Recognize

Imagine my surprise walking past a newsstand yesterday and seeing Jerry Garcia on the cover of Fader Magazine, the hipster bible. I actually did a double take. First it was Springsteen who had a renaissance amongst the indie/hipster set – will it now be Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, the scourge of punk rockers and hipsters then and now?

The issue is a small oral history featuring interviews with Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, as well as indie darlings such as Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse (who’s typically snarky), Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, longtime fan Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets and jazz legend Ornette Coleman. It’s not worshipful by any stretch of the imagination (a good thing), but it does recognize Garcia’s impact on music; that many of the strains of today’s music, whether it be electronica, jam band or Americana were all explored in great depth by the Garcia and the Dead years ago. They might be the most unfairly maligned band of all time.

If you download the Fader via iTunes, it comes with a great podcast that I highly recommend – some killer Dead and Garcia cuts. I’m including a great version of the Jerry Garcia Band doing “Tore Up Over You” from NYC’s Palladium in February of 1981. It gets to the heart of Garcia’s love of R&B and soul, which is why I’ve always been such a big fan of his – the guy had soul by the bucketload.

Download: Jerry Garcia Band - "Tore Up Over You" (Palladium, New York, NY, 2/11/81)
Download: Jerry Garcia Band - "I Was Made To Love Her" (Stevie Wonder cover, San Francisco, 2/6/72)