Reflections on Jerry Garcia

I was in the photo lab when someone came back with the news that Jerry Garcia's death had just flashed over the news wire. My first thought, was that he did himself in with drugs, a reaction I now regret. It's a sad irony that after years of struggling unsuccessfully with his substance abuse, Jerry finally checked himself in for treatment only to succumb to heart failure. For fans of the Grateful Dead, a tragedy we came to increasingly fear had transpired. I'm still numb.

I never decided to become a Deadhead. It sort of crept up on me.

I saw my first Grateful Dead concert in 1981. And by Deadhead standards, I really haven't seen that many shows - 44 in all. The Dead just don't visit the Midwest often, and travel is expensive and time-consuming.

Somewhere around 1987, I really became involved with Deadhead culture. Dead shows were a place where there were always people trying to express community. That's when I started collecting and trading tapes of live Grateful Dead concerts.

You'll hear many people refer to Garcia as the "leader" of the Grateful Dead. The Dead as an artistic collaboration was always balanced on a razors edge between democracy, and anarchy. The only leader was the music.

Garcia was, however the linchpin, and the melodic centerpiece of the band. The Dead's stock-in-trade was its improvisational ensemble playing - that's the journey. The destination was when Garcia's guitar playing took flight. At its best, his guitar playing was transcendent, a song that could not be sung with words.

Being the focus of the band made Garcia a reluctant prophet. In the eyes of many devoted Deadheads, he was almost a spiritual leader. I'm afraid that this was a great, unwelcome weight on him, and one source of the personal pain that lead him to anesthetize himself with drugs.

I also worry greatly for the future fortunes of those for whom being a Deadhead was not merely an aspect of their lives, but life itself.

Though no prophet, Garcia did sing brilliant, illuminated words. But he didn't write them, Robert Hunter did. It's a pity that so many were unable to separate the message from the messenger.

I'm not diminishing Garcia. His soul was the animating force that breathed life into those words. Garcia was a truly great musical artist. I personally am quite grateful to have benefited from his life and art.

He filled my heads with the rich allegorical words of Hunter, and often, a bit of a lyric would come to mind and lend perspective to a moment or emotion when nothing else would. Through the musical window that he and the Grateful Dead opened for me, I learned of the work of Charles Ives, Hoagy Carmichael, Miles Davis, the Reverend Gary Davis, and many others.

The most important thing I've gained through my appreciation of Garcia as a musician, and the way that the Grateful Dead approach their craft, is something that I've been able to apply directly to my own life.

Garcia was a risk-taker. From Garcia and the Dead, I learned creative endeavor fulfills me when I sharpen my skills and open myself to meet the moment, rather than rehearse a preconception of how the moment should unfold. I hope I can always hold on to this knowledge and apply it's lesson. I wont get another chance to have Garcia remind me how it works.

Be at peace Jerry, and thank you.