More Jerry Garcia madness

Greg Booth · From: Anchorage, AK, USA

This topic must have enlightened Ben and Jerry, they are discontinuing Cherry Garcia and replacing it with Buddy Lemons.

Russ Young · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

Don't forget Franklin Mint ...

Russ Young · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

... or Rocky Rhodes ...

Garth Highsmith · Posted 18 Jan 2005 12:32 am

.

[This message was edited by Garth Highsmith on 12 January 2006 at 09:40 AM.]

Greg Booth · From: Anchorage, AK, USA

Fatten up your tone with a few scoops of Curly Chalklit.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

How 'bout dish of "Peach Drake"?

HowardR · From: N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville

Right afer his passing, Ben & Jerry were thinking of changing the name to....Bury Garcia....

Oh well, as long as B&G are producing ice cream, we'll always have Jerry's licks

now I'm outa here - but I'm proud of you guys

[This message was edited by HowardR on 18 January 2005 at 05:30 AM.]

[This message was edited by HowardR on 18 January 2005 at 10:06 AM.]

Dave Van Allen · From: Doylestown, PA , US , Earth

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARR

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

HHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE... STOP!

PLEASE!!!! Enough with the Garcia "issue"! he's DEAD! let it REST!!! LET IT GO!
GET A LIFE! GO PRACTICE OR SOMETHING!

I'm done now....

[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 18 January 2005 at 07:43 AM.]

Glenn Suchan · From: Austin, Texas

Dave, I have only one thing to say about your response... Amen.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

*

[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 19 January 2005 at 04:30 AM.]

Mark Lind-Hanson · From: Menlo Park, California, USA

This topic seems to pop up now and then & seems to define members as either “pro JG or Anti JG”, generally, seemingly, based on whatever prejudices they have (maybe say, “Old School vs. Young Turks?”). Dave G. you made very good points in your posting: I wish more people that slog Garcia would actually go to the trouble to listen to his playing first. When those of us who play say “Well he wasn’t a GREAT steel player” we aren’t saying he wasn’t a GOOD player. It wasn’t his first instrument, and would that it was, the world might be a different place for it. But he brought to it a chromatic approach that was unique amongst all the players of his age & era, different from Sneaky Pete, different from Rusty Young, Different from Jay Dee Maness, different from Cage. Buddy makes a great point when he says “if he’d learned from me, he would have been BETTER,” since for my own influences, I put BC at the head of the list…
-That is not to claim nor excuse an ignorance of the great CW players who came before, but they came from a different era than folks like myself, and if there be gaps that divide, then surely there are/must also be bridges that unite… since it’s ALL music.
I made the point elsewhere (Dave G said it as well or better) that Garcia turned on Thousands of folks to pedal steel who would otherwise maybe not been interested. I fail to see how that is a “BAD” thing to do for any instrument.
The first time I saw the New Riders, Garcia sat out the nigh,t being sick-
so I happened to hear them without any steel player at all, and they were an Ok rock band without it. WITH it, they were dozens of times more powerful, and as Cage was the first of their steel payers I DID watch, I thought the guy close to a genius. I don’t think I’d have thought it of Garcia, knowing as I did that for him, he always DID consider it a diversion from 6 string, and he lived and breathed 6 string as much as great as anyone came to it. It seems to me the folks eager to “deify Garcia” on the steel are usually merely younger people who came to the Dead as fans much later than folks like myself, and are full of the zealotry of defending what they see as “their thing”- just because they are younger doesn’t make them less enthusiastic, though it may preclude them from looking deeper for the sources which influenced, Jerry, say. Since the man isn’t around to defend himself any longer, people like myself who “carry the flame” feel an urge to protect what we see as our own regard – for what he meant to US.
I have to say, Teach Your Children was a pretty cool ride, but I like “I Used To Be A King”( on Graham Nash’s first solo LP) a little bit better for a good example of Garcia’s soulfulness on steel…

Susan Alcorn · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

Here's my (unasked for) two cents worth about Jerry Garcia, "Teach Your Children Well", and musicianship in general.

When "Teach Your Children Well" was big, I was already playing the steel guitar,and I idolized Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, and that whole pantheon. And when I listened to that Crosby Stills and Nash song, I couldn't stand that ride, because I felt it couldn't hold a candle to what my heroes were doing. I also couldn't stand the Grateful Dead, and felt that they were just engaged in drug induced noodling. I guess I was kind of a snob. Then after some years, I started kind of liking a lot of what I heard from them, and appreciating their attitude towards the song, and when I listened to Jerry Garcia's ride on the CSN album, perhaps freed from some earlier conditioning and excess of musical ego, I liked it. There's nothing wrong with that ride -- it's not out of tune, it's not sloppy, and it fits the song very well. I think he put a lot of heart into it, and that in my mind is the biggest indicator of whether something is "good" or not. Execution is one thing, but if there's no heart, then what'd the point (everyone has a heart, but not everyone communicates that with their music)?

I heard an interview with Graham Nash on the radio recently where he talked about that session. He said that Jerry Garcia had just picked up the steel guitar, and that he did the whole ride with a flat pick.

Music, like all art, exists solely in the mind of the listener. Outside of the mind, there is no music, there is only vibration. Our minds and our bodies react to the vibration, organize it, and make sense of it. If we feel something, then music has accomplished something. I think Jerry Garcia accomplished a lot with his music.

Terry Edwards · From: Florida... livin' on spongecake...

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Perry H. - Spoken like a true gentleman, I thank you. In truth, I am not a huge or particularly loyal "fan" of Garcia but I do appreciate his influence over the years, musical and otherwise (despite the drugs, etc. he really did help to raise a lot of other people's children for them).

And Archie, thanks for the note. I do follow you completely, I included you by name because I am totally sincere in my recommendation that you find of a copy of "Workingman's Dead" for all the reasons earlier mentioned. A true American classic.

While you're at it get a copy of "Old and In the Way," a very fine bluegrass-influenced album which he recorded with Peter Rowan and others -- listen to the guy play the banjo. He's all right.

Buddy's "Rainbows" ride and Lloyd's and JayDee's work on "Sweetheart" were my first and for a long time only teachers. What JG contributed to my early years was the knowledge that one could at least sound MUSICAL without twenty years of building chops. Lord knows we all need to know that we can play SOMETHING in our first year or two that won't get us thrown out on our cans.

Mike's original post reflected an earnest anguish over someone talking with "authority" who clearly knew nothing of which they spoke -- the comment about "shredders" clearly showed their utter ignorance of the players named. It is doubly unfortunate when we allow ourselves (yes, I do it too) to take the bait and jump in to display our own lack of knowledge of the subject being discussed, as in "don't try to confuse me with the facts, my mind's already made up!"

Lastly -- Thanks everybody (well, ALMOST everybody) for the civilized mode of discussion now taking place, it's SO much more fun to disagree (or agree) with one another in this fashion.

OK, I'm outta hear (for now) - dg

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 18 January 2005 at 03:53 PM.]

Rick Vizzi · From: New Jersey, USA

A couple more thoughts and I'm outa here...
Jerry was a decent banjo player. His singing voice was not exactly opera material, but it conveyed heart and soul. Go to a book store and look at his book of watercolors over a cup of mocha. Listen to "Dark Star" the live version (no steel in it). Remember his guitar improvisation with his jazz band (obviously you had to go to one of the concerts to have the memory). My only regret about being a Dead head was that I spent so much time listening to them that I never noticed all the great country music of the time period with all the great steel playing! Now I'm trying to catch up! Lastly, I studied Van Gogh, among other artists, as an art major. Look at a book on his life as an artist. Look at the drawings he made when he was eight years old! Lastly lastly, I took up woodturning 2 years ago. I started out totally on my own, no teacher or classes, didn't even do any reading for a while... I now have been selling my bowls and vases because people love them. They are different then anyone else's. Because I learned in without taking external cues from other people, or learing someone else's techniques or style. I'm not saying that you shouldn't take lessons from someone else, but I guess what I am saying is, try not to imitate someone else. Plunge right into what you want to do, the way you want to do it. That's the way Garcia lived. In the interview with Garcia in the book Signpost for New Space, he expressed that he couldn't understand why people thought of him as a guru of sorts. He simply said that he just loved playing music. That's all. We'll never put Jerry out of our lives. He's not my favorite steel player. Not by a longshot. But I do consider him a steel player along with every other steel player who exists and comes up with some quality music, if not quantity. I'm done.

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

That steel work was PERFECT for that song.. It could NOT have been done more tastefully by any of the greats... More technically proficient?? of course.. but More appropriate to what was required for THAT song??? .. I doubt it.

Many of us on this forum are better steel players than Jerry was... but better musicians??? ...not too many I would wager. Geez, the guy is at rest.. Let him be. His was a FINE musical mind, and for at least a short season,his steel playing was praised by the multitudes... How many of us "advanced" steel guitarists have our steel playing praised by the multitudes???? bob

[This message was edited by Bob Carlucci on 25 January 2005 at 05:03 AM.]

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Garcia moved people. More than that, he really took them for a ride with his music. Not many (if any) of us on the forum have had that power with our instrument.

Ralph Willsey · From: Ottawa Valley, Canada

The last time this topic came up, I followed a Forumite's suggestion and bought the NRPS album of 1971, re-mastered in 2003 adding three more live tracks with Garcia on steel.
Anyone who is basing his assessment of Garcia on Teach Your Children, which I always considered ordinary at best, should also get this album. You'll find some extremely tasteful backup and soloing, and you may wonder whether Garcia wasn't one of the greatest musicians ever to use this instrument.
And a web search into his background would show why he did so well: he knew music, he had already taught himself advanced fingerpicking on the banjo, and his father had been a bandleader. Even though he died when Jerry was very young, it's not out of the question that Jerry could have inherited a good head for musical intervals. Put this together with a high level of drive and you've created a monster.
I think it's quite obvious that Garcia's detractors have either only heard that one track, or are unduly envious. And now imagine what he could have become if he had had this Forum to help him in his early days . . .

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

As far as I'm concerned it's nor a matter of slamming Garcia. It's a matter of Garcia's fans slamming everybody else.

I started this thread because somebody on that other forum dismissed Buddy, Lloyd, Jimmy Day, John Hughey, and several others as "shredders" who did not know how to accompany a singer, while praising Garcia and claiming that he was better than they were.

I think Garcia does deserve some credit for his steel playing. The problem as I see it, is that a these kids who don't know what they are talking about, elevate him above Buddy and Lloyd and the others, and put them down because they are not rock and rollers.

I was flamed on the other forum for mentioning that Buddy Emmons is a better steel player that Garcia was. The people there don't know who Buddy is, but whoever he is, he couldn't possibly be better than their hero, and it was wrong of me to say otherwise.

[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 19 January 2005 at 10:52 AM.]

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Mike, again I agree.

Pete Grant · From: Auburn, CA, USA

Susan, besides putting everthing in perspective for us (thanks, Susan, that last paragraph was delightful), mentioned an interview with Graham Nash where he said Garia used a flat pick.

Sorry, Graham. I can understand how the telling of a good story can alter recall over time, but that dog don't hunt. I visited Jerry a week or two after he brought his ZB home -- he bought it in Denver. We played a bunch of tunes together. Jerry was using picks and, being a fine banjo player and fingerstyle guitarist, was totally comfortable with them.

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Photos of Jerry in the studio clearly show him using finger picks. I saw him play steel on a number of occasions and he never used a flat pick.

Arty Passes · From: Austin, TX

Mike, you haven't been slamming Garcia, but others certainly have....the only slamming Jerry's fan's have done is extolling his virtues and pointing people towards other examples to listen to. You started the thread because one knucklehead didn't know what he was talking about, but be careful not to paint "these kids" with too broad of a brush.
But thanks for starting the thread and giving others a chance to wax eloquently about a talented, influencial musician who happened to play (insert degree here) pedal steel.....

Keep on truckin!
Arty

[This message was edited by Arty Passes on 20 January 2005 at 12:47 PM.]

[This message was edited by Arty Passes on 20 January 2005 at 12:48 PM.]

Duncan Hodge · From: DeLand, FL USA

I don't know...I was out taking a walk in the woods this evening listening to music on my trusty mp3 player and Last Lonely Eagle by the New Riders came on. Jerry played some pretty simple steel on the song, but it worked perfectly. Maybe it was the beautiful sunset, or perhaps it was all those old live oaks with Spanish moss on them, but I felt very peaceful after the song. I played it a second time.
Duncan

Mark Lind-Hanson · From: Menlo Park, California, USA

"Last Lonely Eagle" indeed is a good example of Jerry's soulfulness along WITH "I Used to Be A King" for me- & if you would like to hear something that makes the Pedal steel sound like something else ENTIRELY, listen to Paul Kantner's "Blows Against the Empire:" Garcia pioneered the use of multiple effects (mixing wah with fuzz, for example)and on this album, they added some real enhancements via the mixing board. Too bad the record takes such an "us and them" approach to the times lyrically- it doesn;t hold up but as a period piece, but what an awesome sound he gets there.
And I am not anywhere near all the other people who would put down Emmons or any of the great earlier pedal players or the more "tradional" style players myself.(nor would Garcia have, I am sure!) I agree there is a lot of prejudice from both angles. But I myself, I listen to everything, and appreciate it for what it is.

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