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HK Talks About Jerry Garcia
Henry Kaiser: Good morning, Sedge. ST: As a musician, what did Jerry Garcia's guitar mastery mean to you? HK: Well, I grew up listening to him -- I didn't really emulate what he did on guitar, or anything, and he was a friend of mine later in life and I played with a lot of people in the Grateful Dead, and done some projects in conjunction with them -- and I just miss him a lot, and he was an important guy, and he was, you know, one of the greatest musicians, improvisers, composers, songwriters in America, right up there with Duke Ellington or Charles Ives or John Coltrane, or somebody like that. And I think that his stature is kind of masked by the Deadhead effect, and how that alienates some people from it, but -- ST: And *his* start was as a, what, a banjo player, folk and bluegrass. HK: Yeah, folk and old-timey and bluegrass, mm-hm. And, you know, the Grateful Dead music they played drew on the whole wide stream of American music, of jazz and popular and country and blues and rock and rhythm 'n' blues, and you know, it's an important part of American music, American music continuing to grow and change, just as his music now will influence other people's musics. ST: What's the piece of music you'll begin with today? HK: Um, well actually this is not -- this is a song that Robert Hunter, who is a lyricist who worked with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, wrote for Bob Dylan which is on a Bob Dylan album, called "Silvio." And maybe it was a song Jerry rejected or something like that, <chuckle> I don't know, but it's a great song, and it never gets played, so -- might as well play it. ST: Introduce your fellow musicians. HK: We've got my dear friends, Danny Carnahan on guitar, and Prairie Prince on drums, Robin Petrie on vocals, and Diana Mangano on vocals over there. ST: "Silvio" -- Henry Kaiser and Friends. ******** ST: "Silvio" -- words by Robert Hunter, performed by Henry Kaiser and Friends. You put out a recording called "Eternity Blue," which has music of Jerry Garcia. HK: Well, right -- I just had done a project just before Jerry died that I collaborated with him and people in the Grateful Dead on, a CD called "The Music Never Stopped," which is a compilation CD of the original versions of many of the songs that the Grateful Dead do that are *cover* songs -- songs by other artists -- so there'd be a Howlin' Wolf song, a Charlie Patton song, Cannon's Jug Stompers, Bob Dylan -- the original versions of those songs, to show their roots. And I just was rolling up the cover art to send to Garcia which was a -- Robert Crumb did the cover art, we were really excited, he was really excited to see it -- I was just putting it in a mailing tube and the phone call came and said that he died that morning, and I was like, "Ohh." And that whole week I was in a funny mood, and kinda felt like I needed to do something extra, so I thought, well, I'm kinda sick of tribute albums, but I'd kinda like to make an appreciation kinda album? And so, well, but that's kinda capitalizing, and I said, well, I can make it a benefit for one of the Grateful Dead's foundations, the Eyes of Chaos Foundation, which supports unusual music. So I called up and asked Phil Lesh, mind if I do that, and he said no, go ahead. So I just really quickly -- and with many of these people here I'm playing with -- we just knocked off a record really quick and did some of Jerry's compositions and -- had a good time.
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Site content Henry Kaiser and Michael Piper, 1997-2003 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sedge Thomson: Let's begin with our special musical tribute to Jerry Garcia. I'd like to welcome Henry Kaiser, who's brought his friends in here today -- welcome to West Coast Live.