(Featured photo of Garcia and Hart courtesy www.rosiemcgee.com)
As a music writer, I always want to ask a given artist about what is most current in their lives, I mean that’s largely why I’m talking to them, to help promote whatever they are doing now. Like with Peter Frampton years ago, I wanted to talk all about Frampton Comes Alive, and he had a brand new Grammy winning instrumental record, so we focused on that, at least for a while. But I always try, later in the chat, to ask these amazing artists a little about those memories they have of their past, whether it’s someone, or some event, a record, a moment, anything that takes them and me back to another time.
After talking with the Grateful Dead’s longtime drummer Mickey Hart this week about his passion for his art given that his two DC area art exhibit appearances were coming, I also had to later in our talk, ask about the Dead for a minute, ya know, why they were still so important to so many of us, and how he felt playing their amazing music 50 years later. Most of that is in the original piece.
What isn’t in my piece…is this moment. I also asked him about Jerry Garcia, one of my favorite people ever, like I recently asked Paul Barrere (and earlier Bill Payne) about Lowell George, or Nils Lofgren about Clarence Clemons, I always like artists to talk about their band brothers they’ve lost, like, do they still miss them alot, how do they remember them, what sparks memories of them now. What I didn’t expect was this sweet, fun little story Mickey had just told that morning about Jerry and one day at his house. Have you heard it? I hadn’t.
Me: Do you think about Jerry often, Mickey, as a former band member and you know, a close, close brother and friend to you? Does he come up in your mind here and there?
Mickey Hart: Not only does he come up in my mind, he’s always there in that left ear that he half deafened.
Me: Ha, that’s great.
Mickey: So yeah, I’d really like to get away from him (laughs). He definitely really left an imprint, which anytime I want to hear it all I got to do is say, “Listen to that sound,” and it’ll come into the ear. And I think about him as a person. He was such a great guy. Sometimes we’ll tell stories, Jerry stories, to amuse the youngin’s, you know.
Me: Yes, absolutely. There’s probably plenty of those I would gather.
Mickey: Oh yeah. There was an interesting one this morning. I told the story that one time Jerry came into my house, and I was in the studio downstairs, and he walks in and he goes on the couch and he goes to sleep and he starts snoring. So a little while later, my young son came in from school, about six years old or something like that. He comes down to the studio, “Dad, Dad, Dad, there’s a bum on the couch, he’s asleep on the couch! Dad, Dad, it’s a bum!” He came home from school and Jerry didn’t have his face towards him, you know. So I ran up and I said, “Yep, he’s a bum.”
Me: Oh God!
Mickey: But he was snoring, so I started to record him. He woke up and he was so mad. And I’m like, “Hey man, you come into my studio, you come in, and you go to sleep, and you snore like that, which is beautiful, so I’m going to record you.” I think we laughed forever about it. But yeah, that was a great story that I actually told yesterday.
Me: Oh, that’s fun. What a thrill to hear you tell it yourself. And as a rhythmist, of course you’d want to record snoring. It’s got some rhythm to it.
Me: I record everything. Now, I have that tape somewhere in my archive. I haven’t heard it since I made it but yeah, he had a beautiful snore… if you call snoring beautiful. Let’s say his snore was … I would say it would be, how do you say, epic. I mean, it was epic. Okay man…is that it, Steve?
So yeah, not only do you get to hear about what people like Mickey Hart are doing now, but also you just might also get a sweet simple story like that, starring Jerry Garcia, that you’ll never forget.
Read the full Mickey Hart piece here: https://livingonmusic.com/2019/03/20/the-rhythmic-brain-of-mickey-hart/
(Featured photo of Garcia and Hart courtesy Rosie McGee)