The prank Bruce Hornsby pulled on Jerry Garcia
Deadheads will always have a soft spot for jazz-rock giant Bruce Hornsby. During a particularly tumultuous era of the Grateful Dead, one that saw the death of keyboardist Brent Mydland and the ongoing health problems of Jerry Garcia, Hornsby stepped in as a ringer to perform with the band at more than 100 shows between 1990 and 1992. Despite having his own successful music career, Hornsby was such a fan of the Dead that he deputised himself while new keyboardist Vince Welnick got comfortable in the role.
Of course, being a member of the Grateful Dead required more than just superb music skills. Known pranksters rooting back to their earliest days in the Bay Area, the members of the Dead had lifelong attractions to mayhem and practical jokes. One look through drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s memoir Deal will turn up stories of shooting bullet holes platinum records with fellow Rhythm Devil Mickey Hart and lighting off firecrackers in hotel rooms with keyboardist Keith Godchaux.
Not wanting to be left out, Hornsby decided to turn the practical jokes on Garcia during their time playing together. “I used to phone-prank him a lot,” Hornsby recalled in a post on Garcia’s Facebook page. “I used to mess with him on the phone all the time. My favourite was this one time when I had him thinking he was live on the air on New Orleans radio with Ernie K. Doe [best known as the singer of the song ‘Mother-in-Law’]”.
“He used to have this incredible radio show: ‘Ernie K. Doe, K-DOE, live over the baddest motor scooter from New Orleans! Whatcha say Crescent City?'” Hornsby remembered. “Anyway, Garcia and I would listen to tapes of these shows; we played the hell out of them, so I knew this schtick pretty well. Maybe two or three years ago I called up Garcia around Christmas time and I used that voice: ‘Jerry Gah-cia? Ernie K. Doe! Live! WWOZ, 90.7 on yo’ radio dial, live from New Orleans! Whatchu got to say to New Orleans, Gah-cia?'”
“And Garcia says, ‘Um, well, I’d like to wish everybody happy holidays …’ and I’m thinkin’, ‘Oh man, I’ve got him!'” Hornsby said. He also recalled a bit of Deadhead trivia to keep the gag going: ever since the Dead got busted for drug possession in New Orleans in 1970 (famously leading to the writing of ‘Truckin’) they had become weary of the city, visiting it just four times between 1971 and 1995. Among the major cities in the US, especially ones with rich musical history, New Orleans often got the short end of the stick with the Dead.
“I said, ‘Gah-cia, Grateful Dead don’t play New Orleans. When Grateful Dead gonna come to New Orleans, Gah-cia?'” Hornsby continued. “And he says, ‘Well, man, I really feel bad about that. We want to come sometime …’ So I kept winding him up: I said, ‘Ernie K. Doe and the Grateful Dead gonna jam, Gah-cia! When Grateful Dead gonna play ‘Mother-In-Law’? I never heard Grateful Dead play no ‘Mother-in-Law,’ Gah-cia!'”
Just as Hornsby really started laying into Garcia, he decided to reveal the ruse. “Finally I couldn’t take it anymore: ‘Hey Garcia, it’s me — Bruce!’ He goes, ‘You weasel!’ and he cracked up”. It would be gags like those that helped endear Hornsby to the extended Grateful Dead family, and when it came time to pay tribute to the band’s legacy, Hornsby was right there with his former bandmates at the ‘Fare Thee Well’ concerts in 2015.
