Jerry Garcia Fans Stay Grateful for the Music After Star’s Death

They were banned from the Ventura Fairgrounds, cast off as rootless longhairs who shunned responsibility in favor of dope, spare time and always, the music.

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Local fans of Grateful Dead co-founder Jerry Garcia, who packed the Ventura County Fairgrounds before the band was barred in 1988, were saddened but not shocked Wednesday by the early-morning death of the rock icon.

Word spread quickly among Ventura County record stores, professional offices and concert venues that the legendary rock and blues musician with a history of drug use and medical problems had died.

At sunset Wednesday, Grateful Dead fans gathered on a hill above Ventura to remember Garcia, lead singer and guitarist for the rock band that epitomized 1960s counterculture.

By the light of a full moon and setting sun, more than 100 people, many of them sporting tie-dyed or Grateful Dead clothing, convened at the cross at Grant Park.

Mourning Garcia’s death, fans flashed peace signs at each other and set up a makeshift shrine with a photo of the rock legend, drums, flowers, candles and incense.

The mellow gathering sat in groups, talking softly, playing guitars and drums. Incense and candles burned while tapes and compact discs of Garcia tunes played.

Garcia, who turned 53 earlier this month, was found dead of an apparent heart attack in a Northern California rehabilitation center about 4:30 a.m.

“It’s really sad, but unfortunately he was partying really hard there for a long time,” said Jack Davis, who owns Beat City Records in downtown Ventura. “He was pretty trashed.”

Davis said he attended about two dozen Grateful Dead concerts, including several staged at the Ventura Fairgrounds.

“They had a huge impact,” he said of the band. “They had such a big following for so many years and it never really died down. Their style was very unique.”

Carlos Osorio, who manages the Record Outlet store in Thousand Oaks, said customers early Wednesday began buying compact discs and other merchandise by the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band, Garcia’s other group.

“We sold out almost of all the Grateful Dead and most of the Jerry Garcia Band,” Osorio said. “Those were the first purchases of the day. By the end of the day, everything will be gone.”

Fans known as Deadheads are famous for following the group around the country, many selling T-shirts and baked goods to eke out a meager living between shows.

Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, the band attracted a wider group of fans, many of whom held professional jobs and drove luxury cars.

“They were accessible,” said Ventura attorney Edwin Clark, who said he attended more than 200 Grateful Dead shows. “They never put up a wall between themselves and the fans. It was not so much a one-way street, it was a reciprocal thing between the band and the audience.”

Perennially one of the highest-grossing acts in the entertainment industry, the Grateful Dead in its heyday often played more than 200 shows a year.

In recent years, the group scaled back its schedule, but still managed an annual tour that crossed the country several times a year. Wherever the band played, thousands of free spirits and tie-dye-clad devotees followed.

The Ventura County Fairgrounds was a regular stop for the tour throughout the 1980s.

But residents of nearby beachfront condominiums persuaded fair officials to bar the band after six people were arrested at a 1987 show and hundreds of others swam naked and bartered drugs at Surfers Point.

“The problem with the Grateful Dead is they were playing two or three days at a time,” said Dennis Orrock, former Ventura mayor and now president of the Ventura Fairgrounds board.

“We were getting people coming in camping for a day or two before the event and a day or two after the event,” he said. “They’d end up being here eight or nine days.”

Fair officials eventually lifted the ban, but by then the Grateful Dead had rescheduled its series of concerts. The Jerry Garcia Band was never banned from the fairgrounds, and performed there as recently as last summer.

Tracy Steuckrath of Oak View said she was introduced to the Grateful Dead two years ago.

“The music was great, but to see the shows goes beyond description,” the 26-year-old Cal State Long Beach English major said. “It’s like being a part of something that has been around longer than I have.”

As for the allegations of rampant drug use among fans, Steuckrath shrugged.

“You can make any judgment you want about their lifestyle, but it wasn’t about lifestyle. It was about their music,” she said. “Yeah, there were drugs there. But there are drugs everywhere.”

Correspondent Stephanie Brommer contributed to this report.

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