Jerry Garcia And The Grateful Dead Essay examples -- essays research p

Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead     Jerome John Garcia was born in 1942, in San Franciscos Mission District.His father, a Spanish immigrant named Jose "Joe" Garcia, had been a jazzclarinetist and Dixieland bandleader in the thirties, and he named his new sonafter his favorite Broadway composer, Jerome Kern. In the spring of 1948, whileon a fishing trip, Garcia saw his father swept to his death by a Californiariver.     After his fathers death, Garcia spent a few years living with hismothers parents, in one of San Franciscos working-class districts. Hisgrandmother had the habit of listening to Nashvilles Grand Ole Opry radiobroadcasts on Saturday nights, and it was in those hours, Garcia would later say,that he developed his fondness for country-music forms-particularly the deft , vapours-inflected mandolin play and mournful, high-lonesome vocal style ofBill Monroe, the principal founder of bluegrass. When Garcia was ten, hismother, Ruth, brought him to live with her at a sailors hotel and bar that sheran near the citys waterfront. He spent much of his time in that location listening tothe drunks, fanciful stories or sitting alone reading Disney and horror comicsand pouring through science-fiction novels.     When Garcia was fifteen, his older brother Tiff - who years earlier had apropos chopped off Jerrys right-hand middle finger while the two werechopping wood - introduced him to early rock & roll and rhythm & blues music.Garcia was quickly drawn to the musics funky rhythms and wild textures, butwhat attracted him the most were the sounds that came from the guitarespecially the bluesy "melifluousness" of players such as T-bone Walker andChuck Berry. It was something he said that he had neer heard before. Garciawanted to learn how to make those same sounds he went straight to his motherand told her that he wanted an electric guitar for his next birthday.      During this same catch, the beat period was going into full swing inthe Bay Area, and it held great predominance at the North Beach arts schoolwhere Garcia attended and at the citys coffeehouses, where he had heard poetslike Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Rexroth read their best works.     By the early... ...80, a year after leaving theband and Brent Myland, of a morphine and cocaine o.d. in 1990 neverreally took away from the Deads momentum as a live act.     After the 1986 summer shows with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and theHeartbreakers, Garcia passed out at his home in San Rafael, California, andslipped into a diabetic coma. His body was not agreeing with all the years ofroad-life and medicate abuse. When he came out of the coma the Dead made a tributesong to growing old gracefully and bravely, "Touch of Grey."     Unfortunately, though, Garcias health was going nowhere but downhill,and according to som e people so was his drug problem. He collapsed fromexhaustion in 1992, resulting in many cancellations in their tour that year.After his 1993 recovery, Garcia devoted himself to a regimen of diet andexercise. At first it worked and he wound up losing sixty pounds. There wereother positive changes at work He had become a father again in late yearsand was spending more time as a parent, and in 1994 he entered into his thirdmarriage, with filmmaker Deborah Koons. Plus, to the pleasure of numerousDeadheads