Jerry Garcia 1: Garcia

With all the time they spent touring, it’s a wonder the members of the Grateful Dead had any time for extracurricular activities. But play they did. Due to his prowess on a variety of stringed instruments, Jerry Garcia was in high demand for his friends’ sessions, making prominent appearances on solo albums by Crosby, Stills & Nash and Paul Kantner, the first album by New Riders Of The Purple Sage, and co-billing on Hooteroll? by jazz fusion organist Howard Wales. His own solo album was very much a one-man affair; with the exception of Bill Kreutzmann on drums and lyrics by (who else?) Robert Hunter, Garcia let him loose on guitars, bass, pedal steel, and keyboards.

And since he sings anything with words, it sounds a lot like a Dead album. Side one alone is wall-to-wall: “Deal”, “Bird Song”, “Sugaree”, and “Loser”, all of which were played live by the band before the album was released, and stayed concert staples for the duration. Each is in that loping, acoustic-based mode established on the last two studio albums, so they will already sound familiar.

Back when album sides had to be flipped to hear the rest, it’s possible that many owners of this LP wore out side one. These days, if listening on CD or a cassette dub, what used to be side two would be rather harsh on one’s mellow. The first three tracks for something of a suite; “Late For Supper” and “Spiderdawg” are examples of avant-garde or musique concrete (take your pick), with the kind of dissonant piano stabs and electronic effects usually associated with early Pink Floyd, whereas “Eep Hour” is a more conventional instrumental built around minor-key triplets and Floydian changes. He stays on piano for the gospel-tinged “To Lay Me Down”, which was attempted for American Beauty but not used, but would still surface onstage from time to time. “An Odd Little Place” is a gorgeous interlude for minimalist piano and atmospheric drums, and makes a fantastic prelude for “The Wheel”, which has an epic feel and big sound considering, again, it’s all Jerry plus Bill.

The eventual expansion of Garcia presents a few of the songs in their early stages—just acoustic guitar, vocal, and drums—plus the piano-and-drums first pass through the “Eep Hour” suite. There’s even a version of “Eep Hour” itself on electric guitar that takes it to a completely new place. Even so, the original sequence worked so well on its own, so the extras are only essential for completists, who are likely trying to catch up with all the live shows the band keeps issuing.

Jerry Garcia Garcia (1972)—3½
2004 expanded CD: same as 1972, plus 8 extra tracks