Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader of the band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead.
Jerome John Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1942. His father was a Spanish jazz musician, who named him after Jerome Kern, the Broadway composer, and died when his son was young. As a child, Garcia lost half the index finger of his right hand in an accident involving his elder brother and an axe (this eventually gave rise to the joke "What has 59 and a half fingers and can't sing? Answer: The Grateful Dead"). At 15 he discovered two forces that shaped his life: marijuana and electric guitars. He discovered acoustic guitars later, during a spell in the army, for which he volunteered at the age of 17 in an effort to change his life around. Two court martials and eight desertions later, he was discharged in 1960, having acquired a taste for folk music in the quiet periods of his army life.
He fell into the Bohemian scene of the period on the peninsula south of San Francisco. A photograph of the time shows him skinny and goateed, playing guitar alongside an early wife. The scene was full of musicians who would later take part in the great psychedelic explosion of San Francisco music, among them Jorma Kaukonen and Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane, as well as most of the future members of the Grateful Dead. But until 1965 the music involved was acoustic. Garcia taught himself banjo and became an expert on bluegrass music.
In 1965, he formed an electric blues-rock band called the "Warlocks", with himself as the lead guitarist. A few months later, they changed their name to the "Grateful Dead". The original line-up was Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Ron McKernan (Pigpen) and Bill Kreutzmann. They soon gained a reputation for playing long improvised jazz inspired folk-rock music and became one of the most popular live bands around. Garcia became the main songwriter within the group as his partnership with 'Robert Hunter matured over time and he led them through many musical changes throughout their long career. Over the next 30 years, the Dead went through many musical and personal changes but they grew in popularity and became the most popular live band in history, playing in some of the most legendary concerts of all time including Monterey Pop (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Watkins Glen (1973).
They averaged around 80 concerts a year and had an incredible loyal fan base known as Deadheads. Despite being well known for their live shows, they were also a sublime band in the studio which is often overlooked because of their lack of hit singles; in fact, their only hit single was "Touch of Grey" from the "In the Dark" album in 1987, a full 22 years after they formed! The band recorded 13 studio albums which ranged from straight ahead rock and pop influences to blues, folk, jazz, country, electronic and progressive experimentation. They also released many live albums.
Despite being consumed with 30 years with the "Grateful Dead", Jerry also found time to have a whole musical career away from the dead. He began playing in jam sessions and doing session work with other artists in the late 60s. He began playing pedal steel guitar and formed the country-rock group the "New Riders of the Purple Sage" with John Dawson in 1969. He released his first of 5 solo albums - Garcia (1972) in which he played every instrument except drums.
His band, The Jerry Garcia Band, was formed in the early 70s and it gave him a chance to perform many other songs and styles of music outside of the Dead. He covered jazz, blues, Motown, R&B, gospel, pop, reggae, swing, ballads, Dylan covers and was equally at home playing any of them. In 1973, he formed a bluegrass band called "Old and In the Way" in which he played Banjo, it was a short-lived group but the record that was later released went on to become the biggest selling bluegrass album of all time.
The Dead and the scene they came out of was legendary for drug taking and Jerry was no exception and, by mid 70s, he had gotten into hard drugs, including cocaine and heroin. By the mid 1980s, it had slowed down his creative process and he was by now a very heavy user and suffering many health problem which all came to a head in 1986, when he went into a coma and nearly died, spending some considerable time in hospital recovering.
But it didn't stop him from his continued musical quest and, after his recovery, he returned to touring with the Dead, his own band and recording on session work right up till 1995 when he again tried to tackle his drug addiction and his overall health problems which included breathing troubles caused by years of heavy smoking and his love for junk food and lack of exercise meant he spent the last number of years of his life vastly overweight. He entered the Serenity Knolls treatment center in Marin County, California in an attempt to clean up and get healthy. In the early hours of August 9 1995, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. He was 52 years old.
(Edited from IMDb & The Independent)