Jerry Garcia was born on the 1st August 1942, in San Francisco, California USA, of British and Spanish ancestry, and passed away on the 9th August 1995 in Forest Knolls, California. He was a musician – singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for being a co-founder of the rock band The Grateful Dead. His career in the entertainment industry was active from 1960 to 1995.
Have you ever wondered how rich Jerry Garcia was? Sources estimated that Garcia counted his net worth at the impressive amount of $40 million – obviously, most of his income was the result of his successful career as a musician. Over the course of his career, he collaborated with numerous musicians, including Tom Fogerty, Pete Sears, Bruce Hornsby, Art Garfunkel, and many others, and this also contributed to the overall size of his wealth.
Jerry Garcia Net Worth $40 Million
Jerry Garcia was brought up by Jose Ramon Garcia and Ruth Marie Clifford. His father was a professional musician, thus, Jerry grew up surrounded by music and from an early age he started taking piano lessons, but as a teenager he switch to the guitar. While he attended elementary school – Monroe – he showed interests in arts as well as his musical skills, so he entered the San Francisco Art Institute. He also went to Analy High School, but didn’t matriculate, because of his decision to join the U.S. Army, from which he was discharged. However, while he was in high school, Jerry became a member of the school band the Chords, with which he won a contest and recorded his first song, “Raunchy” by Bill Justis, and so his career began.
Before The Grateful Dead was formed, Garcia played in various bands such as Warlocks, which later became The Grateful Dead. Since music was his main focus, along the way he met with numerous musicians including fellow founding members of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bob Weir.
The band’s line up changed often, but that didn’t stop them from playing for 30 years, until 1995. During that period, the band released 13 studio albums, some of which reached platinum and gold certification, such as “Aoxomoxoa” (1969), “Workingsman’s Dead” (1970), “American Beauty” (1970) – one of the band’s greatest albums, reaching double platinum – “In The Dark” (1987), and the last studio album “Without A Net” (1990). During the 30 years period, this was the main source of Garcia’s net worth.
However, Jerry was also involved in several other bands, which were his side projects, such as the Jerry Garcia Band, with which he created several albums, the band Old And In The Way with John Khan, Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Richard Greene, and John Hartford, who left the band before they became popular.
Furthermore, Garcia was a part of the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, Saunders-Garcia band, and also a part of the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Garcia as well released several solo albums such as “Garcia” (1972), “Compliments” (1974), and his last solo release “Run For The Roses” (1982), which only added further to his overall net worth.
Speaking about his personal life, Jerry Garcia was in marriage thrice. His first wife was Sara Ruppenthal(1963-67), with whom he had a daughter. Later, he married Carolyn Adams(1981-94), and they had two daughters. In 1994 he married Deborah Koons, who he left widowed. Throughout his entire life, Jerry was drug addicted, so was frequently in rehab. Unfortunately, at the age of 53 he was found dead in his room at one of the rehabilitation clinics – according to sources, he died from a heart attack. In honor of Jerry, his ex-wife and daughter established in 2015 the Jerry Garcia Foundation, which helps children to develop artistic skills.
Rhino, Arista, Warner Bros., Acoustic Disc, Grateful Dead
Albums
"Garcia" (1972), “Aoxomoxoa” (1969), “Workingsman’s Dead” (1970), “American Beauty” (1970), "Steal Your Face" (1976), "Not for Kids Only" (1993), "How Sweet It Is" (1997), "The Pizza Tapes" (2000), "Well-Matched: The Best of Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia" (2006), In The Dark (1987), Without A Net (1990)
Music Groups
Chords, Warlocks, The Grateful Dead,
Nominations
"100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" (Rolling Stone's magazine), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1994)
Movies
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977)
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Trademark
1
Favoured the Gibson SG and the Fender Stratocaster
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Extremely Long Beard
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Black T-Shirt
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Wild Improvisational Playing style
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Quote
1
A lot of times, when we write a song for a record, it really doesn't turn into what it's gonna become until we've been performing it a few years. So normally our records are usually failures on that level.
2
Well, when you're seventeen, you can handle the army, you don't mind. At least for as long as I was in, which was for about nine - ten months. Then I got kicked out. I had pathological anti-authoritarianism.
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[on Grateful Dead's more complicated music] You can't just play the way The Grateful Dead plays without working at it. It's not something that is easy or just happened to us. There was a long, slow process that brought that into being.
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[on his lack of interest in fame and success] You know, I could have spent my whole life playing the blues in a Mission Street dump and been just as happy. All my life, man, all my life.
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([on his favorite movie, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)] My general fascination with the bizarre can definitely be traced to this movie.
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I would describe my own electric guitar playing as descended from barroom rock-and-roll, country guitar and jazz. Just because that's where all my stuff comes from. It's like that blues instrumental stuff that was happening in the late '50s, early '60s. Like 'Freddie King'.
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First of all I don't think of myself as an adult. An adult is someone who's made up their mind. When I go through airports and the people who have their whole material thing together, who are clean, well-groomed, who have tailored clothes, who have their whole material thing together, these people are adults. They've made their decision to follow those routines. I would say I was part of a prolonged adolescence.
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Drug use is kind of a dead-end street. It's one of those places you turn with your problems, and pretty soon all your problems just become that one problem. Then it's just you and the drugs.
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Magic is what we do, music is how we do it.
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[commenting on environmental issues] Somebody's got to do something, and it's a damned shame that it has to be us!
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I'd rather have my immortality while I'm alive. I don't care if it lasts beyond me at all. I'd just as soon it didn't.
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Deadheads are kinda like people who like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but people who like licorice, REALLY like licorice!
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Fact
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Formed a folk-rock duo with Sara Ruppenthal, whom he then married, called "Jerry and Sara". They were divorced in 1967. [1963]
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In 1986, he went into a severe diabetic coma and nearly died. When he awoke, he had to relearn how to play the guitar, but started touring with the Dead again the following year.
3
Had a fourth daughter named Keelin with partner Manasha Matherson in 1987. Despite still being married to Carolyn Adams at the time, though they were married (since 1981 mainly for financial reasons) they didn't live together.
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Was once held hostage in a hotel room at gunpoint by a pimp who had Garcia mistaken for another man he was after.
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Worked for a short time as a proofreader for Lenny Bruce in the early 1960s.
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Most known for his long, flowing, and melodic guitar solo's and improvisation in live music.
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Was one of the first rock musicians to master the pedal steel guitar and helped revive its sound and help it reach a bigger and more mainstream audience due to his playing with Crosby Stills Nash & Young and The New Riders of the Purple Sage in the country rock genre.
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Was a master bluegrass Banjo picker who helped revive the Banjo sound and helped bring it to a younger and more mainstream audience with his playing in the band Old and in the Way and other sessions.
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Once during a benefit concert in the late 1980s on stage with fellow guitar great Carlos Santana, Santana stopped playing mid-song to salute Garcia who was playing so brilliantly.
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Suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome in the later years of his life, it hampered his mobility and guitar playing.
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A keen and talented artist, he created over 500 pieces of artwork during his lifetime. Some can be found on his website and in various books, galleries, and art tours.
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He won the award for best Banjo player in the amateur division at the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival.
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Had 4 daughters: Heather, Annabelle, Thersea, and Keelin.
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Ranked number 13 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
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Grateful Dead were voted the 55th Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Artists of all time by Rolling Stone.
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Co-writes his songs with Robert Hunter; Hunter writes the lyrics, Garcia the music.
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The Roseanne (1988) episode "Halloween - The Final Chapter" was dedicated to his memory.
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Once met Frank Sinatra at an airport and the two discussed music theory.
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Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of Grateful Dead). [1994]
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The famous Grateful Dead House - home to many a "hit" - is located at 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco.
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In the US, there is a Ben & Jerry's brand of ice cream called "Cherry Garcia".
arranger: "Not Fade Away/Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" Traditional / writer: "Uncle John's Band", "Truckin'", "Touch of Grey", "Truckin' Live at Deer Creek Music Center, July 15, 1989", "Ripple", "Touch of Grey Live at Brendan Byrne Arena, October 14, 1989"
Extraordinary Measures
2010
writer: "Truckin'"
The Box
2009/I
writer: "Scarlet Begonias"
Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey
2008
TV Movie documentary writer: "Dark Star"
Hold On
2008/I
Short "Jackaroo"
Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil
2007
TV Series writer - 1 episode
Phil Lesh & Friends Live at the Warfield
2006
Video "Slipknot!" / writer: "Cosmic Charley", "Uncle John's Band", "Eyes of The World", "St. Stephen", "The Eleven", "New Speedway Boogie", "Franklin's Tower"
Catch and Release
2006/II
writer: "Uncle John's Band" 1970
Big Love
2006
TV Series performer - 1 episode
Parashat Ha-Shavua
2006
TV Series writer - 1 episode
The Wendell Baker Story
2005
writer: "Scarlet Begonias"
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico
2005
writer: "Friend of the Devil"
Festival Express
2003
Documentary "Blues Jam" / performer: "Country Jam", "Better Take Jesus' Hand", "I Can't Do It Baby", "Ain't No More Cane", "CC Rider" / writer: "Casey Jones", "Friend of the Devil", "New Speedway Boogie" - as J. Garcia
The Dreamers
2003
writer: "Dark Star" 1968
Highway
2002/I
writer: "Scarlet Begonias"
Freaks and Geeks
2000
TV Series writer - 1 episode
Mystery Science Theater 3000
1997-1999
TV Series writer - 2 episodes
Runaway Bride
1999
"Ripple"
A Walk on the Moon
1999
writer: "Ripple" 1970, "Uncle John's Band" 1970 - as J. Garcia