Episode 39: Rock and Roll Friendships: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

Jay discusses the musical bond and friendship between two amazing musicians: Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of The Grateful Dead and Merl Saunders, a dependable organ player either live or in the studio. Listen to this episode and find out about the cherished friendship these two had.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello, rock and roll. Welcome back to Jay's Rock and Roll stories. I'm your host Jay. Um I just had a a different idea. I had a little uh idea that came to me after doing um the Jimmy Nichol show. The J show. The Jimmy Nickel uh series, I guess you could say, just three-parted there. Um I know I I wanted to talk about the the idea of friendship, you know, and I believe that I believe uh from what I read with the Beatles hanging out with um Jimmy Nichol, and uh from from reading the book and watching um interviews, I watched some interviews on YouTube while, you know, the interview the interviewing the Beatles, Jimmy's there, having a cigarette, having a drink. These guys could have been good friends, good pals. Um, you know, George Harrison showing up trying to buy Jimmy a drink, uh, Paul McCartney thinking about Jimmy when he was wanting to write a positive song. These guys could have been really good pals, but business got in the way. You know what I mean? Brian Epstein needed a drummer, that's it. You don't need to talk, shut the hell up, don't ask or answer any questions, and get the hell out of here after 12 days, you know? So that got me thinking about uh a little series I want to do that I'm calling um Rock and Roll Friendships. And I'm just I'm just talking about uh the bonds, the friendship between two musicians. It could be, for example, um Ozzie Osborne and Randy Rhodes. You know, the sad story where his like they were best pals, right? His best friend, the guitar, you know, the amazing Randy Rhodes, was killed in like a plane, uh plane crash. Or another episode could be uh Keith Richards with Graham Parsons or Keith Richards with his buddy, um, what's the saxophone player? Um what is the guy? Uh come on, raise your hand if you know the saxophone player for the Stones. Bobby Keys. All right. Keith Richards and Bobby Keys. Today I'm gonna talk about the friendship, the bond between Jerry Garcia and Merle Sanders. So let's let's jump right in. Jerry Garcia, you know, uh lead guitarist, songwriter, singer of Grateful Dead. Merle Sanders um is a little older than Jerry. He was born in 32. Jerry was born, I think, sometime in the 40s, maybe 41, 42, 10 years older. Uh 1960s, Merle Sanders, he's um an African American guy. He plays organ and he's in the 60s. He's working in New York doing music for radio commercials for cigarettes on black radio stations. Eventually, uh advertising for cigarettes is is is you know, you what do you want to call it? Banned, abolished. Um so he moves out to the West Coast and he starts doing studio work. And in the in a studio job, at a studio job, that's where he meets Jerry Garcia. And he just he just knew him as Jerry with the big smile. Because he sat down one time at the Oregon, he looked up, and there was this guy just smiling at him, like, hey, what's going on? Hey. And um studio executives, studio uh or or you know, producers are doing the work with these guys for for for the jobs. Notice that that Jerry and um Merle Sanders have have good chemistry. They they let's book these guys again. So they're they're getting jobs together. Eventually, um Merle uh Jerry Garcia calls up. This this is around 70, 71. Jerry Garcia calls up Merle Sanders and says, hey man, um I'm gonna put together uh a show at uh come down to uh The Matrix. That's a club in San Francisco. Come down to the Matrix, we'll just jam. So a band is put together. It's gonna be Jerry Garcia on guitar, uh Ron Tutt on drums, John Kahn on bass, and Merle Sanders is gonna play organ. And um so Merle Sanders taught Jerry a lot of standards, you know, Georgia, Georgia on my mind, uh my Valentine, I think it's called, my sweet valentine. Simpler standard type songs, jazzier stuff, and they really work well together. So Merle Sanders has no idea. I mean, he knows who the Grateful Dead are, but he doesn't listen to them. But he has no, he doesn't know Jerry Garcia is in the Grateful Dead, he's just Jerry with the smile. So the word gets out, because like this is all happening while the Grateful Dead are on a break from tour. All the other, all the other members of The Grateful Dead are um, you know, having a vacation, but Jerry can't sit still. He needs to perform, he needs to play, and this is like his way to play without without having like uh the fame, you know, because he's just kind of sneaks away. And the the band that they have together, Merle Sanders, Jerry Garcia, John Tutt, uh, Ron I mean, um, John Con Ron Tutt together, it's sometimes it's not even there's no name, it's just the group, or it'll just say Jerry Garcia, Merle Sanders. So anyway, Merle Sanders will see that you know there might be 30 or 40 people coming in. They might get paid 50 bucks, they'll just split it. But then all of a sudden word gets out and there's more and more and more people coming. The places are the places packed. And and Merle Sanders is like, what the f like asking Jerry, like, what what what the fuck? What is this? Why are these people coming? We're just and you know he finally found out he puts the two and two together, like, oh wow, I didn't even know. Because Jerry is kind of a humble guy. He he's not writing any any fame, and it's kind of funny because um Jerry uh I have a quote written down because I I liked it what he what he's talking about. He where is it? He says, I uh Jerry is talking about this this this fame because he's already famous in Grateful Dead. Now he's sneaking away to play music with Merle Sanders. You know, they work well together, but eventually it catches on. Jerry says, I couldn't take the pressure being a double celebrity. It's a drag just being it once. So eventually, you know, it doesn't last very long. So um the band switches, they they switch their name to Legion of Mary and add a saxophone um player. This is good music. I love I love this stuff. Um, in 2016, a box set came out, 6LP box set, recorded live from July 10 and July 11, 1973, at the Keystone Club in Berkeley. And I have it. I bought it. Like I first saw it um for sale, and it was like this is 200 something bucks, and then someone was getting getting rid of one uh for like 60 bucks, and it had like a it had like a bent corner. I don't care. Like, I'll I'll take oh, it's fantastic. I recommend this. Look up uh you know Jerry Garcia, Merle Sanders, Keystone, Keystone um recordings. It's very good. It's uh it covers all all kinds of music. These two these two guys playing together uh really hit it off, and there was jealousy from the Grateful Dead. They they're they're really protective over Jerry, and they didn't really like the fact that he is uh really grooving with someone else that's not part of the dead, you know. They they they're the shields go up, you know what I mean? So that actually uh Merle Sanders did play on stage with the Grateful Dead only three times, you know. Three was enough for the rest of the band. I don't think they liked it. But uh he did play on stage with the Grateful Dead in DC, June 1973. He played San Francisco March 23rd, 1975, and the last time he did was Berkeley Community Theater, March 9, 1985. But um back to uh the six LP box set. Um they cover all kinds of music. They c it's um live music. It's it's it's nice because you ever hear a live album and you can tell it's it's it's at a giant stadium. No, this is in a small club, you know, uh, and they're that's it's blues, it's rockabilly, it's jazz, it's funky, it's Broadway, it's Motown. They do two Bob Dylan songs. They they cover uh Jimmy Cliff's um The Harder They Come. Um and some of these uh some of these songs would be played twice just so you can you can hear like uh the different variations of what they're doing. Because they work they work well together. Uh fast forwarded, fast forwarding here, uh 1975 is when Jerry Garcia gets really into uh heroin, full-blown junkie. Alright. Um from there, let and uh let's say let's fast forward to 19 like you know eighty-six. Jerry is overweight. Um you go inside his place, his his freezer, his fridge is just stocked with Hagen-Daz ice cream. So he has a he has a nice uh he has a nice little habit of um ice cream and heroin. Yeah, that's not gonna help you. So he gets really sick. It's a mixture of um he has alright, how are you put this all together, right? Ice cream, heroin, dehydration, infected tooth. Alright, so he goes in and he's very uncomfortable, and they try to get him still so they can do a CAT scan. They they give him Valium to calm him down. He's allergic to Valium. His body completely shuts down. They have to have him on um one of those. They had that all the machines are hooked up. He he died. He died. Uh they had to resuscitate him like twice to get him back. Uh but after that he goes into uh his blood pressure, his um blood sugar like drops and he goes into a diabetic coma. For like four days, like four days he's out. And when he finally comes to, he has lost the ability to to play anything. Like this the this is an amazing guitarist, this is an amazing artist, and he just he doesn't know how to do it. Um Merle Sanders he was the only guy that would go visit him in the hospital and go visit him at home when he got out, and he wouldn't and he got him to start playing music again. You know, he would say, Here, Jerry, take your guitar, put it in his hand. Merle Sanders talks about how he says I he says I knock on wood, because uh I I've always been good with kids, and he said this was like like training a child to go potty. Like, okay, we're gonna go like this. Okay, take the guitar, put your hand like this, no? Okay, you wanna you wanna take a break real quick? Like that. So uh Jerry didn't want to do it, so um you know, Merle would play play piano. Merle Sanders would play piano. And they would go for a walk, Jerry would say, I'm tired, let's go back. So eventually, Merle Sanders was the guy to got to get Jerry Garcia, who just came out of a coma, to relearn how to play music. And uh it was it was it was amazing, you know? And they had they had such a great friendship. Merle Sanders says that he would when he would leave, he would kiss him on his forehead, I love you, my friend, and you know, and he and then he'd return and kiss him on the head, I love you, my friend, I'm here to help you. Um I guess it it it kinda hurt Merle a little bit because uh Jerry didn't get up and go, like eventually he was able to play, you know, he could play. But he didn't say to Merle, hey, let's go on stage together. Uh he just went back with the dead. So it I guess it it kind of stung a little bit, so like, you know, because they wanted to play together. But um fast forward to 1989, uh Merle Sanders puts out an album called The Blues of the Rainforest. And um it's about like you know, the rainforest being, you know, just depleted and and the trees chopped down from all these companies and shit. And um he put together this very interesting album with uh synthesizers and and he said, I I I need someone to play with me, but I I need someone who knows me, and he got Jerry to do it. And I listened to this album, I found it on YouTube. It's really sweet, it's very interesting. Um this is 1989, so I think um back in that that time this would be categorized as new age. But it's very nice, it's very pleasant, you know. It's uh um Merle Sanders talks about how he he wanted to create a sadness uh with his piano playing and the synthesizers and all this stuff, and but he wanted to have breaks in between. And he wanted Jerry to play these hat like these sort of happiness chords, like this sort of bridge from the sadness to to happiness bringing it back, and he said that he did it perfectly. And they had a good time doing it. Um Jerry Garcia would would was would stay at Merle Sanders' place. Merle said about from from four to five years, he would kind of sneak away, just come to his his place, lay on the couch, like it was like a refuge. Like, God, I'm so sick of like being in this crazy famous rock and roll band, like and just to hang out with his buddy. Um it's a it's a nice friendship. I I think it's uh I think it's a beautiful thing. So those two put out uh I think two albums. It's uh it's just called uh Jerry Garcia, Merle Sanders. There's like part one and part two, and then they put together that six LP box set. I I highly recommend it. I like it because it sounds like you're there in a small little club. Um fast forward again, uh, 1995 is when um is when Jerry Garcia died. He passed away, and uh after that Merle Sanders was was was continuing playing music and he included a bunch of uh Jerry's songs in his repertoire, um, you know, and give and would would tell stories about his buddy, that kind of thing. Um Jerry Garcia talks about how Merle Sanders really taught him how to play music. He says he taught me how to play music because like there were things that he he never touched upon. Because Jerry was was um a banjo player, you know, like a finger picker, and that's how he would apply it to guitar. But he he never touched on these things like jazz and and and you know and like um traditional uh stage songs, you know, um Broadway songs, you know. Um staples, I guess they call them. Uh 2008 Merle Sanders had a stroke and no, sorry, 2002 Merle Sanders had a stroke and he lost the ability to play. In 2008, he passed away. So that that's just a little story I wanted to do. Just a quick little one. Uh that was called uh Rock and Roll Friendships. So I don't know. I gave it a shot. I just um after uh you know after doing the the Jimmy Nichols story, I I already had something lined up and it just didn't fit back to back, you know? I wanted to to counter the the the business interrupting friendship with a story about sneaking away from business and and having friendship with a musical bond. So that's the story of the friendship between Jerry Garcia and Merle Sanders. I hope you liked it. Um if you like that episode or you like this podcast, uh give me five stars. Give me a comment. Uh if you want to send a message, a question, a suggestion, a complaint, a big F you, whatever you want, you can send it to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories at Proton.me. Um I will keep coming back. You keep listening. All right, I'll see you next time. Bye bye.