A deep connection: The blues guitarist Jerry Garcia called the “real thing”
The publicist for the Grateful Dead once said how tricky it was trying to sell the band to various publications and venues because of their versatility and the odd sound they captured. He said, “It was always a challenge because there’s so much distraction about them.” That still seems to be the case for many people, but the truth is it’s very easy to understand what makes the Grateful Dead special.
They’re a band with many number-one albums and a committed fanbase keen to follow them everywhere they go. How have they managed to achieve this? It’s simple: They are a musical outfit who perform based on feeling instead of technical ability.
There is a lot of ability present within the band; they’re all excellent musicians, but that talent takes a backseat to their psyche. They will step on stage and gauge a room, gauge the feelings throughout the band and within the audience, and the music they make throughout their gigs will reflect that. The studio work provides somewhat of a backbone, but human emotion and the thrill of seeing a band live takes precedence over everything.
That’s why fans are so committed to seeing them perform. The Grateful Dead can provide something different at every single show they play, and the emotion felt throughout the room is projected sonically in a way that other bands would struggle to capture. They are completely individual in that sense.
When you consider this style of playing, it’s hardly a surprise that Jerry Garcia has so much time for the blues, specifically the blues guitarist John Lee Hooker. John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He could inject every single song that he played with barrels of emotion. It didn’t matter whether he was taking on the most technically difficult piece of music out there or something more straightforward; how he felt throughout the track truly shone through.
“There a thing like a guy like John Lee Hooker or somebody like that who can play two or three notes so authoritatively on a guitar,” said Garcia, “There’s like 60 years of real mean person, right, who can scare the pants off you in one or two notes played with such immense authority and such soulfulness. There’s that, and that’s a real thing. For me, I’d much rather hear something like that than a lot of facility.”
This mindset shapes the entirety of the Grateful Dead’s approach towards music. The reason improvisation was so crucial for them was because the way they felt was never going to be consistent, so why should the music they played be? By looking up to someone like Hooker, who can pack a punch with a few chords, the groundwork was set for Garcia and the Grateful Dead to build their entire careers.
