The Gratefull Dead

Garcia was surrounded by music as a child. His father would play him to sleep at night. His mother listened to opera and his maternal grandmother loved country music. Family gatherings tended to be musical, too, for his father’s side of the family would gather round and sing songs together.

Young Jerry and his family took a trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, when he was four; he and his brother were given the job of splitting firewood for the family that night. Horsing around, Jerry and “Tiff” were teasing each other while chopping the firewood. Jerry accidentally placed his hand in the way of the axe, lost half of his middle finger on his right hand.

“He screamed. I screamed. We both screamed. It was an accident. I didn’t do it maliciously. I was a kid. I was eight and Jerry was four. We were little guys.

Missing half a finger, Jerry had to press through life learning different types of instruments. He used his disability to

. . .
Although Lesh had never actually played the bass, Garcia knew he was a talented musician, so there was never any doubt. Weir persuaded Garcia to let him use a guitar from the store and they started jamming. After his discharge from the army, Jerry migrated to a San Francisco coffee house where the beatniks and musicians hung out. Needing a bass player they were desperate, so they asked the owner’s son, who was playing bass for only a short period of time. By the end of the evening they decided to assemble a jug band. To the dislike of Garcia, Pigpen brought a lot of his own style to the band, which was radically different from the folk bluegrass style brought forth by Garcia. You had Kruetzmann the hard swinging drummer, Lesh the intellect, Garcia the folkie, Wier the eager kid, and Pigpen the blues loving biker.

“I was going to art classes on Saturdays and some summer sessions. He just wanted to play his music and be with his friends. Smoking marijuana soon became part of the culture of the 1960's. The large increase of marijuana started when large numbers of teens began questioning their parent’s social values.

A group called the Marry Pranksters; a group of psychedelic practical jokers put together public parties called acid tests, where they served Kool-aid mixed with LSD, which at the time was legal.

Tragedy also gave the Grateful Dead another obstacle to overcome. Earning more money, the band members decided to move in with each other, they moved into an old Victorian mansion in the center of Haight- Ashbury in the bay area of San Francisco. Reading about other bands, Garcia found another band named the Warlocks.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 1987
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

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