Thank you Jerry!

On August 1, 1942, Jerry Garcia was born in San Francisco to a nurse named Ruth and a Swing musician named Jose. He was named after the famous Tin Pan Alley composer Jerome Kern. On his 15th birthday, he got a guitar, and his life would never be the same, nor would the life of American music. It wouldn't be a stretch to assert that Garcia was more than merely a musician, he was a cultural phenomenon. In a life that lasted only 53 years, he touched and changed generations on a highly grand scale.

After dropping out of high school in 1960, he enlisted in the Army. But military life was a bit too regimented for him, as his two court marshals and eight AWOLS would attest. He returned to the Bay Area and hooked up with a bunch of musicians that would ultimately become the Grateful Dead; Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. The Dead not only experimented with a melting pot of musical styles, they experimented with mind-altering substances. They associated closely with renegades like Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and Owsley (Bear) Stanley. Together they put on musical excursions known as the Acid Tests. Their counterculture leanings would manifest itself in their music, and a huge throng of free thinkers followed in droves. Musically, Jerry was the lightening rod. He was constantly reinventing himself on stage, pushing himself and those around him to the limit. Once they got there, they exceeded it. If there was an envelope to be found, Jerry pushed it.

As a singer, Jerry was no Paul McCartney or Jim Morrison. As a guitarist he was no Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck. He was Jerry Garcia, and he exuded a certain soul that was beyond description. His guitar work featured an incendiary, almost maniacal quality. He defied traditional technique. And no one could deliver a lyric with as much heart as Garcia. This is why Deadheads would follow the group all over the world, attending show after show, night after night. The phenomenon simply did not exist elsewhere.

For Garcia, there was life outside the Dead. His collaborations were numerous and diverse. Merl Saunders, Howard Wales, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Crosby , Stills, and Nash, Jefferson Airplane, David Grisman, and Old and in the Way are just a sampling of his musical foils. The Jerry Garcia Band was a superb group and an outlet for him to celebrate his love of R & B and Motown.

It's true that he's gone, but just his mere presence on this earth was a blessing…Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.