Bob Dylan on Jerry Garcia

 

Now I get the Grateful Dead and have quite a bit down in the vaults here in the gulags but didn’t really listen to them for the longest time. My old school friend ‘Bill’ loved them and played me Working Man’s Dead when it came out and then I tried certain albums but only relatively recently did I try to appreciate them more listening to over 20-40 boots and albums. I associate them with that whole San Francisco cabal of Tripsters and like Big Brother, The Airplane, Country Joe and others thought the couldn’t really PLAY! Learning their chops through the haze of substance abuse and acid trips with Tim Leary and others. I liked certain tracks (Keep On Trucking’ a novelty hit for me but Magnolia and others I would listen to) and then . . . . . . left them alone again! 

Their endless jams several hour long bootlegs and recording EVERYTHING they ever played attitude meant I couldn’t really GET it anymore. Who has the TIME these days? So this quote made me sit up and take note . . . . . here is Bob on Jerry the heart of the Dead!

Bob Dylan on Jerry Garcia: “There's no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don't think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician, with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He's 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's 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's no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep.” - #bobdylan

#jerrygarcia #gratefuldead