How does one musician that just wants to create art and perform become a godlike figure in the eyes of fans? This question ultimately became the dilemma that destroyed Jerry Garcia’s living days until he couldn’t take it anymore. Former bandmate of the late singer, Bob Weir, shared with Washington Post the struggles his friend had to go through due to the fans’ deification of his good friend that ultimately cost him his life.
Although Garcia was not interested in being the Grateful Dead’s figurehead, his fans had already put him on a pedestal. His power and influence on the evergrowing fanbase ultimately made him take a few steps back as the situation escalated. Everything that came out of the rocker’s mouth was perceived as gospels by fans, which was extremely scary for the singer and guitarist.
Jerry Garcia’s deification over time was something that Weir couldn’t wrap his head around. “I won’t have it,” he said over the phone from a printing studio in California. “The deification that those folks made of Jerry are basically what killed him. It disgusted him, and rightly so.”
After Weir experienced what his dear friend had to go through and felt the constant pressure and idolization that Garcia had faced, he was careful to avoid anything similar happening to him. He said, “I’ve seen where that goes. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way from losing a friend.”
Even though Jerry Garcia actively tried to undermine his control over the Deadheads, he couldn’t break the trance that these people were on, which ultimately made him suffer even more. His suffering turned into substance abuse, and the singer started losing control as the years passed.
Even though the fans had made Garcia their prophet in a sense, this amount of attention wrecked him to his core before he had a heart attack at a drug treatment center in Marin County. So everything has to be in moderation; you should love the artist but not to a point where it slowly kills them.
