Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia
A rock-n-roll original, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead commanded a loyal cult-like following of “Deadheads” from generation to generation and no one could quite figure out why. The Dead were one of the top concert attractions throughout the nineties up until Jerry Garcia’s death on August 9th, 1995. The Grateful Dead were one of the first acid-rock bands of the sixties flower-power generation and it seemed they would go on forever. They released their first album in 1967 simply entitled “The Grateful Dead” and followed that with “Anthem of the Sun” and “Aoxomoxoa”. In 1970 they embarked on what was to be their most productive year, with the release of “Live Dead”,”American Beauty”, & “Workingman’s Dead”, most of which became staples of FM radio airplay and their most widely identified tunes. They muddled thruout the rest of the seventies with a few decent live albums and mediocre studio albums. In the mid-eighties Jerry lapsed into a coma which almost proved fatal. After surviving this close brush with death, the “Dead” saw this as a rebirth and in 1987 released “In The Dark”. With the release of the single “Touch of Grey” and accompanying video on M-TV the Dead were back on the charts and popular as ever. Jerry managed to survive thru LSD experimentation, Marijuana use, cocaine and other “fringe” benefits of the rock-n-roll lifestyle, but it was his use of heroin that contributed to his death at the age of 53. Ironically, their last studio release was entitled “Built to Last