I was never a Deadhead, but I was listening when The Grateful Dead first hit the radio in 1965 and I liked what I heard. I only later became aware of Jerry Garcia as an individual writer and performer. Because Garcia was so influential in creating the sound of The Grateful Dead, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to separate the two. Perhaps the biggest difference is that, on his own, Jerry Garcia is far more eclectic and perhaps even more eccentric than was his most famous band, even at its most extreme. Listening to this double set of studio and live performances, I still like what I hear. I like it a lot.
To get the most out of these two sets, I recommend that the listener approach this music with no expectations. Rather than as a famous icon of a generation, think of Garcia as just another musician. Don't buy into that "very best of" label. Don't even accept that the music may be good because I've said it is. Just listen.
Given a career as long, varied, and eclectic as Garcia's, I don't believe that anyone can determine what is really the "very best" of an artist's career. It's all too subjective. What criteria are to be used? Who decides what is good, what is better and what is best? Even so, although it's uneven in some ways, this 26 song retrospective presents a fairly complete picture of who Garcia was as a musician.
Almost half of the songs presented here had first been recorded by other artists. I find these eleven performances the most interesting. I've always found the term "cover" offensive because, when I was younger, this term had meant to perform the song pretty much as it had been on the original recording. Back then, and even earlier, artists had interpreted songs, performed them in their own manner without much, if any, attempt to be true the original version. I found no cover versions in these sets, but I did listen to some wonderful interpretations by a master stylist.
Written by Leon Chapeleau, "Deep Elm Blues" was first recorded in 1957 as the B-side of the rockabilly song "Wow Man" by Bobby Jackson, a disk jockey from Amarillo, Texas. It was subsequently recorded by a series of rockabilly and country artists. Somewhere along the line, the title morphed into "Deep Ellum" or "Deep Elem" and that version became a standard of The Grateful Dead. The 1987 live version by the Jerry Garcia Acoustic band holds true to this song's rockabilly roots, intertwining elements of blues, country, and folk music. Rambling on for more than six minutes, this interpretation of "Deep Elem Blues" is unlikely to lose the interest of even the most jaded listener.
When I was a teen, two of the songs most discussed by me and my would-be musician friends were "Johnny Be Goode" and "Let it Rock" by Chuck Berry. To this day, they remain among my favourites. Jerry Garcia's studio version of "Let it Rock" is a powerful interpretation. While it doesn't replicate Chuck Berry, it echoes some lesser-known Chuck Berry sounds. Unlike many recordings of this song, my album cut from the 1956 Berry album of the same name is replete with Jazz and Blues references and sometimes wanders off the Rock & Roll track. I don't know whether Garcia ever heard this recording, but his interpretation takes much the same approach, enriching this song with a variety of musical references. I could have listened to this track for six or even twelve minutes and still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the track ends at just over three minutes with a fade that sounds like the original must have been much longer. In my opinion, Garcia or his producers should have taken the song's advice and let it rock.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
it's true. Jerry was extremely eclectic in his tastes. jazz, bluegrass, folk, old-timey music...it all contributed to his unique sound.
2 - Mat Brewster
Indeed. The guy was like a living encyclopedia of music.