Once a week Kat shares a rockin’ and rare video of rock & roll icons doing what they do best! Send your suggestions to kat@i100rocks.com
THIS WEEK: The Grateful Dead on February 4th, 1970 performing “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider” as featured in A Night At The Family Dog.
JERRY GARCIA REMEMBERED
It was 21 years ago today (August 9th, 1995) that Grateful Dead singer-guitarist Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack at age 53. At the time, Garcia was at the Serenity Knolls drug-treatment center in Forest Knolls, California, where he was trying once again to get on top of his chemical dependencies. Perhaps more than any other member of the Dead, Garcia was the focal point, although he never sought that role, nor did he wear the title easily. To him, it was a band and a family, and he was a member, which is what he always wanted.
Garcia’s death had a profound impact on many people. The band’s fans, collectively known as “Deadheads,” mourned his loss, while also realizing that so long as the music existed, he was never really that far away. His bandmates took a while to sort through things before announcing that they could not go on without Garcia.
On December 6th, 1995, they released this statement, which said it all: “After four months of heartfelt consideration, the remaining members of the band met yesterday and came to the conclusion that the ‘long strange trip’ of the uniquely wonderful beast known as the Grateful Dead is over.”
Garcia’s death also had commercial reverberations. For many years, the Grateful Dead had been one of the biggest touring acts in North America, and promoters and concert venues always knew they’d make money when the Dead came to town. While the surviving members of the band went on to their own projects, none of them has been able to draw the massive audience that the Grateful Dead always produced. Over the years the surviving members have dipped their feet into the reunion waters originally touring as both the Other Ones, embarking on a full-scale, sold out tours as the Dead, reuniting last year for five “Fare The Well” 50th anniversary concerts, and most recently forming a new band — featuring Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart — with John Mayer — dubbed Dead & Company.
