Jerryfluence: Jerry Garcia Covers Spotify Playlist

Throughout his illustrious career with the Grateful Dead and leading his solo projects, guitarist Jerry Garcia incorporated the work of others into his sonic output. Garcia was known to cover a wide survey of fellow musicians both live and in the studio with the Dead as well as the Jerry Garcia Band and other solo endeavors.

Round Records will soon issue the Before The Dead box set featuring Garcia’s earliest pre-Grateful Dead recordings. That set features a few covers that remained staples of Garcia’s career, including “Rosa Lee Mcfall,” “Shady Grove” and “Deep Elem Blues.” This edition of Saturday Stream presents a Spotify Playlist focusing on the influential songs Jerry regularly performed live outside of the Grateful Dead.

Garcia’s wide-ranging taste in music spans a multitude of genres and the playlist is made up of early rock ‘n’ roll, classic country, soul and R&B, essential reggae, gospel and favorites by Jerry’s popular contemporaries. Guitar greats Chuck Berry, B.B. King, J.J. Cale, Albert King and others are featured. There are multiple selections by Jimmy Cliff alongside additional reggae from the likes of Bob Marley & The Wailers and Peter Tosh. There are also several Bob Dylan originals to go along with songs by legendary songwriters like Leadbelly, Hank Williams and Allen Toussaint. Rock greats covered by Garcia include Elvis Presley, The Band, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison and The Beatles, while he also took on Motown hits by Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and others.

The Jerryfluence Spotify Playlist below begins with the original recordings of songs covered by Garcia followed by those same tunes as performed by Jerry. Stream it here: