A Happy Jerry Birthday to you… and the Days Between…

by | Aug 1, 2009 | Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Video | 1 comment

My friends and I have celebrated Jerry’s birthday for many years, even with the man himself when he would play a gig on his special day. I remember a sing along happy birthday to him one year that seemed to really get him viscerally for a minute; nice to make Jerry smile and well up, and he poured the love back to us in music, as was his way.

Since we lost Jerry, a mere week and a day after his 53rd, this has become something of a sacred week in the Deadhead year.

There were Days Between…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcVWRuv1o6M

One of Jerry’s latter day masterpieces, with lyrics by Robert Hunter, Days Between was a slower song, a ballad… the kind that Jerry’s guitar playing and soulful singing could make you well up inside, bring a tear to your eye and a heaving crescendo to your chest… many people use the term  “Days Between” to refer to this week. The days between the celebration of the birth of one Jerome John Garcia on August 1, 1942 to the rememberance of his unfortunately early death on August 9, 1995.

Deadheadland will be celebrating, remebering and honoring our broken angel all week.

In his death, as in his songs, Jerry reminds us that there is nothing you can hold for very long….  Stella Blue…

On The Grateful Dead Channel they have taken to calling this JERRY WEEK, and they will fill in the “days between” with interviews, rarities, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia’s reminiscing, and lots of live recordings of all of Jerry’s bands, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Legion of Mary, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and his many other collaborations,

 With a deeply Grateful heart, I love you man.  May your music never stop.  Our love is real, not fade away.

– happycat.brian @deadheadland
8/1/2009