Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader of the band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead.
As one of its founders, Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for the band's entire 30-year career (1965–1995). Garcia also founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Saunders–Garcia Band (with longtime friend Merl Saunders), the Jerry Garcia Band, Old & In the Way, the Garcia/Grisman and Garcia/Kahn acoustic duos, Legion of Mary, and New Riders of the Purple Sage (which he co-founded with John Dawson and David Nelson). He also released several solo albums, and contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician. He was well known for his distinctive guitar playing, and was ranked 13th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" cover story in 2003. In the 2015 version of the list he was ranked at #46. In 2023, Garcia was ranked 34th by Rolling Stone.
Garcia was renowned for his musical and technical ability, particularly his ability to play a variety of instruments and sustain long improvisations. Garcia believed that improvisation took stress away from his playing and allowed him to make spur of the moment decisions that he would not have made intentionally. In a 1993 interview with Rolling Stone, Garcia noted that "my own preferences are for improvisation, for making it up as I go along. The idea of picking, of eliminating possibilities by deciding, that's difficult for me". Originating from the days of the "Acid Tests", these improvisations were a form of exploration rather than playing a song already written.
Later in life, Garcia struggled with diabetes. On July 10, 1986, he went into a diabetic coma and nearly died. Although his overall health improved somewhat after the incident, he continued to struggle with obesity, smoking, and long-standing heroin and cocaine addictions. He was staying in a California drug rehabilitation facility when he died of a heart attack in August 1995.
Jerome John Garcia was born in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, California, on August 1, 1942, to Jose Ramon "Joe" Garcia, whose paternal ancestors were from Galicia in northwest Spain, and Ruth Marie "Bobbie" (née Clifford) Garcia, who was herself born in San Francisco and was of Irish and Swedish descent. His parents named him after composer Jerome Kern. Jerome had an older brother, Clifford Ramon "Tiff", who was born in 1937. Shortly before Clifford's birth, their father and a partner leased a building in downtown San Francisco and turned it into a bar, partly in response to Jose being blackballed from a musicians' union for moonlighting.
Garcia was raised as a Catholic. He was influenced by music at an early age, taking piano lessons for much of his childhood. His father was a retired professional musician and his mother enjoyed playing the piano. His father's extended family—which had immigrated from Spain in 1919—would often sing during reunions.
In 1946, when Garcia was four years old, two-thirds of his right middle finger was cut off by his brother in a wood splitting accident while the family vacationed in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Garcia later confessed that he often used the severed finger to his advantage in his youth, showing it off to other children in his neighborhood.
Less than a year after this incident, his father died in a fly fishing accident when the family was vacationing near Arcata in Northern California. He slipped after entering the Trinity River, part of the Six Rivers National Forest, and drowned before other fishermen could reach him. Although Garcia claimed he saw the incident, Dennis McNally, author of the book A Long Strange Trip: The Inside Story of the Grateful Dead, argues that Garcia formed the memory after hearing others repeat the story. Blair Jackson, who wrote Garcia: An American Life, notes that a local newspaper article describing Jose's death did not mention Jerry being present when he died.
Following his father's death, Garcia's mother Ruth took over her husband's bar, buying out his partner for full ownership. She began working full-time there, sending Jerry and his brother to live nearby with her parents, Tillie and William Clifford. During the five-year period in which he lived with his grandparents, Garcia enjoyed autonomy and he attended Monroe Elementary School. At the school, Garcia was greatly encouraged in his artistic abilities by his third grade teacher: through her, he discovered that "being a creative person was a viable possibility in life." According to Garcia, it was around this time that he was opened up to country and bluegrass music by his grandmother, whom he recalled enjoyed listening to the Grand Ole Opry. His elder brother, Clifford, however, staunchly believed the contrary, insisting that Garcia was "fantasizing all [that] ... she'd been to Opry, but she didn't listen to it on the radio." It was at this point that Garcia started playing the banjo, his first stringed instrument.
In 1953, Garcia's mother married Wally Matusiewicz. Subsequently, Garcia and his brother moved back home with their mother and new stepfather. However, due to the roughneck reputation of their neighborhood at the time, Garcia's mother moved their family to Menlo Park. During their stay in Menlo Park, Garcia became acquainted with racism and antisemitism, things he disliked intensely. The same year, Garcia was also introduced to rock and roll and rhythm and blues by his brother, and enjoyed listening to Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, B. B. King, Hank Ballard, and, later, Chuck Berry. Clifford often memorized the vocals for his favorite songs, and would then make Garcia learn the harmony parts, a move to which Garcia later attributed much of his early ear training.
In mid-1957, Garcia began smoking cigarettes and was introduced to marijuana. Garcia would later reminisce about the first time he smoked marijuana: "Me and a friend of mine went up into the hills with two joints, the San Francisco foothills, and smoked these joints and just got so high and laughed and roared and went skipping down the streets doing funny things and just having a helluva time". During this time, Garcia also studied at what is now the San Francisco Art Institute. There he was taught by Wally Hedrick, an artist who came to prominence during the 1960s. During the classes he often encouraged Garcia to draw and paint, noting that Garcia had skill in both areas. Hedrick also introduced Garcia to the fiction of Jack Kerouac, whom Garcia later cited as a major influence.
In June, Garcia graduated from the local Menlo Oaks school. He then moved with his family back to San Francisco, where they lived in an apartment above the family bar, a newly built replacement for the original, which had been torn down to make way for a freeway entrance. Two months later, on Garcia's fifteenth birthday, his mother bought an accordion for him, to his great disappointment. Garcia had long been captivated by many rhythm and blues artists, especially Chuck Berry, Elmore James and Bo Diddley, leaving him craving an electric guitar. After some pleading, his mother exchanged the accordion for a Danelectro with a small amplifier at a local pawnshop. Garcia's stepfather, who was somewhat proficient with instruments, helped tune his guitar to an unusual open tuning.
After a short stint at Denman Junior High School, Garcia attended tenth grade at Balboa High School in 1958, where he often got into trouble for skipping classes and fighting. Consequently, in 1959, Garcia's mother again moved the family to a safer environment, to Cazadero, a small town in Sonoma County, 90 miles (140 km) north of San Francisco. This turn of events did not sit well with Garcia, who had to travel by bus thirty miles (50 km) to Analy High School in Sebastopol, the nearest school. Garcia did, however, join a band at his school known as the Chords. After performing in and winning a contest, the band's reward was recording a song. They chose "Raunchy" by Bill Justis.