Flashback on 60: It Was 30 Years Ago Today, Aug. 9, 1995, When Jerry Garcia Died
- “We’re not just losing a man here,” one fan said, “we’re losing a way of life.”
Editor’s note: The year 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s birth. This is the 24th Flashback on 60, a periodic feature in which Sound Bites revisits the band’s career.
Aug. 9, 2025: 30 years to the day since Jerry Garcia died and took the Grateful Dead along with him. Much has been written about Garcia’s loss in the intervening decades, so Sound Bites thought it might be interesting to look back at what people had to say in the immediate aftermath of Garcia’s death.
And although this compilation of quotes will focus on the famous, it was a fan, Beth Rothenberg of New Jersey, who summed it up best for the common Dead Head: “We’re not just losing a man here,” she said, “we’re losing a way of life.”
Here’s what some friends and famous folk had to say on Aug. 9 and 10, 1995:
Bob Weir: “If our dear, departed friend proved anything to us, he proved that great music can make sad times better.”
Mickey Hart: “If the Grateful Dead did anything, we gave you the power. You have the groove, you have the feeling. … You take it home and do something with it.”
John Perry Barlow: “Jerry was one of those manifestations of the energy of his times, one of those people who ends up making the history books. He wrapped up in himself a whole set of characteristics and qualities that were very appropriate to a certain cultural vector in the latter part of the 20th century: freedom from judgment, playfulness of intellect, complete improvisation, anti-authoritarianism, self-indulgence and aesthetic development. I mean, he was truly extraordinary.”
Rob Wasserman: “There has never been anyone like him before, and there will never be anyone like him again.”
Lyle Lovett: “The loss of Jerry Garcia feels like the end of an era in the same way it felt when Elvis (Presley) died and John Lennon was killed.”
Steve Berlin: “Jerry was like a favorite uncle whose joy when we played together was like a benediction. I remember (Los Lobos) opening for the Dead … in 1988. Jerry had ducked behind David Hidalgo’s amp with this huge smile on his face for most of the show, and when we asked him to play with us, he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. It meant a lot to us that he had such respect for our music. We’ll miss him terribly.”
Bob Dylan: “There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. He really had no equal. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss.”
Ornette Coleman: “He was one of the original American icons. He played very naturally and very beautifully.”
Branford Marsalis: “There’s not a sentence in the world that can respectfully justify the life and music of Jerry Garcia.”
Ken Kesey: “This guy is going to kick our asses if we get up there and we haven’t carried the torches.”
Read Sound Bites’ previous Flashback on 60 items here.
