"...all sorts of people were in and out of there all the time, because they had heard about it, like the local beats—that term was still used—a bunch of kids from a pad called the Chateau, a wild-haired kid named Jerry Garcia and the Cadaverous Cowboy, Page Browning." — excerpt from Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Despite attracting a number of curious cats while at Perry Lane, Ken Kesey and his early entourage turned away a number of seekers that didn't mesh including the likes of Jerry Garcia. Jerry and his future band would, ironically, go on to become the electric sound of the Acid Tests, Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco and the hippie movement but before The Beatles touched down in America, Jerry Garcia was a banjo-playing folkie.
In the early sixties, Jerry Garcia was ever-present on the Bay Area's radio stations playing live folk music—seemingly, every time with new accompaniment and a new band name. From the start, Jerry is personable with his bandmates and the audience with a knack for bringing everyone in the room together. He is also largely irreverent towards the folk music he plays. He respects the songs but warmly mocks the history and songwriters from which he learned them and, in doing so, pleasantly mocks himself. Folk is nothing to take too seriously because, to Jerry Garcia at least, they are more of a vehicle for his pursuit of chops. Jerry never recorded an album with these early folk groups but many transcriptions of his radio performances do survive. The album Folk Time consisting of a 1962 performance with the Hart Valley Drifters is our anchoring tour stop today. It is warm, off-the-cuff, mistake-riddled and filled with some mighty fine playing... an experience that Jerry Garcia would eventually master.
Note: Again, 1962 is not the year the album was released but the year the session was recorded.
Here is the Hart Valley Drifters discography:
Folk Time
Before the Dead (compilation album by Jerry Garcia and friends)
"Salt Creek" by Black Mountain Boys
"Deep Elem Blues" by Jerry Garcia and Sara Garcia
"Legend of the Johnson Boys" by Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers
Pass the Headphones!!
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