Listen To Jerry Garcia Play Pedal Steel Guitar On Night Of His 27th Birthday

Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia was born on August 1, 1942 and died on August 9, 1995 at the age of 53. Each year, the “Days Between” Garcia’s birthday and the anniversary of his death mark a period of time to reflect on and celebrate the beloved musician’s life and career.

According to the endlessly enriching JerryBase.com (no relation), witnessing Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia performing in public on his birthday was a rare and special treat.

Garcia played with the Dead on his birthday in 1967. He also played on his birthday with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, both on August 1, 1969 and again a year later on August 1, 1970 (the latter also including a GD performance). Garcia’s other birthday shows came with the Grateful Dead in 1982 and 1994 and with the Jerry Garcia Band, who played on August 1, 1984 and on August 1, 1992.

Garcia’s intimate involvement with the New Riders Of The Purple Sage was the focus of a previous “Days Between” deep dive into Garcia’s musical companions. An excerpt follows:

Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia had many collaborators outside of his work with the legendary band. Garcia was a co-founding member of the New Riders of The Purple Sage, whose lineup included David Nelson. Garcia and Nelson first met in 1961 and soon started performing together both as a duo and in folk/bluegrass groups like Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers, Hart Valley Drifters, Wildwood Boys and Black Mountain Boys.

In April 1969, Garcia purchased a pedal steel guitar and as explained on the official Jerry Garcia website, he “[J]oined his friend, rhythm guitarist John ‘Marmaduke’ Dawson, who was writing and playing country songs in small club gigs. Before long, David Nelson on lead guitar, Bob Mathews on bass, and Mickey Hart on drums rounded out the lineup of the New Riders of the Purple Sage. The band was soon playing many shows with the Grateful Dead.”

Garcia took up playing with the New Riders as an outlet for his newfound interest in pedal steel. He performed with Nelson, Dawson, Matthews (who co-produced Workingman’s Dead) and Hart at Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco on July 16, 1969, which was a Hell’s Angels’ benefit concert.

On August 1, 1969, Garcia’s 27th birthday, the same musicians played a series of shows at the Bear’s Lair in Berkeley, California that is considered to be an NRPS show, though it was billed as “Jerry Garcia Backing Marmaduke” on flyers and ads promoting the concert. The first officially billed New Riders Of The Purple Sage show is believed to have occurred a few weeks after the birthday show.

Grateful Dead sound engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley was at the Bear’s Lair the night of Jerry Garcia’s 27th birthday and recorded the New Riders Of The Purple Sage’s early and late shows. The late show was officially released as part of the Bear’s Sonic Journals archival series.

The set begins with the Dave Dudley-popularized “Six Days On The Road.” The first of several Marmaduke-written originals, “Henry,” comes next and reappears again at the end of the set. Other Dawson tunes played in the set include “Fair Chance To Know,” “Delilah,” “Don’t Take Any Chances,” “All I Ever Wanted,” “To Have the Hurting End” and “I Am Your Man.”

Garcia’s pedal steel can also be heard on Buck Owens’ “I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail,” The Rolling Stones’ “Connection,” Tim Hardin’s “Lady Came From Baltimore,” Terry Fell’s “Truck Drivin’ Man,” the Elvis Presley-popularized “Long Black Limousine,” Joe South’s “Games People Play,” Glenn Sutton’s “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous” and Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga,” among a few others.

Listen to an exactly 27-year-old Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel guitar with the New Riders Of The Purple Sage exactly 54 years ago today, below:

Garcia was quite busy at the time of his 1969 birthday show. He followed the concert by playing the next two nights with the Grateful Dead at Family Dog On The Great Highway in San Francisco. NRPS then played a run of shows at the Matrix in San Francisco on August 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Garcia and NRPS were back at the Family Dog on August 13 and three days later he was onstage with the Grateful Dead on the other side of the country performing in Upstate New York at Woodstock. Three days after that infamous performance, Garcia and NRPS were back at the Family Dog for a performance on August 19, 1969.

Read on for more about Garcia’s time with NRPS and the band’s extended history:

The official Garcia website further detailed the evolution of the band’s lineup, explaining, “Bob Mathews stepped down in the fall of ’69 and [Grateful Dead bassist] Phil Lesh filled in until Dave Torbert joined the permanent lineup. Hart would eventually be replaced by ex-Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden and finally, in November of ’71, Jerry would step down, being replaced by Buddy Cage. This final move allowed the NRPS to untether from the Grateful Dead.”

While still a member of NRPS, Garcia played pedal steel on the band’s 1971 self-titled, debut album that also saw contributions from Hart and Lesh. Garcia played banjo and piano on a few songs on the 1972 follow-up, Powerglide.

NRPS continued after Garcia’s exit, undergoing many lineup changes, with Dawson and Nelson (who left for several years) the most consistent members (Dawson, Dryden, Cage, and Torbert have all passed away). The cross-pollinating of musicians based in the Bay Area in the late-1960s and early-1970s often involved the various NRPS members. An issue of Zig Zag Magazine in 1974 documented the NRPS “family tree,” which is archived on the band’s old website.

Garcia and Nelson reunited in 1987 when the former assembled what became known as the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. The short-lived group’s lineup also included Rothman, bassist John Kahn, drummer David Kemper and fiddler Kenny Kosek. Mostly opening for the electric Jerry Garcia Band, the acoustic lineup played roughly 30 shows, the last in July 1988.