Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia dies
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from August 1995.
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He was found at 4:23 a.m. (1123 GMT) by a counselor at Serenity Knowles, a residential treatment center for drug addiction, said Dan Murphy of the Marin County sheriff's office.
A nurse and sheriff's department staff who were summoned failed to revive him, Murphy said.
The Grateful Dead, with its roots in San Francisco's psychedelic scene of the 1960s, combined rock, bluegrass and folk influ ences into a unique stew. Garcia was lead guitarist, composer and vocalist.
Among the band's best known songs were "Truckin'", "Casey Jones", and "Friend of the Devil". Its only top 10 hit was the 1987 song "Touch of Grey", with its refrain "I will survive". But the Dead was almost more a way of life than a band to thousands of fans, many of whom religiously followed the group. from concert to concert.
The band has been the most popular act in the United States, grossing tens of millions of dollars each year. "You need music," Garcia once said. "I don't know why; it's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it." The bearded, rotund Garcia had a history of health problems that caused frequent breaks in the Dead's grueling concert schedule. In 1986, he entered the hospital in a diabetic coma. He also has admitted past drug abuse.
Garcia slimmed down, stopped smoking and hired a personal fitness trainer after falling ill with exhaustion in 1991.
In recent years, Garcia also developed a line of colorful neckties.
But the years of constant touring took its toll.
"It was a meltdown. Too many cigarettes, too much junk food and too little exercise,” band spokesman Dennis McNally said last year. McNally was unavailable for immediate comment Wednesday.
