He was the lead guitarist/ frontman for the grateful dead for its three decade span (1965-95). He and his band were some of the first pioneers on the psychedelic music trail, and were the original “jam band”. They were famous for never being able to play a song the same way twice. He also painted in his spare time.
Jerry's followers were called deadheads. These were the tens of thousands of people who followed the band around for years, some attending in the range of 300 straight concerts.
Garcia was also famous for being able to escape death. There were many times when he should have died, but miraculously didn't. In 1960, he was thrown from a car during a crash that killed all three of the other people involved. According to doctors, if anyone should have died, it should have been him. He survived a five day heroin induced coma which doctors also said would have killed any other man. He made it through many relapses into drug comas, all very serious. He also had diabetes, which made his health even worse. He struggled through all of this for over 15 years, playing concerts and writing music the entire time, before dying of a heart attack at the age of 53 caused by diabetes, drugs, sleep apnea, and poor eating habits.
Jerry was also very good at escaping drug busts. Several times, he would leave a residence shortly before authorities arrived. These visits almost always resulted in the entire band, road crew, stage hands, and numerous deadheads being arrested.
Garcia was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead. He was ranked 13th in the Rolling Stone's list of top 100 guitarists of all time. He even had a Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor, Cherry Garcia, posthumously named after him. He is the most recorded guitarist of all time by far, with over 15,000 hours of concerts and studio work recorded. Jerry also holds the record for number of concerts played in a career- over 2000 recorded.
