The book that gave an insight into the mind of Jerry Garcia
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The mind of a musician is an elusive beast and difficult to fully comprehend. No matter how many writing classes you take, no matter how many records you listen to, at some point you have to come to terms with the fact that some people are musically inclined and others just aren’t. Moreover, most musicians are completely unaware of what makes them musical; it’s merely an instinctive and inexplicable trait. Many have tried to get inside the heads of musicians over the years, but most have failed, most notably in the case of Grateful Dead songwriter Jerry Garcia.
Frankly, Jerry Garcia’s brain was a particularly difficult code to crack; sometimes even Garcia was no wiser to what was going on inside his skull. Then again, what else could you expect from the leader of a band formed in the mid-1960s after acid tests and a particular fondness for psychedelic substances? Garcia’s constant quest to keep his third eye firmly open, however, meant that for the most part he was more attuned to the intricacies of consciousness than most of his fellow musicians.
Despite his reputation as a wacky hippie god, Garcia always seemed quite humble and down-to-earth in interviews – in stark contrast to his otherworldly music and songs. Aside from the joys of LSD and mind-expansion, one of Garcia’s favorite subjects was the world of literature and research. If anyone was in a position to recommend books about the mind of a musician, or the human mind in general, it was Garcia, who devoted much of his life to researching – in a sense – exactly that subject.
Garcia’s love of literature is said to have its roots in childhood. In a 1982 interview, he said: “I was asthmatic and had to learn more slowly than the other children. That’s how I got into reading.” This story will probably sound familiar to many less athletic children, but few of them reached the artistic greatness of Garcia. Of course, the songwriter’s reading habits changed somewhat as he became more interested in the world of music and drugs.
A particular favorite of Garcia was The Horna 1958 novel by American professor and poet John Clellon Holmes. The book, about the history of jazz music and an artist who changes the tradition of the genre indefinitely, is often considered one of the earliest novels of the “Beat Generation.” As if that description wasn’t already worthy of Garcia’s attention, he apparently received a copy of Holmes’ book from none other than Ken Kesey.
Reflecting on his appreciation for The HornGarcia said, “It’s really a musician’s book,” explaining, “It’s about a black bop musician and it conveys the mind of a musician really well.” Whether the novel conveys Garcia’s own mind or that of a musician in general – that is, one who isn’t soaked in acid – isn’t clear, but Garcia’s groundbreaking work was clearly close to Holmes’s heart.
As accurate as Garcia’s assessment of the novel may be, the chance to glimpse into the mind of a songwriter—especially one as eccentric and offbeat as Jerry Garcia—is well worth the price of a used copy.
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