Jerry Garcia
b. 1 August 1942, San Francisco, California, USA, d. 9 August 1995, Forest Knolls, California, USA. The mercurial guitarist of the Grateful Dead was able to play with numerous other conglomerations without it affecting his career as leader of one of rock music's legendary bands. For four decades, Garcia was a leading light on the West Coast musical scene—he was credited on Jefferson Airplane's SURREALISTIC PILLOW as 'musical and spiritual adviser' and known locally as 'Captain Trips'. In addition to his session work with the Airplane, he would work with David Crosby, Paul Kantner, Jefferson Starship, New Riders Of The Purple Sage and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young as well as various spin-offs involving David Nelson, Merl Saunders and Howard Wales. Other associations included Old & In The Way, an early '70s bluegrass project with David Grisman and Peter Rowan, and, in his later years, duo projects with Grisman. Garcia was equally at home on banjo and pedal-steel guitar, and was able to play two entirely different styles of music without a hint of musical overlap (rock ‘n’ roll/blues and country/bluegrass). His flowing manner was all the more remarkable given that the third finger of his right hand was missing, owing to an accident as a child. Garcia was known and loved as a true hippie who never 'sold out'. Following his heroin addiction and much publicized near-death in 1986, Garcia philosophically stated, 'I'm 45 years old, I'm ready for anything, I didn't even plan on living this long so all this shit is add-on stuff.' But he continued touring and recording, with the Dead and on his own, until shortly before his death of a heart attack at 53, suffered during a stay at a drug treatment center near his Marin County, California, home.