Jerry Garcia’s opinion on The Rolling Stones

One of the most unique guitar players of all time, Jerry Garcia didn’t have the most traditional influences that many other major Rock guitarists from his era had. His style showed that he had been inspired by many different music genres, especially by artists who provided the elements that helped Rock emerge. During his career, the musician talked about many groups, giving his opinion on them, including The Rolling Stones.

What was Jerry Garcia’s opinion on The Rolling Stones

Keith Richards once said that “The Grateful Dead is where everybody got it wrong,” because, in his opinion, it was “just poodling about for hours and hours. Jerry Garcia, boring shit, man. Sorry, Jerry.” Garcia, however, was not a big fan of The Rolling Stones either. As he said on a few occasions, he felt he had already heard much of what they were doing in the original Blues artists from the United States.

“For sure (the English groups helped me to like Rock music more), because The Beatles music was interesting music and good music. The Rolling Stones music was not too much of a surprise because I’d listened to a lot of Rhythm and Blues in those days. Early Rolling Stones music was similar to that Rhythm and Blues, only not as well done as the old records. But The Beatles were doing something new and they had good musical ideas, they had a great thing going on for them,” Jerry Garcia said already in an interview in 1967 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

He told the same thing to Rolling Stone in 1987: “The Stones were all stuff that I grown up with, it was like retakes of the old Marshall Chess Records. It was a little Muddy Waters, a little Chuck Berry, you know. All stuff I’ve heard before and I understood the way it worked, the way it functioned. At that time I’d been playing Bluegrass banjo for about 4 or 5 years.”

Grateful Dead almost was The Rolling Stones’ opening act and Jerry Garcia said they were good

Although he preferred The Beatles, for example, Garcia did enjoy some of The Rolling Stones’ music. He even covered songs associated with them during his early days with The Warlocks, one of his first bands. They performed tracks like “King Bee,” “Little Red Rooster,” and “Walking the Dog.” Although these songs were recorded by British bands such as The Rolling Stones, they were originally written and recorded by American Blues artists.

In 1965, Garcia and the Dead went to see The Rolling Stones perform at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Just a few years later, in 1969, they almost became the opening act for the British band. They were set to perform at the infamous Altamont Festival, which the Stones put together after being criticized during their tour that year that the tickets were too expensive. So they decided to put together a free concert which had as opening acts Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Dead were set to play right after CSNY but decided to not go on stage after they saw how the violence was rising among the crowd.

“Oh God. Altamont was such a bummer, man. You could just feel the tension in the air. It was a combination of a lot of things. You know, the Hell’s Angels got a bum rap from it, but it wasn’t their fault. Hell no (the Stones couldn’t have stopped the madness). They were fucking scared, they were playing for their lives. Well, see, the Rolling Stones never did have a cool audience.”

He continued:

“When they started playing, people were screaming. Then they knocked off for two or three years and now they come back, and it’s back to screaming. But the one opportunity they had to go a different direction was on their regular tour. Because the regular gigs, they had to get the audience to get up. You know, Mick Jagger would make his little speech about turn on the lights so we can see you. The lights would go on and everybody would scream and run up to the stage.”

“It was so predictable. They knew it would work. It’s like the magicians, like Cagliostro, man, you know what I mean? One of those trips. If you get to the point where you’re playing music and you can’t get off unless the crowd tears itself to pieces and attacks the stage, it’s kind of like sinking your teeth way in. It’s taking more than you need. You know, the Stones had the opportunity to come on as musicians during their tour. Because people were sitting and listening carefully and digging the music.”

Jerry Garcia continued:

“It’s a whole other thing. It’s something they’d never experienced before, they’d always had that hysteria. They’re good, they don’t need any tricks. To my mind, they don’t need any tricks. They put on a good show, they play fucking good. They don’t need any of the rest of the bullshit,” Jerry Garcia told Jazz & Pop magazine in 1971.

During that day, when all the planning went wrong, several people were injured and four died. Two people were killed in a hit-and-run car accident, one drowned in an irrigation canal and during The Rolling Stones’ set, a man died after being stabbed by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, who had been hired to provide security for the festival. The Grateful Dead had suggested the Hells Angels, since they had previously provided security at some of their concerts. The crowd was estimated at between 250,000 and 300,000 people.

The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones are among the highest-grossing bands of all time

Usually, when a band sells millions of records, is strong live, and tours extensively, it consequently has a big chance of becoming one of the highest-grossing groups of all time. The Rolling Stones have sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide and have had two tours ranked among the 20 highest-grossing of all time.

The interesting thing is that the Grateful Dead really broke that rule. They sold an estimated 15 million records worldwide, a figure that would not normally place them among the highest-grossing live acts. However, in 1991 and 1993, they had the highest-grossing tours of those respective years.