The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones: Jerry Garcia’s thoughts on the best British band
The Beatles versus The Rolling Stones. It’s forever been a fierce dilemma music fans have to face, settling into two camps that are always keen to gush about the merits of their respective side. As the two leaders of the British invasion and two timelessly beloved titans of rock and roll, it’s a tough call. But the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia knew his answer.
The deeper world of counterculture didn’t always take too kindly to the British bands. Over in the US, the West Coast had the trippy hippie scene burning out in San Fransisco or lazing around Laurel Canyon, testing out the decade’s psychedelics. On the East Coast, the Greenwich Village folk scene was taking it all very seriously, believing that music could change the world and it was their duty to make a difference. Over in the West, Grace Slick was calling The Beatles “silly”, while in the East, Bob Dylan was accusing them of stealing his style.
The same critique was felt for the Stones, too. David Crosby held a long-running grudge against the band for the events of the Altamont Free Festival, while others merely took issue with the music, believing it to be merely a copy of a whole lineage of artists that came before.
As the two most successful rock and roll acts around, some simply just didn’t see the bands as experimental or interesting enough to be counted within the racks of the era’s leading pioneers. That’s kind of how Garcia felt, but only about one of the acts.
“The Beatles’ music was interesting music,” Garcia said in 1967. Having started his own band in 1965, Garcia admitted that the Fab Four played a role in not only getting him to start the Dead, but encouraged him to stay interested in the new places music could go. He continued: “The Beatles were doing something new and they had great musical ideas and a great thing going. Plus, seeing the movie Hard Day’s Night was a turn-on. It was very ‘up,’ and I’ve always preferred things that are a little on the ‘up’ side.”
By this point, The Beatles had morphed from the twee early rock and rollers they began as into an experimental force. They were now firmly in their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band era, where their innovative nature was undeniable.
But on the other side, Garcia didn’t see that in the Stones. “The Rolling Stones’ music was not that much of a surprise because I’d listened to a lot of rhythm & blues, and early Rolling Stones was similar to that music, although not as well done,” he said, simply seeing Mick Jagger and his troupe as cheaper knock-offs of old music.
In his own group, with their expansive, lengthy jam sessions, it’s clear that Garcia favoured innovation and experimentation above all. The Grateful Dead were a band keen on pushing the rock world further into new and exciting places, so he saw a kinship in the Beatles while the Stones felt inferior.
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