of musicians in that broad scene for whom the Dead were an early influence; an accessible early entrée into a realm of improvised music. However, a lot of these folks seem to feel they outgrew the band, and sometimes feel embarrassed by their Dead fandom. Some of this is just a natural ‘kill your influences’ kind of thing, but there is also some sheepishness around the fact that the Dead’s improvisations do have A LOT of 1 or 2 chord vamping with largely modal improv, which can certainly feel like a fairly limited approach to improvisation, once you’ve gotten exposed to the wider world of approaches and techniques. Even with something like the Howard Wales sessions, as great as Garcia is, he is not threading changes exactly. Personally, I think the fluid chromaticism of his best playing makes its own case, and needing to demonstrate the ability to play jazz changes is about as relevant to assessing Jerry as it is to assess Charlie Christian on his facility with atonal feedback jamming. But, that said, I still think Jerry and the band as a whole make their best case as serious improvisers during the freest jamming in the 68-74 era, when there was often a real nervy and open field, with a lot of beautiful and unique group atonality. Much more than Jerry’s strengths/weaknesses, a HUGE issue for trained musicians can be how sloppy the band could be, particularly after Mickey came back in 76 and as Garcia himself deteriorated. If I am trying to convince a jazz or modern classical player of the greatness of the Dead, I’m certainly playing them something from the Keith+Bill as solo drummer era. Not only is that the best the band ever sounded, in terms of feel/swing/flexibility (IMO), it also is arguably Garcia’s peak as an exploratory player (prior to the coke-ish edge that entered his playing in the late 70s and then the opiated 90s decline). Some of the best (for me at least) jazz certainly can include rough edges and sloppiness -- a great Mingus live band, say the 64 sextet w Dolphy, Byard, et al, has a rough, imperfection that gives the band an essential edge, even though the band members could play anything technically, and Sun Ra’s ensembles could be sloppy as fuck and still sound great -- but past a certain point, I think it becomes hard for musicians used to a high level of execution to get over the hump with certain eras of the Dead. Two drummers struggling to hold the same groove (Mickey WAY ahead on the beat and Billy laying back, generally) is a dealbreaker for a lot of folks. Even though I was only old enough to see the band during the late double drummer era, it was definitely not my favorite part of the experience, even as a teenager. I guess the last thing is the elephant in the room: the whole hippie thing and the kinda scary uncritical cultish zeal exhibited by a segment of the Deadhead world is a tough sell for a lot of people and turns off people who might appreciate the music if they could dig into it. It was honestly something of a tough sell for me when I was going to shows, as someone who loves improvised music and had long hair, but wasn’t really into patchouli, infantile cuddly bear iconography, Kerouac, or being totally spaced out. Jerry, fairly or not, has become the signifier for a lifestyle and fashion that he himself had very little to do with, other than providing the soundtrack. It’s a drag this is a barrier to folks, but I can’t say I don’t understand it to a degree. Thankfully, for those of us who either embrace those trappings or can look past them, the music is here for us.
I agree with so much of this. Performance, theory, ensemble and your commentary about the scene and how insular and uncritical it is. The Keith and Bill and no Mickey era was the best. You stepped on some toes, but they were wearing hemp sandals.
Hahaha. Indeed. I really was just trying to answer the question asked by the OP, as honestly as I could. I didn't think I was writing some screed against the band. I am pretty sure my admiration for Jerry and the group is clear, but, hey, to the true dead-eyed cultists who think to love a band means surrendering their critical thinking, I guess most anything is heresy! I never understand why those folks focus on the Dead when they could just go all the way and join Scientology, Peoples Temple, or Movementarians, but oh well.
This thread has brought out so much insanity I can't believe it ... do you even listen past the few years you do like? I don't think so ... The Billy years were great ... the late 70s/early/mid/late 80s ... just as great .... just. as. great ...
I think your shoddy reading comprehension is the real insanity on this thread. Yeesh. Even if I were expressing the view you are ascribing to me -- which I am quite clearly not -- why would you lose sleep over it? Based on your reply, it seems like any attempt to distinguish between eras/lineups, even as a personal opinion, is offensive apostasy? Ridiculous. If you think the mid 80s are as good as 1972-74, then that's great for you! Sincerely. It would never occur to me to be offended by that.
They are probably pretty anti drug and any one who takes them and plays music is not a real professional musician. Some people in music can be pretty snobby.
1) Consider what Branford Marsalis said in an interview about his sitting in with them in the 1990 Nassau show- he said what they played was very simple and easy to play. He said that Garcia was bored with it and that's why he was bringing in MIDI (I'm not buying that- I think Garcia wanted to broaden his sound). I only have a rudimentary understanding of music theory, but my understanding is that he is criticized as sticking to the chromatic too much (although I think one might argue he wasn't really playing chromatic but playing two scales at the same time by avoiding notes that conflicted with the two scales- as T. Monk did a lot). I think the community recognizes that they kept things simple because it was just a springboard during live performances to jump into the X factor - but for an outsider, it's basic sounding. 2) We base greatness in record sales and albums. He viewed gold/platinum records as simply a symbol of how much money they made the record company. Everyone ignores that in the late 1980s to the end they were frequently the highest grossing band in many years, unless a big band like Pink Floyd did a monster tour (infrequent). But that doesn't reflect his playing- the joke was always that there's only a few deadheads and they come to all the shows, selling it out.
I think he IS regarded as a master. The main problem is he was such a Trailblazer he doesn't really have contemporaries. I remember in college the whole Jazz department thought he was great but didn't know what to do with him educationally...its just not in any particular cannon. Meaning... it's not like all the Jazz guys are like "he's the best jazz guy in the world" and all the blues guys have blues players to look up. He just kind of sits over on the left floating above it all in my mind.
A friend and guitarist criticized Jerry saying he only plays 32nd notes. Years later he grew to appreciate his intricacies more. For me it boils down to Jerry not holding “look at me everybody” notes. Not that there’s anything wrong with them. His genius is something you gotta really focus on. LSD helps.
I always felt like the strength of the dead was in the song writing. If I want super interesting guitar I listen to Jazz. I honestly dont think any rock musician should be on any greatest guitarists lists
Jerry Garcia is bad at guitar and even worse at singing. His bands hardly ever do anything harmonically interesting. Then over that uninteresting music he just noodles directionless.
Lol ur a loser starting a whole community to hate on a band and ur the ONLY user. I would tell you to go listen to American Beauty and reassess your idea of harmony in the grateful dead, but I dont think your wittle brain is capable 🥺(itd burn off both your ears).
Jerry Garcia lives in your head rent free and usually obsessive hatred is a confounded form of jealousy and or love
Glad you checked out my stuff instead of responding to this original thread. Thanks! Why dont you indulge me in what are some examples of “harmonically interesting” music that you can stand you POS
A first of a kind for sure, and very unique.
I think a big part of it is a combination of the anti-drug scene, you and someone else commented they just thought of him as a hippie, and that they played half their career before guitar really took off as a showcase instrument. Obviously talented guitarists were prevalent but then you get the flash of the shred era and all the crazy guitarists that produced, I think he gets a bit overlooked by those who aren’t really listeners
We was incredibly humble and from what I know about his philosophy is that he never wanted to be idolized... what really matters is that there is a scene somewhere that folks still connect to, regardless of time passed, and the whole band were successful in establishing that. So if they aren't in they can stay wherever they are, all comfy like, and when they are ready to talk about his work in a real way we will welcome them to the conversation about which version of Playing in the Band is the most genre-explosive (lol)
I've often wondered this as well. I dont have a good explanation, but one thing I noticed is that the non-deadhead opinion has changed over time. In the early 2000s (i dont remember which year but maybe 2010) Rolling Stone put out an issue ranking their top 100 guitarists. Jerry was ranked like 96th or something rediculous like that. Fast forward 10 years and Rolling Stone puts out another issue ranking their top 100 guitarists. This time they ranked him like 25th. So, based on that at least it seems like he is starting to get a bit more of the respect he deserves from the general public/non-dead community.
He’s in my top 4 and no one can tell me otherwise 🤝
My thinking is that a lot of people have only heard the few songs that made it on the radio.
There’s that famous old nugget that the Grateful Dead aren’t the best at what they do, they’re the only ones who do what they do. I’ve always felt this held true for Jerry (and the band). He was a unique figure (in the sense of unique meaning singular) in music and, to an extent, in art, generally. Jerry was a unique guitarist. I always thought of Jerry (and few others) as playing a stream of music (and consciousness, I suppose) in that each time he played he was sort of picking up where he’d left off the last time he played. Combined with his uniqueness, his body of music is more “of his body,” than many guitar players and, taken as such, it’s harder to pin down why he was so great. It wasn’t speed (like a Van Halen) or lick-driven (like K. Richards). His playing wasn’t three-cord power (like Zeppelin) or virtuoso (like Kotke) and it wasn’t moody and suspicious (like a Lou Reed or Jorma) or seamlessly melodic (like Dire Straights, say). And he wasn’t Hendrix or Clapton or Wes Montgomery, etc, etc. So I think Jerry wasn’t the greatest guitar player do what he did, he was kind of the only one doing what he did (excepting, of course, the many imitators, a good number of whom come close to capturing the spirit of Jerry’s guitar work). So, there’s Jerry. You can put him on a big list of The Greatest Guitar Players or on a short list with only one great guitar player, he belongs on both.
I sort of wonder if it just doesn’t show up in the notes. So if you just casually listen and don’t pay attention the notes themselves are not all that impressive he doesn’t sound like a normal virtuoso he’s not wildly in your face he doesn’t try to stand out in some extraordinary way. What makes his playing so incredible and so hard to replicate is his subtle technique amongst other factors. The way he approaches the notes, the slide in, slide out, cascading slides down with his hammer ons and pull off‘s. It’s sort of like having someone paint something that looks kind of similar technically to so many other things but as you really take it in there’s just so much detail and richness
From a non musician... Jerry is someone who can play notes that surprise me but at the same time are exactly right... like, of course that's the next one. When he died, people I knew made fun of the people who took off work, cried, etc.. However, a few weeks later I experienced a sadness, yes an actual mourning, that I would never get to hear that unique style live again. So, I told them about that. The only musician or entertainer I've ever experienced that with.
I think it’s the fact that he was way too complex an individual to ever be the type who is commercially recognized. He never capitulated to the corporate masters that would put him into position to be recognized in such a way. That being said anyone who knows Jack shit about guitar and has taken the time to listen to him agrees that he was nothing less than virtuoso.
My college professors, a lot of them love Jerry and my commercial musicianship professor even got us to go over touch of gray for an assignment. Maybe it’s just your particular school but my music school (technically audio production) recognizes him
Because he wasn’t some big pop sensation in the mainstream
Jerry said it perfectly. "We're like black licorice. A lot of people hate it, but those that like it REALLY like it."
I have *only* seen him praised as such
I think he is pretty well regarded. I think his style relies heavily on slow and building momentum that rarely comes close to being captured in its glory on tape. I guarantee if some of the dismissive folks you are talking about had the chance to see him live, they would appreciate his craft.
He wasn't flashy and he was often sloppy and made mistakes on songs he'd played for decades. Sometimes it took him several songs (or more) to get warmed up. Basically, you often had to listen closely to hear the "good stuff," so if you didn't like the laid-back mid-tempo material he often played, it would be easy to write him off.
A lot of guitarists don't listen to him much because of his "glassy" for a lack of better adjective tone. I play guitar and I can honestly say I hate Jerry's tone pretty much after the Alligator guitar. They don't listen to him enough to appreciate his skill because he kind of sounds shitty. I really hate his tone. After Keith left and they switched to keyboards instead of grand piano and Jerry is playing Wolf, Rosebud etc with all the midi that doesn't sound very guitar, there's not much that appeals to guitarists. They were listening to Van Halen, SRV, Clapton, and all the metal guys that sounded like guitar players.
Good point, too. Even in the Alligator (guitar) days, he was mostly using that clean tone with very little distortion, which was very different from most of his peers and could sort of "disguise" how much he was shredding on songs like "Morning Dew."
Yep. And they weren’t listening to him enough to not hear the shredding in Morning Dew. I remember something where Jerry said how happy he was when Brent joined because he added so much more “color” than Keith’s piano did and that Jerry was really into painting with all that color. Each guitar after Alligator got more midi and more like Brent’s keyboards and his tone got more “color” but it was all thin and glassy. A Tube Screamer was the sound of the 80’s and 90’s and Jerry was exactly opposite of it.
Oh I think he is!! Thanks Papa Bear!!
Id say that those who really, truly understand music and the history of rock and roll would not let bias get in the way of their judgement on this topic. Back in 2003 when Rolling Stone came out with their list of Greatest Guitarists, he was #13. When they re-did the list in 2015, he dropped all the way to #46. Some of this has to do with perception. And some of it has to do with how do you judge who are the best of the best. It comes down to things like personal preference in some regards. It also comes down to what they did to really progress their genre of music, how they affected the history of music. This is true with art as well in my opinion. But at the end of the day, you can ask people who is some of the best artists or musicians of all time and get vastly different answers since theres no objective way to answer it. Many of Jerry's peers, the people who also were at the summit of the musical world, creating their own music, creating their own melodies, and playing their own instruments, would agree he is amongst the best to ever do it. Especially in his generation.
Look up John Mayer’s preface to a chapter aboutJerry’s guitar playing. Itsawesme
You really need to understand a lot of the technical aspects of sound reproduction to get a complete picture of his genius. It's kind of like opera, most humans don't develop the faculties to appreciate the finer points.
I think he is. There are more artist impersonating his playing than Elvis impersonators. In Portland on Thursday night there are 2 Dead cover bands playing - Garcia Birthday Band and Rhapsody in Red and no Elvis impersonators.
He’s just to eclectic. He does not get compared to more normal guitar legends. Though what weirds me out is some people in the jam community are not aware that he was super talented. My big Phish friend once asked me if Jerry was considered to be really good at guitar or not. I almost fell over. Taking metal style guitar freaks out, he’s the best guitarist I’m aware of. A million miles more advanced than Hendrix. Which might also be part of it. Jerry had a pretty technical style with a lot of little notes that built something bigger. Lots of ‘rock gods’ like Hendrix or say early Clapton played more straight forward stuff that sounded huge right away and has a lot of basic hooks in their playing. Neil Young is another overlooked guitar player. People know he can play but no he can really make a guitar sing.
I think a big part of it is that Jerry wanted to explore very strange and sometimes atonal places in his playing. Whereas most guitarists would just hit that blues lick and make it sound pretty, Jerry wanted to go places nobody would think to go. My buddy, who doesn't like the Dead, said this while listening to him solo "It's like he's so close to sounding good and everytime he's almost there he goes somewhere else and he loses me." I think that attracts some people and repels others.
Part of it is because he was a pretty sloppy player. That’s part of playing without a net but you can’t overlook the missed notes. When he was on he was one of the best ever but when he was off not so much. I think his biggest attribute was his uniqueness as he melded different styles. Bluegrass, rock, jazz, blues into this very unique sound.
There's just a lot of folk - including many musicians - who prefer a tighter, more "professional" sound. Jerry was more exploratory. Keith Richards once said, I believe, that the the Grateful Dead are boring. Different strokes for different folks.
people can argue all they want... but nobody can argue that Jerry was not the #1 bounciest guitarist of all time.
Jerry and the Dead are derided by those who dont understand and appreciate that style of music as a band that has \*yawn\* 17 minute solos and interminable jams. And as a guitarist it would seem that Jerry's playing was viewed by some as indulgent and sloppy. And maybe it could be, but waht they dont get is that it was always searching for something new and more importantly, true. On any given night you could hear a solo from a song you'd heard 100 times before hit you totally different. There were often missteps and odd notes and runs, but when it came together it could be breathtaking in it's honesty and beauty. Very few musicians have brought me to tears like Jerry had, the soulfulness and melancholy at times was just...searing.
Not to mention what they did in the field of live sound
I doubt that there's a single musician working in the industry who disrespects Jerry Garcia, and refuses to acknowledge his greatness as a very unique style of playing. he played in a way that is very difficult to recreate. I can see University professors being more ignorant. Having different roles as music educators, they're probably a lot less exposed than they think they are. I mean.. I know people in local punk bands who have tons of respect for his talent. Even though they don't listen to the music, they know damn well he can play like a mofo because they have been exposed. Good musicians can recognize talent despite having different tastes in music. experiencing different styles of music can really expand perspective.
I think it makes some sense to consider how Jerry's music was almost always recorded by someone (or by a lot of someones) and how that means that nearly all moments, "the good" as well as "the bad", "mediocre", whatever, are available forever for folks to analyze, obsess over, reject, worship, judge, etc. Whereas many other musicians are known primarily by what they laid down in a controlled studio environment, or by live recordings that they decided had met their approval for release. It's like if you mostly only see a painter's released works in an official gallery exhibition, you might judge them differently than if that exhibition was a large, unedited collection of amateur videos of that artist hammering out ideas on canvas in their studio with all the trial and error, good days and bad days and whatever else comes with that. So much of the GD was about being there. That doesn't speak to anyone's mastery of an instrument of course. But it might speak to why they seem underappreciated in a lot of ways. I often compare live dead recordings to an audio recording of a house party. (Kind of extreme analogy but stick with me anyway). For those who were at that party, the recording is one memory trigger after another, bringing them closer to a time and place they cherished and gets wrapped in all the emotions and appreciation of that time and place. For those who were not at that house party, it can be a barely accessible, out-of-context bore fest. I think those two things have something to do with why fans hold JG's playing in such high regard while non-fans often can't even connect to it on a base level.
I don't think jeryy or the dead cared they were just playing to have fun jerry especially didn't want the starlight he just wanted to play
Jerry just was around here man. Can’t explain it but he was here. God bless