Band of Brothers: the CSNY hit featuring Jerry Garcia
The 1960s may be best remembered for The Beatles, hippies, and LSD, but it was also a decade defined by a spirit of collaboration. As the younger generation sought to break away from the isolated, monochrome world of their parents, they recognised that expressing their thoughts and feelings, along with working together, was essential to building this new reality. This collaborative ethos led many musical greats to join forces and freely share their talents, exemplified by Jerry Garcia lending his expertise to a CSNY classic.
Given that Garcia was the leader of the counterculture’s defining band, the Grateful Dead—known for their legendary jams that fused rock, jazz, and Americana, along with their egalitarian spirit—and CSNY united four of the era’s greatest musical talents to create what is often considered the period’s swansong, 1970’s Déjà Vu, it’s only fitting that these two forces would come together.
Garcia helped CSNY bring to life one of their ultimate tracks, ‘Teach Your Children’, taken from their 1970 hit record. Surprisingly, though, his appearance was slightly incidental, another word that characterises the spirit of the era.
The track is a Graham Nash original and is imbued with the clear message that children need to be taught to be good to one another; otherwise, we are doomed. While this sentiment was very of its era, given the Cold War raging in the background, the spectre of atomic annihilation an everpresent, and the immense social upheaval occurring across the world, it resonates with listeners today, given that we are even closer to midnight than we were back then.
As Garcia cared deeply about humanity philosophically, it’s also fitting that he appeared on ‘Teach Your Children’. The song features him on the pedal steel, an instrument he had taught himself to play in his side project, New Riders of the Purple Sage. He would later reveal that he recorded several performances on the steel guitar and then spliced them together in the studio to create what is heard on the CSNY track, including the solo.
It all happened by chance. When CSNY were working on Déjà Vu, the Grateful Dead happened to be recording in the studio next door. Just as the supergroup had nearly finished ‘Teach Your Children’, as was customary for the era, Nash felt that a solo was all they needed to get it over the line. However, one of the group’s guitarists, Stephen Stills, thought that he and Neil Young had already done enough melodic bursts on the record.
David Crosby, who was right at the heart of the counterculture, with famous friends everywhere, offered some shrewd assistance. He had heard on the grapevine that Garcia had been learning to play pedal steel and, as he was next door, suggested that they ask him to perform the solo on the track. Garcia was blown away by the mix of the song that Crosby showed him and was more than happy to contribute.
CSNY were also over the moon at what the Grateful Dead frontman brought to the studio, with his fresh ideas and the beauty of his spliced performances exactly what they were looking for. Nash has since expressed that after he heard Garcia’s final contribution, he knew the song would be a big hit.
Despite his unrelentingly communal spirit, the sharp Garcia also sensed an opportunity to bolster his group’s output through this collaboration. His one condition for playing on ‘Teach Your Children’ was that CSNY—a group famed for their exquisite vocal harmonies—would help the Grateful Dead improve theirs on their forthcoming efforts, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Expectedly, they are regarded as two of their best.
