Reading Notes: Browne 2015

Browne, David. 2015. So Many Roads: The Life And Times Of The Grateful Dead. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press [a member of the Perseus Books Group].

I stand by my initial assessment - this book is the real deal, chock full of great tidbits, fluently written. This is a great addition to the canon, standing alongside Jackson, McNally and the rest.

Browne's method involved lots of interviews and access to materials with and from just about all of the key survivors at the very center of the Grateful Dead world. As a scholar, I lament that the move to improve the transparency of work done using qualitative methods underway in various scientific fields, which is a very good thing, could never work for this kind of writing. I will treat specific facts given by Browne as correct, unless I can find something to raise doubts. I rarely do.

The usual reading notes methodology. I know the endnotes don't format properly on blogger - one gets that for which one has paid, and I need to do it this way for my own purposes. Notes below the fold.

MG the GD guys were "glued to the enterprise"[1]

Tate-Manson stuff was August 1969 – neat contrast with The Common. Murdered August 9, 1969. #JATJ

#musics Browne 2015, xi says country, bluegrass, experimental music and improvisation. Not my preferred taxonomy.[2]

other themes: rise of an alternative culture; changes in R 'n' R music and business; technology (on stage); shared community -> social media

MG, via Browne: "young men from disparate musical and cultural backgrounds who joined together, helped transform the sound of popular music, grew together into older men, and shunned responsibility yet had it thrust upon them in any number of ways.[3]

Mickey Hart: "When the music played, everything made sense. When the music stopped, things started getting weird".[4] What a great line.

Amalie Rothschild photo from FE, ca. 2/13-14/70, "a few days before the start of the Workingman's Dead sessions.[5]

MH notes that getting busted (e.g., New Orleans, but also think to 10/67) is good business.[6] Note to Corry: Truckin' as marketing.

"the Dead weren't just West Coast weirdoes; their repertoire made them one of the most eclectic, fearsome, and versatile American rock band of its time, perhaps ever".[7] #musics

g-Rukka Rukka, Weir's ranch in Nicasio

s- Rhonda, Sherry and Vicki Jensen sisters living at Hart's ranch

Madrone Avenue in Larkspur: JG and MG first, then RH #houses. "Hunter moved in during the first months of 1969"[8]

"the Dead's world could be a constant lurch between light and dark"[9] #chiaroscuro

GD met Hell's Angels at Kesey's in La Honda.[10]

ca. 1970 guitar case sticker "Blackjack Garcia, the baddest fucking guitarist in the world".[11] #personality

Altamont: "after the Airplane's Grace Slick had mentioned to Mick Jagger the role the Angels had played in security for Airplane shows, the Angels had been recruited for Altamont".[12]

1970, "those close to Garcia were beginning to notice that he could unexpectedly fall into grumpy, blackened moods".[13] #personality

MG later wondered whether 1970 cocaine wasn't when Garcia began what she called his "secret drug life".[14] #drugs

Workingman's sessions began around 2/16/70 with Dire Wolf, resumed in early March, and wrapped up around March 16.[15]

#private "Outside the studio doors the world could be chaotic, disorganized, and messy. But as [Workingman's sessions] showed, they could escape it all".[16] JATJ

October 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis time; "Garcia had grown almost accustomed to sudden, unexpected loss. It had already haunted the first twenty years of his life, and each episode had left irrevocable scars on his body or his psyche".[17] #death

Joe Garcia's death: fishing in the Trinity River in August 1947.[18] finger was spring 1947.[19] #death

Bobbie remarried twice, second was Wally Matusiewicz, which was hard on Jerry, since Wally was a seaman who wanted the boys to work with their hands, while JG was more artistic.[20]

JGMF was a draw. "The missing finger only added to his image, especially when he would boast, wrongly, that the absent part of his finger was in a jar of alcohol at home, and accepting visitors".[21]

in 8^th grade JG tried out the saxophone.[22]

Garcia used to go down to Playland as a kid, eat pie and play arcade games.[23] v-FDGH

move to folk music while with Barbara Meier, ca. 1962 "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" #musics Makes it seem like he had a brief real folkie period. Banjo came in a few months before Cuban Missile Crisis, i.e., maybe late summer or early fall 1962.

Barbara Meier: "I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks."[24] #why

Norm van Maastricht talks about how they were as just-starting out musicians, ca. fall 1962: "We felt almost driven to play anytime, anywhere, with anyone. The hunger was never satisfied."[25]

-song "Matty Groves" – Lesh saw Garcia playing this and was entranced, gushing that he was in the presence of greatness.[26]

#why 1963 JG to Norm van Maastricht: "All I want to do is to live my own weird little life my own weird little way and play music for a living."[27]

#women early 1963 JG and Barbara Meier are done, he soon meets Sara Ruppenthal. 1965 La Honda: "I'd give up music to be with Mountain Girl".[28]

#adayinthelife 10/2/67 "As always it would start with Garcia, who would rise at dawn and immediately start practicing scales." #why #workaholic Laird Grant: "After the Army he was a little more disciplined".[29]

MG: "It took me a while to find out what an obsessive person he was. Rehearsing constantly and talking and smoking and practicing."[30] #why #personality

#women 1966 some succession of women, was with some other chick when he moved into 710 Ashbury, then MG.

#women Laird: "Jerry was always one of those guys who drew women to him because he seemed needy. He never took care of his own shit, and he needed someone else to do that, like 'Help me, be my old lady.'"[31]

#women #personality Garcia had a jealous streak, per Barlow and MG.

At time of 10/2/67 bust, Lesh Kreutzmann and Hart were living at 17 Belvedere Street.[32] #geo

Michael Steven Hartman 9/11/1943[33]

11/24/66 Thanksgiving Jack Casady was rolling the joints[34] - #JATJ

v-FDGH nice paragraph Browne 2015, p. 136. "The setting for this performance was surreal but fitting. Only a few years before, the hulking building on the Great Highway, the road that ran along the western side of San Francisco, had been home to the world's largest slot-car raceway. Miniature-car freaks gathered to watch their toy autos careen along an electrical track that stretched out 220 feet. For Garcia the mere sight of Playland at the Beach, where he'd once romped as a teenager, must have brought back memories of another, different lifetime."[35]

#error says Chet opened FDGH in 1968, but it was 6/13/1969 (with the Jeffersons, note #JATJ).

Marin: "named after a chief of the Licatiut Native American tribe who'd long ago vanquished the Spanish"[36]

#houses JG and MG had an apartment in another part of town before moving to Marin[37]

Hart Ranch by early 1969.[38]

#Frankie Hart: "Born Judy Louis Doop, grew up in SLO, won a dance contest, go-go-dancing at the Peppermint Lounge. Interesting discussion.[39]

#error (I think) he says that Pig exhorts people to get up and dance on the album version of Alligator, but I thought that was Weir (2/14/68).[40]

Garcia and Weir as older and younger brother configuration.[41] NB My Brother Esau #men

The Firing [42] Phil's idea. Main event at Potrero Theatre ca. August 1968[43]

Lesh: "The way we left it was 'The four of us are going to try this.' It wasn't, 'If you guys don't get your shit together, we're going to do this ourselves.' It was 'we're going to try it. But you guys have to know that we feel you're not on the same page as us'."[44] This puts #Hartbeats in a whole different light.

People felt icky about The Firing. Aftermath is power trio with two drummers, Mickey and the Hartbeats, "a dreadful name that didn't bode well for their music. 'It sucked,' Lesh says. 'It was nowhere.'" Then rediscovered the GD was only place where that level of magic could happen, all of them.[45]

#error ca. 1969 to say gone were the long periods when Pig strutted the stage – there were still long Lovelight rave-up endings many nights. Also #disagree that St. Stephen and China Cat sounded like instant standards – the latter took 18 months to get right, the former had a few different iterations, and it was very hard to get right.[46]

Cost of Aoxomoxoa $200k, exorbitant for the time.[47]

#Carousel capacity 2,000 seats. $15k/month lease[48] v-Carousel this is really interesting. He says the Carousel provided the template for doing everything in-house, within the community: Matthews, Betty, Frankie help with the sound, Rhoney runs concession, etc. etc. McIntire "a refined and diplomatic Illinois native who'd attended college in San Francisco and had first become part of the Dead's circle while working at the Carousel." Listened to Chopin – blond, finely dressed, cultivated, diplomatic.[49]

Bill Graham 1969 FW shows $5k in June '69, FE for $7,500.[50] Pragmatic, gotta do business with Bill, don't have to be friends. This is nice setup for The Common #JATJ

Lesh characterizing Garcia's 1968 "sense of impatience and perfectionism".[51] #personality

#NRPS "Unable to dedicate himself fully to both bands and aware of his limitations as a pedal steel player, Garcia had recommended Cage for the slot during the multiband 1970 Festival Express tour of Canada."[52] I am not sure I am 100% convinced that this account is gospel truth. "He said, 'I stink – P.U.'", according to Buddy Cage.[53]

v-Wally_Heider's,_SF,_CA "in the Tenderloin". Barncard says the Dead were pure pros, nothing but a little weed, not even nitrous.[54] Hm #drugs

#Lenny Hart I am confused on the timeline. "Soon after the completion of Workingman's Dead everyone learned that the rumors about Lenny Hart were true."[55] The timeline confuses me bc earlier (check) he estimated end of WD sessions at 3/16/70. So why did the criminal complaint against Lenny say his employment terminated 3/2/70? Man, I wish those session contracts would turn up.

MG says Mickey personally delivered the news about Lenny to her and Jerry in their Larkspur home: "He came around in a terrible state of apology and depression and said that leaving the band was the only thing for him to do. He was so ashamed and humiliated."[56] If that was ca. March 1970, what took him so long to leave (2/19/71)?

Pigpen and Hart barely contributed to American Beauty.[57] I wonder, was the NRPS Hart's escape into musical comfort in 1970? Like, how much did #NRPS sustain *him*, a low key gig in a stressful time.

DJG from Muscle Shoals, sang backup on

Elvis's "Suspicious Minds",

R.B. Greaves's "Take A Letter Maria" (1969). You can really hear the influence of this on Keith and Donna Band's sound.

Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" (yyyy) wiki: " "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond which appeared as the opening track on the eponymous album. Released as a single in early 1969, it hit number 22 on the U.S. pop singles chart." B-side "A Modern Day Version of Love" Released January 29, 1969

Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves A Woman".[58]

In Paris May 1972 Hunter wrote about the GD crew culture with a "Ten Commandments of Rock 'n' Roll", including advice to suck up to the top cats, work only for factional interests, "make devastating judgments on persons and situations without adequate information" and "destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise an expression of unity"[59] #GD

WB advanced $20k for Garcia,[60] used to buy Sans Souci #houses

#private "Closed Session – Anita Bryant" taped onto the door as a joke – Bryant being a "fervent antigay singer, beauty-pageant winner, and orange juice spokesperson."[61] But seriously, notice Heider's role in the public to private rebalancing. Closed Session, Anita Bryant, indeed!

#error "Next Time You See Me", gives last word as "Her"[62]. Check, anyway.

recommend #edit first para. p. 196

3/12/73 Pig funeral at Daphne Funeral Home, Corte Madera. I didn't know this location, or hadn't noted it.[63] I also note bottom p. 197 "Pig still juicing E72 and after".

Pig found dead on the floor by band accountant David Parker.[64]

Wall of Sound, pp. 201-202.

"During this time [ca. 5/12/74], the Dead were already considering a switch to Columbia and its boss, Clive Davis, yet they remained with Warners, especially after Lenny Hart absconded with their funds."[65] #contracts #record company #Clive

Joe "Smith was also furious when Garcia released a side project –Hooteroll? with keyboardist Howard Wales—on another label."[66] #AHATT I can kind of see Smith's point, actually. In early 1972 he goes east behind Hooteroll, but never goes out behind the one with his name, only –Garcia, a couple of months later. It's pretty scewy comportment. In later years, 1974 Round Record period, the Fantasy guy Saul whatshisname had the gall to make a stir about Round using Merl. Puh-leeze – Garcia had made a series of low-key contributions to Merl's work out of Berkeley, and a more considerable one to Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt [GSKV], Live at Keystone, and this guy wants to fuss about Merl contributing a few licks, knowing how asymmetric the respective impact of those concessions is? STFU. #contracts #record company

Joe Smith: "I made no effort to hold onto them. If James Taylor had said that, I would've fought like crazy. But the Dead weren't that important to us in any way, other than they'd helped our image."[67] record #contracts #record company

"They'd known Ron Rakow, a Wall Street stock trader who'd relocated to San Francisco, since the time he'd lent them money for a [204] sound system. Rakow, who'd befriended Scully and Rifkin, had been in and around their community ever since, helping work out the deal for the short-lived Carousel Ballroom experiment (their first foray into a band-run business)."[68]

per Vicki Jensen: Ron Rakow "talked a mile a minute, but he was really sharp, and he was accepted. He was part of the show. Rakow was supportive of them when they had hard times [buying them a sound system some time seemingly before the Carousel operation], and he was magical in his own way. He spun quite a thing."[69]

Cutler was suspicious of Rakow's "So What" era pitch: "Whomever had the loudest mouth and could persuade Jerry would get their hands on wheel of the good ship Grateful Dead."[70] Sam Cutler left the band, ca. early 1974, maybe even a little bit earlier? So when Rak came in Sam went out.

Grateful Dead records starts working April 1973, after First National Bank of Boston provided a loan and Atlantic Records paid a chunk for foreign distribution rights.[71]

#s-Mike (nicknamed Josh) Belardo, "KMPX DJ who had interviewed the band at Hart's ranch in 1970 and later took a job" at GDR.[72]

Steve Brown: "Rakow would have someone on the hook, doing the [aggressive] Bill Graham thing, and Jerry would be sitting back enjoying it. He loved the alter-ego bad-boy thing. Jerry couldn't bring himself to be that guy publicly or even privately, so watching someone else do it was fun for him."[73]

#record company: it seems like Grateful Dead Records was legitimately ripped off via rampant counterfeiting of its first release, Wake of the Flood, which Josh Belardo says cost them 25% of their income.[74] I have heard it intimated that this could have been an organized criminal operation, a straight up racket, but I don't know. Good to keep a couple of Hells Angels hanging around on the drug side of the operation, but they had to turn to the FBI about the records.[75]

Starting to earn more, now $10-15k a show in 1971. 1972 Hartford Stadium they grossed $78k, took home $25k. Big paydays in Tempe and Denver 1973.

Sam on Keith Godchaux: "Keith wouldn't say boo to a goose, but once you got to know him, he wasn't so shy. He had his feisty side." In shopping for a piano when he joined the band, Keith played a dozen models before picking one.[76]

Mars Hotel was completed 4/30/74.[77]

Grateful Dead as an institution.[78] Hits theme again p. 219.

Peter Rowan's "Big Red" p. 212, doesn't close the loop right away, does on p. 215.

"Garcia's new side project was an outgrowth of his new living arrangements, and both were early signs that Garcia was seeking his own space apart from the Dead. … Stinson Beach … was the escape Garcia yearned for at the time."[79] MG: "Jerry liked that drive to Stinson. He said it was the only time he had to himself in his life."[80]

Kahn "developed a love of jazz in high school", "more rooted in blues and R&B" than Lesh.[81]

Backstage at the RFK GD shows (June 9-10, 1973), Rowan said "It was kinda weird. It was like, 'You're not gonna take Jerry from us—he's ours.'"[82] #GD vs. solo

"industrialized Dead" took some casualties. "In early 1974 Cutler parted ways with the band after a tense meeting."[83] Sam: "I hated the politics—a bunch of hippies with nothing better to do than plot against one another rather than get on with the collective thing. There was more politics around the Dead than around the Stones".[84]

1974 "industrialized Dead". Per Owsley, there was "a lot of coke and a lot of beer and a lot of booze and a lot of roughness" in the Dead scene of the time.[85]

August, Marin County hotel, Danny Rifkin informs everyone that the band will be coming off the road for awhile.[86]

1974 just before hiatus: Rock "and Garcia were in the San Francisco airport and ran into, of all people, country-pop troubadour John Denver. To Garcia's amazement, Denver was carrying only a guitar case and a briefcase. 'Where's your band?' Garcia asked. Denver replied that for this particular tour, he didn't have one; he was merely showing up in cities to play with symphonies, and he opened up his briefcase to show Garcia his sheet music. Afterward Garcia, marveling at Denver's relatively simple touring life, asked Scully 'Why aren't we doing that?'"[87] #why

2/19/75 Rak brings bad financial news; "the dream of the Dead's label was becoming a calamity faster than anyone thought."[88] #record company

"the Dead were [227] hemorrhaging money".[89] #record company

Belardo "once saw Garcia so incapacitated he couldn't function".[90]

#record company Details of the UA deal Browne 201, 228. "Upon delivering their first album to the label, the Dead would receive $300,000 within ten days; each album to follow would earn them a $150,000 advance. The deal also came with restrictions. The first two Dead albums had to prominently feature Garcia (and to a lesser extent, Weir) … Garcia would receive a $125,000 advance for two solo albums, with Weir getting $85,000 for a record of his own. If the deal didn't recoup … Garcia would be required to make another solo album. Garcia was allowed to play on other musicians' records, but, as the contract read, 'on the condition that Garcia's name is not featured more prominently than any other artist on such record".[91]

1975 Garcia opened an office in Stinson Beach –right above Ed's Superette, a local grocery", with his new personal manager, Zippy.[92]

1975 "The Garcia Band had less overhead, fewer crew members, and far less backstage and offstage drama than the Dead".[93] #solo vs. GD

Lesh was "hit hardest by the decision to stop touring." "I was never into taking a break. But I knew why it happened. Jerry wanted to take a break. Jerry wanted to make the movie out of the Winterland shows. What are you going to do?"[94]

Fall 1974, JG and MG's relationship was "melting down". JG slept with other women on the road".[95] Including DK the month the hiatus was announced. #women

Christmas 1973 Allen Arkush was with JG and MG. MG had freezer crammed with bags of pot. But one of the guests brought coke, MG and JG had a fight about it. "Garcia made an excuse for using it."[96] #drugs

JG had met DK at a Dead show 1973, she went with him to Europe '74. August 1975, Frankie Weir and Cagwin heard yelling and stuff in Ace's studio. "Because it was Garcia's 33^rd birthday, MG had dropped by with Annabelle in order to give him a present, only to find Koons there."[97] MG grabbed DK, dragged her out of the studio, pulling the door off its hinges in so doing. "I hate this shit," Jerry told an unnamed friend. "I can't tell you how much I hate it. I'm gonna get myself strung out to escape this shit."[98] #women #drugs

3/5/75 another session at Ace's (implied). Says they hear about Lenny's death a month after it happened. "At first Garcia didn't know who they were talking about".[99] Given how prominently this was done up in the I-J,[100] this doesn't feel plausible to me.

Joe Smith on Lenny Hart: "When they sued him I was sitting outside the courtroom, and I said, 'How can you do that?' He said 'The Lord has forgiven me – I hope the boys will.' I said, 'The Lord didn't lose seventy-five big ones.'"[101]

#chiaroscuro Hart's Barn early 1975 "tense, shadowy atmosphere. 'I rarely went to Mickey's after 1970, says Vicki Jensen. 'Things got dark there.'"[102] Jerilyn says "He was a complete hermit, and he was very depressed and broken-hearted. … He cut himself off from everybody. He was so upset with everything with his dad and the band. No one blamed Mickey ever, but Mickey blamed Mickey."[103]

The 1975 UA contract called for first album to be delivered by July 10^th, a second on 10/31, and a third on 1/31/76.[104] Yeesh.

#adayinthelife sessions at Ace's 1975 "Garcia would inevitably arrive first, as early as 7 a.m., and Cagwin would make a fresh pot of coffee for him …"[105]

#charisma "When Garcia spoke, everyone else would quiet down and listen. Even if he was just discussing a Don Reno and Chubby Weiss [sic] bluegrass show he'd attended, Garcia remained the unquestioned center of attention."[106]

#hiatus "wasn't about taking a break from each other as much as it was from the overwhelming industry of the Dead".[107]

#error double check did Santana play on 9/28/75 in GGP? p. 244

John Scher first worked with GD at Roosevelt Stadium 1972.[108]

"In early 1976 the First National Bank of Boston wanted its debt repaid, and tension between Rakow and the band was mounting. Everyone other than Garcia was beginning to question the running of the business, and Hart had an outright confrontation with Rakow when Hart was recording Diga … Soon after, Rakow was fired. Hearing what had happened, Rakow, according to published reports, cashed a low-six-figure advance check from United Artists and paid off those owed for production of movie projects and other costs."[109] #record company

Garcia didn't want to press the matter of Rakow's cutting himself a check. According to Andy Leonard, Garcia's salary was cut to $50/week from $540, "to penalize him and compensate for the depletion in funds. Garcia had been the one pushing for Rakow from the start and now had to pay the price for his decision. The fallout would have enormous implications for Garcia, his personal life, and the Dead."[110] I think this is exactly right. This is when the GD guys force Garcia to say yes forever. It's the one time he prostrated himself, and they locked him in.

Clive Davis had been interested in the GD before they shopped around in 1976. Scher: "We went and talked to Arista first. They were the only people we negotiated with in any real way. Clive had signed the New Riders, and Jerry was very happy with the way that happened."[111] #NRPS

#Hells_Angels and GD still "amicable" 1977. "Garcia was friendly with Sandy Alexander, who ran the New York City chapter".

ca. 9/3/77 "Garcia was increasingly besieged on numerous fronts, and his need to alleviate stress was growing. That year he endured a messy breakup with [257] Koons."[112] #women

ca. 1977 "Garcia was also feeling guilty about the debacle of Grateful Dead Records and having not only brought Rakow into the fold but also stood up for him during the entire chaotic ride. It was as if he'd been entrusted to run the family but had let it run amuck."[113] #drugs

Time of GD Movie, "the workload, combined with everything he was juggling in his personal life, was proving to be too much for Garcia. Increasingly his affable, approachable image began working against him: anyone who needed a favor or a financial handout seemed to visit him backstage." Kid Candelario: "He had guys hounding him to do free shows. They don't come by to say 'Hi, what's going on?' They came to tell him he needed to do a benefit concert or whatever. It was a hustle. He had all of those kinds of things pounding on him. He wanted to be in that place where he could go in and turn the light off and just be quiet."[114] #drugs 1977 #benefits #burden

#drugs "a strong Persian opiate that could be smoked rather than injected. Although some in the organization connected Garcia's alarming new habit to the fall of Grateful Dead Records [who?] he had begun dabbling in heroin before that collapse. One Dead employee recalls seeing Garcia and one of the band's colleagues visit a brothel in 1974 so they could do heroin without any band interruptions; Parish first saw Garcia partake of the drug in the winter of 1975." Parish: "As far as I know, he started before the Rakow thing."[115]

"Sources differ as to who brought the drug into the Dead's camp: one recalls an outsider who would occasionally worked [sic] for their business. Garcia told Hart his connection was the son of an ambassador to a Middle Eastern country, who was using his diplomatic immunity to easily bring the drug into the States."[116] #drugs

ca. 1977 his use wasn't debilitating, so few paid it much mind.

Browne implies that 9/3/77 heralded a new era where they didn't have to be musically great, but just became a show, p. 263. I agree. He's one of the people who sees Englishtown for what it is, an OK show in front of a lot of people.

Maria on Jerry and John: They "were like spiritual brothers. It was musical, and it was something beyond that. Jerry respected John and the knowledge he had of other kinds of music. He liked his sensibility. They had this intuitive connection".[117]

Says straight out that John and Maria an item from 1974.[118]

Cats sessions sometimes "started after midnight and were fueled by coke and wine"[119]

according to Maria, JGB "allowed Garcia to revel in different rhythms and repertoire than the Dead".[120] solo vs. gd

Egypt: "Garcia was suffering from withdrawal from heroin."[121]

Keith was so zonked that "during the final stages of recording [the Dead's 1978 Shakedown Street] John Kahn wound up playing some of the keyboard parts himself."[122]

"During a JGB tour in 1978 to promote Cats, Maria Muldaur would try to stand in between the couple onstage so Donna wouldn't be able to see when Keith would briefly stop playing and give his wife two middle fingers at once, which would often make Donna burst into tears".[123] I doubt it really happened regularly, but it's a good image.

ca 8/1/78: "At a party for Garcia's birthday in August 1978" JG was living with Rock and Nicky, Mydland came to meet the band.

ca. RCMH 1980 Garcia was, per Loren, "speedballing. You do cocaine and then you smake that stuff, [called] rat." … by 1980 everyone knew JG was onto opiates. performance suffering, voice going, hanging out in the studio bathroom, etc.[124] #drugs

early 1980s "Garcia and his issues had put the band through what seemed like a never-ending roller coaster ride. During a European tour of 1981 they'd written a letter accusing him of not being professional".[125] ca. Barcelona 1981? #drugs intervention?

early 1980s Garcia living in the "darkened basement apartment" at Rock's both of them stone cold junkies. Nicki moved out in 1981. "I did everything in my power to keep Jerry in touch, to the point where it drove my family out of my house because he wouldn't leave, and I'd have the band come into my living room and do the meetings there."[126]

Browne says a 1983 JGB tour was mysteriously canceled, implying JG drugs[127] – when?

1983 "Garcia was looking particularly sickly; on stage he was pasty skinned and ghostly pale, and at moments he barely seemed to move. … Offstage he grew increasingly disconnected from his band mates, a combination of the drug use and a deepening resentment about the constraints on his time and the pressures of supporting the organization. When a friend asked him why he didn't simply stop touring so much, he replied, 'Gotta feed the bulldog.'"[128] #burden

"To the increasing wariness of the other members of the Dead, Garcia was still spending time with Kahn and playing regularly with the Jerry Garcia Band. Garcia's close friendship with Kahn made many in the Dead less than friendly toward the bass player and the JGB, which the Dead saw as an unwelcome distraction. … Garcia clearly enjoyed playing and spending time with Kahn, and as Kahn's wife, Linda, says, 'John and Jerry liked old movies and they loved to joke. We were an escape for Jerry.' (Annabelle Garcia would concur, telling Jackson that the Kahns were 'very sweet people' and provided her father with a 'safe haven.')"[129] #John Kahn #solo vs. GD Also some unease about Bobby & The Midnites. Andy Leonard says he got a lecture from Dead management about the importance of the "mothership".[130]

Andy Leonard, on 6/16/82: "I had never seen a human being that color before in my life. He was the wrong color. I thought he was going to die onstage. It scared the crap out of me."[131]

Peter Rowan played a stage at the second decadenal field trip: "he sensed lingering resentment within the Dead camp in light of the way Old and [297] in the Way had taken Garcia away from the mothership almost a decade before."[132] #solo vs. GD

Rock Scully things came to a head ca. 1984 "when Scully was called into a band meeting and accused of pilfering money during a New York trip with the Jerry Garcia Band."[133] … given his papers, went into rehab. Band mtg minutes he was in rehab in Tahoe.

JG #drugs 1981 Joan Baez crossing. "One time he was hours late and claimed he'd gotten lost in the fog on the way north. Baez had a feeling he wasn't comfortable in the situation but couldn't find out why. Garcia didn't end up sticking around for long, and later work shifted to a different studio where Garcia would finally attempt to put down a guitar part for a song they were finishing."[134]

JG #drugs 1981 Joan Baez "He was way out there.  He would noodle and get lost and start finding the part and go off into outer space, and it had nothing to do with that song."[135]

JG #drugs 1981 Joan asked Mickey what was up with Jerry. Mick: "You're getting a contact low."[136]

Summary of Joan Baez: Browne definitely paints the picture that JG was weird around Joan. He "mystified" her. Corry has written about Jerry and Joan in the past – I have to find that stuff.

ca. early 1984: "By the time they began congregating at Fantasy Garcia was barely the Garcia they had known a decade before. He was now three hundred pounds with swollen ankles; his hair was increasingly white, long and scraggly, and he seemed easily distracted. It wasn't unusual for him to arrive late and head for the bathroom, and he didn't seem to bathe with much frequency. One of his in-jokes around Front Street—"I stink, therefore I am"—was a particularly ghoulish slice of dark humor. Between takes at Fantasy Garcia would wander off again, and it was left to his devoted roadie, Steve Parish, to round him up and make sure Garcia was back at work."[137]

Garcia early 1984 Fantasy with GD, his voice raspy and off-key so that he can't do his vocals, but still being a pill. "Flipping through a bunch of Stax and Volt records in his booth, Garcia turned grumpy, snapping at the others, 'None of you seem to remember it tonight.'"[138] #personality

Sue Swanson on JG, referring to "Garcia's gallant side": "He really loved women. He was an old-style guy that way: 'Don't mess with women,' 'the weaker sex,' whatever you want to call it."[139] #women

Sue Swanson, JG once told her "I could be the nicest guy on the block or the meanest guy on the block", and "she could tell from the tone of his voice that he meant it".[140] Hmmm, not quite sure what to make of this. I don't doubt Ms. Swanson's subjective sense of what he meant, but it could just have been persuasive, y'know, bluster.

early 1980s "Garcia spent hours watching junk-food television—he could stay up all night absorbing hours of Dr. Gene Scott"[141]. He's the crazy white-haired coke fiend on Bay Area TV at the time.

#drugs 1984 #error intervention "Over a dozen people –including the band, Mountain Girl, and Hunter—crashed Garcia's home for just such a discussion, and Garcia promised he'd go into treatment. To prove it, he and Lesh drove to a clinic in Oakland, where Garcia signed up and said he'd return later", then didn't follow through.[142] "The next" day is how Browne narrates the bust, 1/18/85, so there is an #error here somewhere. Either it was 1985, or the next day was not the day of the bust in GGP.

1/18/85 "Garcia was arrested and booked, but afterward, back at home, he barely mentioned the incident and acted as if the best wasn't cause for major concern." Garcia "didn't at the time think he had any sort of problem and rejected therapy".[143] #drugs

#drugs 1986 "The shows with Dylan and Petty proved to be his undoing. As straight as Garcia tried to stay, mysterious brown packets would still be handed to him in elevators, sometimes by strangers, and his mood grew less than pleasant."[144]

August 1986 discharge, moved back into HH, but with MG, Trixie and Annabelle.[145]

When Trixie first went to HH, she saw "dirty little pieces of tin foil and straws". "The refrigerator was filled with little but Tang, the fruit-flavored beverage powder, and the armrests in his favorite chair were covered with cigarette burns." Laird Grant tried to find hidden stash, none in albums, but he found that "bits of heroin were taped to the bottom of cereal boxes in the kitchen cabinets".[146]

GD start playing around Front Street 10/86. Late in month, Mickey tells office they just played a really good Dark Star.[147]

Basic tracks for ITD laid down January 6-15, 1987.[148]

"The Dead's business was erupting around them in the wake of 'Touch of Grey'. By now touring income amounted to 80 to90 percent of the Dead's gross income; the Dead grossed $26.8 million in 1987".[149]

#error references riot at a 1975 Dead show in Hartford.[150]

#women Manasha Matheson grew up in Englishtown, attended 9/3/77 but first at Watkins Glen. Her friend attended Dekalb 10/29/77 gave Gar a pumpkin saying "Manasha says hi", even though MM was in Oxford (abroad from Shimer College). Next year, GD Uptown Theatre gigs [1/30-2/1/78].[151] Uptown '78 Manasha and a friend hook up with Garcia through a friend of Hart's talk Catholicism, she tells him she thinks he's a saint.[152] #religion

#women Mid-80s Manasha is living in CA and working at health food store in Fairfax. Ran to hospital time of coma, Jerry reached out to her during his recovery, "asked her to come back to CA[153], sending her a plane ticket so she could visit him in Los Angeles" where he was working on So Far.[154] Timelines hazy.

4/87 Gar still living with MG at Hepburn Heights, but does Irvine shows with Manasha. "By the Dead's summer tour the two were a couple."[155] #women

#women 1987 when JG and Manasha got together, MG was hurt. But she let it go. She protected and nurtured Gar during his recovery, then he left her for a younger model.

#women #personality per Parish, "Garcia had a habit of ending one relationship by diving into another; unpleasant confrontations were to be avoided as much as possible."[156]

Clarence Clemons details p. 353. Moved to Bay Area, crossed into Dead world, backstage and then onstage, high on mushrooms. BW says Clarence wanted to join Dead and that he and Garcia were into it, but others were not. "A couple of our guys hate the saxophone".[157]

Cal fall 1989, Clarence Clemons "floated an unusual idea to Weir and Garcia. Clemons suggested the three of them move in together for what Weir says would have been 'a bachelor pad'. As odd as the idea sounded, Weir has said he and Garcia gave it serious consideration …"[158] before deciding against it.

1989 work on new album (BTL). "The Dead were trying their best to stay on a relatively even keel and be good boys. Yet tempers, frustrations, and old habits intruded … Garcia was looking haggard again, and the newly darkened mood cast a pall over the sessions." [159] #drugs Shelley Kreutzmann: "It was all contingent on how well Jerry was doing and if he was chasing the dragon. The healthier he was, the better everyone got along."[160]

"Lesh would later dub the making of what came to be called Built to Last 'a nightmarish briar patch of egotistical contention.'"[161] 1989 even a good year musically in many ways, GD world just never that happy.

ca. early 1990s "Employees of the Warfield in San Francisco would grow so tired of the inundation of Deadheads during a run of solo Garcia shows that they hung a Garcia doll from the rafters in the kitchen and beat it with sticks to vent their frustration."[162] JGB #burden even his side band is getting to be a hassle. The bullshit quotient is rising.

Garcia got call about Brent's passing at home in San Anselmo, with Manasha.[163] #death

With Brent's passing, Trixie says she "realized Jerry was probably going to die early. I had to think that Jerry lost hope or was unhappy" after Brent's death.[164] #death

#death "From the moment he heard the news Garcia clearly took Mydland's death particularly hard."[165]

Garcia attended the GDTS barbeque on his birthday 8/1/90.[166]

#error William and Mary Hall at William and Mary, not Univ of Richmond.[167]

#personality GD "in typical style, decided to keep working rather than confront its internal issues. As always, it was best to move on without dwelling much, if at all, on what had just occurred. Justin K remembers JG saying "I'm never going to teach all these songs again – this is it. We're not going to start up all over again with someone new"[168] #death #1990 general

"the Dead machine"[169]

Hornsby notes the general indifference of the band, fall 1991.[170]

Scher: "Suddenly there was Hornsby, who from a talent point of view was Garcia's equal, and Jerry recognized that immediately."[171]

Hornsby "had to adjust to the fact that by 1991 there seemed to be two Jerry Garcias in the house. Garcia's drug use and health issues had continued, on and off, since 1989. … summer 1991 "he noticed certain signs: Garcia immobile onstage, hunched over his guitar and staring at the floor, barely playing."[172] #drugs

End of summer tour 1991, intervention, Phil especially getting stuff off his chest. JG does a "stint at a methadone clinic".[173] But some point on fall tour, Weir gets Bruce and Vince at the bar and tells them Gar is using again.[174] #drugs

2 Jerry Garcias are the healthy and the unhealthy ones.

8/17/90 JG and Manasha wed in a private spiritual ceremony in their San Anselmo home.[175] #women

Boston 9/20/1991 Hornsby confrontation with Garcia starts p. 389. Bruce: "You're just phoning it in. You're not there. You're not really delivering." Jerry: "You don't understand twenty-five years of burnout, man."[176] Manasha says JG just wasn't feeling well that night p. 390. GD house narrative is "one bad day". Mickey Hart said that in 1992 interview, IIRC. But it was at least two bad days.

"The day before New Year's Eve 1993" jumps "on a plane to Hawaii, where he'd been scuba diving and [396] escaping the Dead world regularly since 1988." He was with Barbara Meier and

#institutionalization GD 1988 press conference at the United Nations – it doesn't get much more "world society" (Meyer, various years) than that.[177]

Browne narrates via Bruce: "The first set in Boston [9/20/91] hadn't gone well -- and, to Hornsby's mind, neither had most of the previous nights at New York's Madison Square Garden. To him the Dead, especially Garcia, seemed lackluster."[178] I agree with Bruce – those shows systematically suck, and I don't care if you were there and there are great tapes.

Hornsby confronted Garcia: even playing at a crazy professional pace [six nights off in a year or something], "he still tried to play at a high level, and Garcia didn't even seem like he was even trying—and that Garcia was letting fans down. Parish was surprised to see someone challenging Garcia that way. "It was something that was never said but was under the surface"[179]. That is all ca. 9/20/91. I have the Morse 1991a interview as 9/22, so it's Garcia expressing himself in the same spirit, I guess, laying it bare.

Manasha says Garcia had the flu that night, as she "was prepping a soothing honey-ginger drink for her partner".[180] Awesome writing.

#women 12/30/92 "Garcia had left home that morning without telling Manasha anything about his plans to leave her for Meier, but he had to say something about what he'd done, so his friends helped him write a note, then had it hand-delivered to Manasha by Garcia's assistant, Vince Dibiase".[181] Emotional cowardice, conflict avoidance.

scuba. Vicki Jensen turned him on to it. "His legs were nearly purple from lack of circulation" when she first got him started.[182]

over the years he went on 500 dives. "He could be the Jerry he used to be", Kid said.[183]

GD "success came with a Faustian bargain".[184]

#women Garcia and Meier short-lived. HE could be grumpy, and she learned he was an addict.[185] She confronted him, and, him not liking to be confronted, it was over. By December 1993, JG and DK back together.[186]

due to clogged arteries, JG told Mickey, he couldn't feel his guitar pick. Also had carpal tunnel.[187]

In November 1994 and again three months later, GD tried studio work. "Garcia would often show up late, carting along egg creams and egg salad sandwiches with extra mayo".[188]

After 1992 collapse, Nancy Mallonee: "Jerry felt he was on some kind of assembly line and needed more time at home, and the band knew it was hard on him. But they were stuck in this pattern." There were times when if the band threatened to stay off the road until JG got clean he'd just go out with the JGB.[189]

#drugs Koons has said that she became aware of Garcia's addiction early in 1995".[190] Really?

Stayed two weeks at Betty Ford, instead of a planned month. Off the wagon between Betty Ford and Serenity Knolls. Linda and John got impression that "he was going to leave much from his past behind, including, presumably, the Dead" when he went to Serenity Knolls. Cameron Sears saw Jerry at the Wendy's drive through on the way to Serenity Knolls.[191]

died of a heart attack. Two heart arteries had 85% blockage, a third 30%.[192]

---

[1] Browne 2015, ix.

[2] Browne 2015, xi.

[3] Browne 2015, xii.

[4] Browne 2015, xiii.

[5] Browne 2015, xiv.

[6] Browne 2015, 2.

[7] Browne 2015, 5.

[8] Browne 2015, 11.

[9] Browne 2015, 11.

[10] Browne 2015, 13.

[11] Browne 2015, 13.

[12] Browne 2015, 14.

[13] Browne 2015, 17.

[14] Browne 2015, 17.

[15] Browne 2015, 19.

[16] Browne 2015, 21.

[17] Browne 2015, 30.

[18] Browne 2015, 30.

[19] Browne 2015, 31.

[20] Browne 2015, 32.

[21] Browne 2015, 33.

[22] Browne 2015, 34.

[23] Browne 2015, 35.

[24] Browne 2015, 39.

[25] Browne 2015, 41.

[26] Browne 2015, 46-47.

[27] Browne 2015, 56.

[28] Browne 2015, 89.

[29] Browne 2015, 110.

[30] Browne 2015, 110.

[31] Browne 2015, 117.

[32] Browne 2015, 122.

[33] Browne 2015, 123.

[34] Browne 2015, 130.

[35] Browne 2015, 136.

[36] Browne 2015, 140.

[37] Browne 2015, 140.

[38] Browne 2015, 140.

[39] Browne 2015, 141-142.

[40] Browne 2015, 144.

[41] Browne 2015, 147.

[42] Browne 2015, 148-150.

[43] Browne 2015, 151.

[44] Browne 2015, 149.

[45] Browne 2015, 149.

[46] Browne 2015, 152.

[47] Browne 2015, 153.

[48] Browne 2015, 156.

[49] Browne 2015, 157.

[50] Browne 2015, 157.

[51] Browne 2015, 162.

[52] Browne 2015, 166.

[53] Browne 2015, 166.

[54] Browne 2015, 170.

[55] Browne 2015, 171.

[56] Browne 2015, 171.

[57] Browne 2015, 173.

[58] Browne 2015, 173.

[59] Browne 2015, 180.

[60] Browne 2015, 183.

[61] Browne 2015, 183.

[62] Browne 2015, 189.

[63] Browne 2015, 197.

[64] Browne 2015, 198.

[65] Browne 2015, 202.

[66] Browne 2015, 203.

[67] Browne 2015, 203.

[68] Browne 2015, 204.

[69] Browne 2015, 204.

[70] Browne 2015, 204.

[71] Browne 2015, 206.

[72] Browne 2015, 206.

[73] Browne 2015, 206.

[74] Browne 2015, 208.

[75] Browne 2015, 208.

[76] Browne 2015, 210.

[77] Browne 2015, 211.

[78] Browne 2015, 212.

[79] Browne 2015, 213.

[80] Browne 2015, 213.

[81] Browne 2015, 214.

[82] Browne 2015, 214.

[83] Browne 2015, 217.

[84] Browne 2015, 217.

[85] Browne 2015, 218.

[86] Browne 2015, 224.

[87] Browne 2015, 225.

[88] Browne 2015, 226.

[89] Browne 2015, 226-227.

[90] Browne 2015, 227.

[91] Browne 2015, 228.

[92] Browne 2015, 230.

[93] Browne 2015, 230.

[94] Browne 2015, 230.

[95] Browne 2015, 231.

[96] Browne 2015, 231.

[97] Browne 2015, 231.

[98] Browne 2015, 232.

[99] Browne 2015, 232.

[100] "Oscuro," http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/01/oscuro-february-2-1975.html.

[101] Browne 2015, 232.

[102] Browne 2015, 233.

[103] Browne 2015, 233.

[104] Browne 2015, 235.

[105] Browne 2015, 235.

[106] Browne 2015, 236.

[107] Browne 2015, 237.

[108] Browne 2015, 244.

[109] Browne 2015, 246.

[110] Browne 2015, 246.

[111] Browne 2015, 248.

[112] Browne 2015, 256-257.

[113] Browne 2015, 257.

[114] Browne 2015, 258.

[115] Browne 2015, 258.

[116] Browne 2015, 258.

[117] Browne 2015, 268.

[118] Browne 2015, 268.

[119] Browne 2015, 268.

[120] Browne 2015, 268.

[121] Browne 2015, 270.

[122] Browne 2015, 275.

[123] Browne 2015, 275.

[124] Browne 2015, 281.

[125] Browne 2015, 293.

[126] Browne 2015, 293.

[127] Browne 2015, 294.

[128] Browne 2015, 294.

[129] Browne 2015, 295.

[130] Browne 2015, 295.

[131] Browne 2015, 296.

[132] Browne 2015, 297.

[133] Browne 2015, 298.

[134] Browne 2015, 304.

[135] Browne 2015, 304.

[136] Browne 2015, 304.

[137] Browne 2015, 307.

[138] Browne 2015, 307.

[139] Browne 2015, 308.

[140] Browne 2015, 308.

[141] Browne 2015, 314.

[142] Browne 2015, 318.

[143] Browne 2015, 319.

[144] Browne 2015, 320.

[145] Browne 2015, 322.

[146] Browne 2015, 323.

[147] Browne 2015, 325.

[148] Browne 2015, 326.

[149] Browne 2015, 343.

[150] Browne 2015, 349.

[151] Browne 2015, 352.

[152] Browne 2015, 352.

[153] NB there might be a hole here where she moves from CA back to NJ.

[154] Browne 2015, 352.

[155] Browne 2015, 352.

[156] Browne 2015, 353.

[157] Browne 2015, 353.

[158] Browne 2015, 353.

[159] Browne 2015, 355.

[160] Browne 2015, 355.

[161] Browne 2015, 356.

[162] Browne 2015, 365.

[163] Browne 2015, 378.

[164] Browne 2015, 379.

[165] Browne 2015, 379.

[166] Browne 2015, 380.

[167] Browne 2015, 381.

[168] Browne 2015, 383.

[169] Browne 2015, 383.

[170] Browne 2015, 384.

[171] Browne 2015, 384.

[172] Browne 2015, 385.

[173] Browne 2015, 385.

[174] Browne 2015, 385.

[175] Browne 2015, 387.

[176] Browne 2015, 390.

[177] Browne 2015, 388.

[178] Browne 2015, 389; see also Morse 1991a.

[179] Browne 2015, 390.

[180] Browne 2015, 390.

[181] Browne 2015, 397.

[182] Browne 2015, 400.

[183] Browne 2015, 401.

[184] Browne 2015, 405.

[185] Browne 2015, 407.

[186] Browne 2015, 407.

[187] Browne 2015, 408.

[188] Browne 2015, 410.

[189] Browne 2015, 413.

[190] Browne 2015, 427.

[191] Browne 2015, 427.

[192] Browne 2015, 429.