The Living Dead

The Jerry Garcia hagiographic catch basin has been overflowing for years (there’s a market for the flood) but, alas, this book by a credentialed fan--editor of a magazine, author of a previous book and proprietor of a Web site, all devoted to the Grateful Dead--provides the definitive subtitle, “An American Life,” not the definitive study.

It should be stipulated that Garcia was a charming and gifted musician who was elevated as a guru by the guru-hungry tie-dyed generation. It should also be stipulated that he was uncomfortable in the role and did his best to mess things up. As events fall out in the rock hero trade, his messing up, of others and himself, only pushed the guru’s image in the direction of divinity.

Blair Jackson’s “Garcia” gathers ample biographical detail from Garcia’s history. But then, oh, that prose! We’re in the land of gush and cliche here--Jerry with the twinkling eyes, Jerry who “packed a lot of living into his 53 years.” The jacket copy--”He was one of the most gifted musicians of all time”--suggests that in heaven, where he keeps busy sending psychic messages back to Earth, he must also be exchanging guitar riffs with Wolf “Mighty Mo” Mozart.

While alive, Jerry Garcia was sometimes taciturn, because of drugs and depression; but in death, he has taken a garrulous turn, with the help of Wendy Weir, sister of Bob Weir, his former Grateful Dead bandmate, so that she could publish “In The Spirit,” her own psychic conversations with him, inspired by previous channeling of the spirit of her brother’s dead dog, Otis.

For the benefit of non-psychic readers, “Garcia” seeks to sort out the roles of singer and guitarist, composer, big daddy, drug addict, guru, emblem and victim that animated this multitalented leader of the longest-lived truly countercultural ‘60s band. (The Rolling Stones ceased being countercultural, because of overdoses of co-optation.) For those who need to retrace the band’s route from gig to gig, this is the book.

Revealing a bent toward serious scholarship, Jackson begins the Jerry Garcia story by reporting that, if you scoured the streets of La Caruna, Spain, you might be able to “trace the lineage of Jerry’s family back many centuries.” The author doesn’t scour, however. (I bet that if you scoured the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, you might find that I too, dear reader, am the proud inheritor of ancestors.) In this book, afflicted with cliches, people don’t leave, they don’t really say goodbye. They “bid a fond farewell.” They don’t travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They make “the pilgrimage south to L.A.” And as a consequence of the band’s music: “There were heavy moments, weird moments, scary moments, deep, dark, soul-searching moments too. And sadness. And more dancing. And introspection. And eventually, inexorably, the dawn.” How true. Can’t stop the dawn, can we?

Inexorable fan memorabilia and page after page of concert appearances and recording sessions are interspersed with quotations from songs that are sometimes suggestive and moving, even without the music. Loyal Mr. Jackson repeats Garcia’s assertion that “none of the drugs he took after his early LSD days had much of an effect on his music.” Garcia could be the poster child for the Denial Institute. He sinks into drugs, binges on junk food, fends off wives and children, and the music attracts larger and larger crowds, all supporting a mini-conglomerate that includes T-shirts and an ice cream flavor (for which Garcia received royalties in exchange for the use of his name).

The frequent struggles between women craving Jerry’s attention included at least one door-smashing episode between two claimants. Jerry barely blinked. The drug connections, embezzlements and band firings also seemed to occur without his taking much notice. The guru sat Buddha-like at the center of the power, the agony, the ecstasy--your generic rock’n’roll tsimis --emitting his rays of winsomeness and talent. He had that mysterious charm called charisma.

“Garcia” gazes blandly upon the various degenerations as Garcia’s social ramble grew more disorganized. Jackson notes that the group “frittered away sessions getting high,” but judgment is not his game. He doesn’t offer sufficient analysis of why Jerry Garcia was self-doomed or what the flaw was that caused him to destroy himself. The playlist engages him more.

Often band members seem way ahead of the author: “Mickey Hart said that the Grateful Dead weren’t in the music business, they were in the transportation business.” I’d like to think that this represents Jackson’s shrewd tactic of letting the major players and the facts carry the history, but Hart’s sharp observation leads Jackson into “deep, spiritual wells” and some mumbling about Dead shows as a “spiritual launch pad.” His verdict is that Garcia was super-intelligent, amazing, a rock-star genius, that he could do what he wanted. He sent underlings to fire longtime associates, old friends, even a wife, not doing it himself: He was this super-intelligent amazing rock star. If he had a toothache, he treated himself to cocaine, heroin, whatever: He could do what he wanted and the whole world was his codependent. Folks die; they O.D.; they leave the band; his kids don’t see him: Jerry, even if he is a 300-pound diabetic junkie with heart disease, seems to be immortal.

It will be hard for less than committed Deadheads to see the guru as divine. At one stage, “he rarely showered--as his greasy hair, black elbows and strong body odor showed--and his diet consisted mostly of ice cream and other junk food.” And then, of course, in a dry-out clinic, he died. Bob Weir said that Garcia taught him to live “with joy and mischief.” This book needed to uncover more of the joy and mischief that gave some of Jerry’s music its aura of magic. Garcia was fun, imaginative and responsive, and this was reflected in his guitar-playing and singing. But Jackson prefers to evoke the shipwreck, not the grand voyage.

For one of the first accounts of the Grateful Dead in the mid-’60s, Garcia told me that the name of the band came from an Egyptian prayer: “We who are the grateful dead salute thee.” His friends enjoyed Jerry’s improvisations, except when he was too stoned or depressed to raise his eyes. Jackson has a more convincing source for the name of the band, a folk tale about a man who gives his last penny to provide a decent burial for a stranger. Later, the generous soul is helped by a mysterious visitor who turns out to be the spirit of the departed.

If the spirit of Jerry Garcia--ironic, negligent and sometimes inspired--hears of this book, perhaps as a rumor from the spirit of Bob Weir’s dog or a posting on the Great Beyond Web site, he might want to give it the back of his scarred hand. Rock Scully, the band’s sometime manager, described the ethos of the Grateful Dead as “plug in, freak out, fall apart.”

A few years ago, near the end of the long strange trip, I found myself in Manhattan among a tie-dyed swarm of ‘60s revenants--was I tripping?--and realized that the Dead were in town. I followed them to Madison Square Garden. Now those swarms, after a mourning period suited to their attention spans, are following the mini-Dead bands. The King is gone: Long live Phish.

What a long strange trip it continues to be.