Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia is considered one of the best muscians of all time that unfortunately left us too soon at the age of 53 back in 1995. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine back in 1972 the musician gave his opinion on The Beatles and Bob Dylan, revealing the influence both artists had on him.
Jerry Garcia gave his opinion on Beatles and Bob Dylan, saying:
“They were real important to everybody. They were a little model, especially the movies – the movies were a big turn-on. Just because it was a little model of good times. The Fifties were sure hurting for good times. And the early Sixties were very serious too – Kennedy and everything.”
“And the Beatles were light and having a good time and they were good too, so it was a combination that was very satisfying on the artistic level, which is part of the scene that I was into – the art school thing and all that.”
“The conscious thing of the artistic world, the Beatles were accomplished in all that stuff. It was like saying, “You can be young, you can be far out, and you can still make it.” They were making people happy. That happy thing – that’s the stuff that counts – something that we could all see right away.”
What about Dylan, who was so unhappy for such a long time?
“Dylan was able to tell you the truth about that other thing. He was able to talk about the changes that you’d go through, the bummers and stuff like that – and say it, and say it in a good way, the right way. I dug his stuff really from “Bringing It All Back Home.”
“Back in the folk music days I couldn’t really dig this stuff but on “Bringing It All Back Home” he was really saying something that I could dig, that was relevant to what was going on in my life at the time. Whether he intended it that way or not is completely unimportant.”
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. They were known for its eclectic style. Which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, gospel, and psychedelic rock.
These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole. So that made the Grateful Dead “the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world”. The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its The Greatest Artists of All Time issue.