THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508100045
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines
WHEN THE WORD hit shortly before noon, phones started ringing, the way they did when Deadhead concertgoers wanted friends at home to know what the band was playing.
But this time the news wasn't about ``Dark Star.'' It was about the end of the long, strange trip.
Jerry Garcia had suffered a fatal heart attack in a Novato, Calif., drug-treatment center. The leader of the Grateful Dead was 53.
Garcia's death pulls the bottom out from under the most popular touring rock band in the country. Perhaps even more meaningfully, it surely brings an end to what many fans saw as one of the great joys of life.
``There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert,'' went the slogan adopted by Deadheads years ago. What Garcia called the ``magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration'' of music lured thousands of them - from unkempt teens to lawyers on leave - to rally behind the group in caravan fashion, following the group from town to town. The Grateful Dead first played the Hampton Coliseum in 1979, making regular spring stops there until March 1992.
For Deadheads, Jerry was both the musical and spiritual center of the Dead - if not of the universe. The desire for an elusive Dead ticket was expressed in the telling phrase: ``I need a miracle.''
Garcia might have been a little bemused by such adulation, but he wore it well. His influence resonated through the culture. Musicians ranging from Elvis Costello (who shared a Musician magazine cover story with him a few years ago) to Dwight Yoakam and Lyle Lovett contributed tracks to a fine tribute album, ``Deadicated.'' Bob Dylan toured with Garcia and friends as his backing unit in the late '80s. And admirers like Branford Marsalis and Williamsburg's Bruce Hornsby were happy to join the band onstage whenever they could make the time.
A new generation of postpunk kids took up the banner in the '80s and '90s. The Southern California band Camper Van Beethoven wrote a gleeful song, ``We Saw Jerry's Daughter,'' after making that very sighting. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, but you also knew they wouldn't have sung it if they hadn't really cared.
In last year's remembrance of his brother, executed murderer Gary Gilmore, and their family, writer Mikal Gilmore spoke of reaching out to the band and its work in a dark hour. He surely wasn't the only one. To their most avid followers, Garcia and the Dead represented music as magic, something worthy of ``the unlimited devotion'' found in a title on their first album in 1967.
This and the Dead's other somewhat unfashionable ideals continue to trickle through American life, and American lives. For instance, this past Sunday, a New York Times article about yuppies returning to religion contained a lyric that has become one of the group's most widespread contributions: ``What a long, strange trip it's been.''
For his part, Garcia kept the questing, open-minded spirit of the truly rounded musician. (Tellingly, the Dead hired spokesman Dennis McNally after he published a biography of Jack Kerouac.)
Garcia soaked up everything from the great jazz pianist Art Tatum to Don Rich, the guitar player who lit the fuse on Buck Owens' most incendiary honky-tonk sides. Two of Garcia's last recordings were of the standard ``Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'' and Otis Redding's ``Cigarettes and Coffee'' for the soundtrack of the movie ``Smoke.''
The serenity and acceptance that radiated from songs like ``Ripple'' and ``Touch of Grey'' occasionally curdled, though. Just as the Dead could create master works of songcraft and emotional commitment on the order of the 1970 albums ``Workingman's Dead'' and ``American Beauty,'' so could their music turn infuriatingly lackadaisical. When the eternal tape-traders tossed on one more lamely noodling concert ``highlight,'' it was hard to see the point.
On the other hand, the Dead represented a combination of self-reliance and outreach that welcomed anyone into the music. Why, they didn't even mind that one of the benefits of their late-'80s media windfall was a hit single, the catchy ``Touch of Grey.''
That new rush of attention further complicated the relationship the Dead had with its audience and the cities it visited. Since the '60s, the Dead collected a devoted coterie of fans who think nothing of spending a year or so following the band. Concerts were a sort of festival, with Deadheads buying and selling tapes, clothing, beads and crystals.
But when trendiness became part of the equation, the pre-show circus in the parking lots of venues didn't get any easier to handle.
Over the years, some localities loudly protested what they considered invasions by drugged-out freaks; others welcomed the fans' dollars. Things were always pretty sedate for the Dead in Hampton Roads.
In the mid-'80s, the Hampton Coliseum staff devised a strategy with Dead promoters, police and state ABC officials. The coliseum wouldn't allow peddling in the parking lot, gates weren't opened until 4 p.m. the day of concerts and the lot was cleared after the show. The Deads' last concerts at the coliseum passed without incident.
The trip grew more sadly bizarre this summer with a number of accidents and incidents of violence. Fans were injured in the collapse of an outdoor sleeping arrangement, and one show was even canceled in the wake of rioting by non-ticket-holders looking for the miracle.
The talk of the dream possibly dying was widespread. But, even with Garcia's health problems over the years (he suffered a diabetic coma in the '80s), no one could have expected that it would end so abruptly. Now, the Deadheads' cherished concert tapes have a special poignance. ILLUSTRATION: KRT COLOR PHOTOS
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia performed at a concert in
Washington, D.C. this past June. He was found dead of a heart attack
Wednesday morning at a drug treatment center.
Grateful Dead fan Tony Leggieri shows off his handmade Jerry Garcia
T-shirt at an April 1994 concert in Miami.
Graphics
SIX ESSENTIAL DEAD CDS
Some Grateful Dead records almost seemed essential for their
covers alone. Who could forget that cartoon guy smacking himself in
the head with an ice cream cone? Others, though, were necessary for
the music. Here are six essential Dead CDs.
``Live Dead'' (Warner Bros., 1970). This double-length concert
was seen by many fans and critics as the epitome of the Dead's
jams.
``Workingman's Dead'' and ``American Beauty'' (Warner Bros.,
1970). These country-tinged studio sets were deceptively laid back;
``Ripple'' (on ``American Beauty'') sums up Garcia's spiritual
credo.
``Best of the Grateful Dead - Skeletons From the Closet'' (Warner
Bros., 1974). A primer, from ``The Golden Road (to Unlimited
Devotion)'' to ``Truckin'.''
``Reckoning'' (Arista, 1981). A live acoustic show that's even a
little tough-minded.
``In the Dark'' (Arista, 1987). ``We will survive.'' The Dead's
well-received creative comeback spawned the hit ``Touch of Grey.''
- Rickey Wright
DEADHEADS TOGETHER
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Photos
ARISTA
The Grateful Dead appeared at Hampton Coliseum several times,
beginning in 1979.
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead inspired legions of fans who
followed them around the country from concert to concert.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MUSIC
OBITUARY by CNB