Jerry Garcia (born August 1, 1942, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died August 9, 1995, Forest Knolls, California) was the singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, a San Francisco-based group that emerged from the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic-drug-and-music scene in the mid-1960s. He personified the hippie counterculture for three decades as the mellow leader of the band. Known for his gentle, laid-back stage presence and soulful extended guitar improvisations, he became the portly patriarch of a devoted legion of nomadic fans called the Deadheads, who followed the band on tour in spirited makeshift communities. He was also known for his work with a number of other musical acts, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Old & In the Way, Legion of Mary, and New Riders of the Purple Sage, as well as duos with both David Grisman and John Kahn. He was regarded as a virtuosic guitar player and was especially noted for his extended jazz-influenced improvisations.

Early life

Garcia was the second son of Ruth Marie Garcia and Jose Ramon Garcia. Music was part of Jerry Garcia’s life from the beginning. His father, a former professional reed player and conductor, played him to sleep at night, and his mother played piano and listened to opera at home. Following the 1948 death of their father, Garcia and his brother Clifford (whom Jerry Garcia called “Tiff”) lived with their grandparents, William and Tillie Clifford, for five years. There, the younger boy was immersed in country music as he listened to the Grand Ole Opry with his grandmother. He started learning to play the banjo, despite having lost most of his right middle finger when he was five. At age 15 Garcia’s older brother introduced him to rock and roll. Garcia was so taken with the new music that he asked for an electric guitar for his birthday.

A teenager in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, Garcia was drawn to the Beat movement and spent his spare time listening to their poetry. He took a painting class taught by Wally Hedrick and Elmer Bischoff at the California School of Fine Arts (later renamed the San Francisco Art Institute). There he learned to paint while his instructors played blues records. Dedicated to art, Garcia was not devoted to his studies, and he dropped out of high school after his junior year. He briefly joined the United States Army in 1960. He was cited for multiple counts of AWOL and was dishonorably discharged in December 1960. In 1961 he was involved in a near-fatal car wreck, an event that he credited with inspiring him to get his life together.

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In spring 1961 Garcia met Robert Hunter, and the two quickly formed the first of Garcia’s many musical groups. Under the name Bob and Jerry, the two performed folk music together several times between May and June of that year. Garcia went on to form a dozen more short-lived groups with various other musicians between 1962 and 1964. In December 1964 he, Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan, and Bob Weir—who performed together as members of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions—decided to make the switch from acoustic to electric music. Garcia and Weir played guitar and sang, while McKernan alternated between the keyboard, harmonica, and various percussion instruments. They added Dana Morgan, Jr., on bass and Bill Kreutzmann on drums and called themselves The Warlocks. Beginning in May 1965 The Warlocks played about 10 gigs. In the middle of this short run, Morgan was replaced with Phil Lesh, a volunteer at the radio station KPFA who had put Garcia on his radio show shortly before. They changed their name to the Grateful Dead in late 1965 after discovering that there was another band called The Warlocks.

Between December 1965 and October 1966 the band performed as the house band for novelist Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests—sound-and-light celebrations of the psychedelic experience produced by the then-legal hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, or “acid”). The Tests helped to cement the place of LSD in both the hippie counterculture of the day and in the image of the Grateful Dead. The band continued to play after the Acid Tests ended and provided a key part of the free live music filling San Francisco during 1967’s Summer of Love. These early days set an ethos that continued for the Grateful Dead’s three-decade run, with a focus on concerts consisting of long jam sessions and an emphasis on the synergy between the band and the crowd.

The Grateful Dead was known for its psychedelic and eclectic improvisational style, which fused elements of rock, country, bluegrass, jazz, and other styles. Much of this experimental edge was driven by the exploratory guitar playing of Garcia. They are considered pioneers in the jam band word. The band was known for their live shows and toured relentlessly between 1965 and 1995, the year of Garcia’s death. In total, the band played more than 2,300 shows, many of which were recorded on bootleg tapes and traded among fans.

Other music ventures

In addition to his work with the Grateful Dead, Garcia was involved in a number of other musical projects. The most prominent of these was the Jerry Garcia Band, founded in 1975 with several members of the Legion of Mary, an earlier side project of Garcia’s. The Jerry Garcia Band toured on and off until Garcia’s death in 1995, when the band changed its name to JGB and continued under the leadership of Melvin Seals. Garcia played the banjo in the bluegrass band Old & In the Way during its short run between 1973 and 1974. The band’s 1975 self-titled debut was one of the best-selling bluegrass albums of all time through the end of the 20th century. Throughout the years, he continued to collaborate with Old & In the Way mandolin player David Grisman. Other bands Garcia played in include Reconstruction, Black Mountain Boys, and New Riders of the Purple Sage, in the last of which he played the pedal steel guitar. He made frequent guest appearances in live shows and was a fixture in jam sessions. Garcia was featured on at least 106 studio albums and official live recordings, as well as an untold number of fan tapes.

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Drug use and health issues

Garcia was known for his prolific drug use. His first experiences came in the middle of 1957, when the future guitarist began smoking cigarettes and marijuana. He started using LSD, the psychedelic that was most associated with the Grateful Dead, in 1964. The group’s place as the house band of Kesey’s Acid Tests solidified the association. In the 1970s Garcia began using cocaine and heroin. His drug use increased over the course of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fans noticed a decline in the quality of both his singing and his guitar playing. Grateful Dead members, concerned about their friend’s health, issued Garcia an ultimatum: he had to choose between the drugs and the band. The front man agreed to enter a rehabilitation center but ended up in a drug diversion program when he was arrested for possession shortly before his planned check-in date. His drug use likely played a role in causing him to fall into a diabetic coma in 1986. When he woke up five days later, he was unable to do many basic tasks and had to relearn how to play the guitar. Garcia tried to improve his physical well-being—he made multiple attempts to stop using heroin and eventually changed his poor eating habits—but could not overcome his health challenges. He died of a heart attack while at a rehabilitation clinic shortly after his 53rd birthday. He had used heroin days before, but it was ultimately his clogged arteries that led to his premature passing.

Accolades

In 1994 Jerry Garcia was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Grateful Dead (he skipped the induction, but his bandmates made sure their front man was represented by bringing of cardboard cutout of him to the ceremony). Rolling Stone magazine ranked Garcia 13th on its 2003 “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and 34th on its 2023 list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” In 2015 Garcia was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. References and tributes to Garcia were features of accolades given to the Grateful Dead years after his death, such as when the group was given the 2007 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and when they were honored by The Kennedy Center in 2024. The 2025 MusiCares gala, in which the members of the Grateful Dead were named Persons of the Year, included tributes to the late Garcia. In 1987 the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s released the flavor Cherry Garcia, the first ice cream named for a musician. The roach species Cryptocercus garciai and the asteroid (4442) Garcia were likewise named for the musician.