Jerry Garcia Band

For happy and sad reasons, early August gives me two reasons to blog on Jerry Garcia...his birth on the first and his death on the 9th of the month.

After this morning's Grateful Dead clip from 81, I decided that we can't let this joyous day pass without some Jerry Band.

Jerry had a number of somewhat-varying lineups he played with on the side, when the Dead were not touring, over the years.  This video, from 1993, included consistent members John Kahn and Melvin Seals on keyboards.

Seals really smokes it up on this "That's What Love Will Make You Do."  It's a fun song that Garcia had in heavy rotation in the 70s, so it's really nice to see him pulling this out in what turned out to be the last few years of his life.

From the best I can tell, this show was played with his last primary guitar, as well, Lightning Bolt.  It was made by a guy down in Florida, Steven Cripe.  It was modeled after another famous guitar, Rosebud.

I mention this only because there's a sad and interesting backstory here...Cripe's other hobby was making fireworks and died in 1996 when his fireworks shed blew up.

Ouch.

Anyway, enjoy this clip.  Jerry seems to be having fun, as I did, watching him pick at the guitar in way that really drives home his banjo heritage.  I plan to continue posting more Garcia-related content in the next week, both to celebrate a musician who has brought so much joy to my life over the years as well as to compensate for my general mental exhaustion as work is really getting me tired.