NOVATO (KCBS RADIO) – On what would have been his 80th birthday, the music of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead very much lives on.
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San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared on Monday that Aug. 1 will be known as "Jerry Garcia Day," announcing the commemoration near what was Garcia’s first childhood home in the city's Excelsior District.
Garcia, the guitarist and singer who died of a heart attack at a North Bay clinic 27 years ago on Aug. 9, and the Grateful Dead were arguably the most popular band to call San Francisco home, making their former home in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood a landmark for "Deadheads" around the globe.
"I think he would be amazed at how the scene has continued on and evolved," Bob Minkin, a Novato photographer who has published three photography books of the band, told KCBS Radio.
"You know, I've read that on any given night all over the United States, there's dozens, if not hundreds of Grateful Dead cover bands," he added.
Twenty-seven years after Garcia's death, his old bandmates continue touring as Dead & Company, with John Mayer on guitar and vocals. Dead & Company performed two dates at Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheatre in June.
Fans haven’t forgotten Garcia, either. Jonah Hill will star as the former Grateful Dead front man in a Martin Scorsese-directed biopic for Apple.
Minkin’s books include 2019's "Just Jerry," a coffee table collection of more than 160 pictures of the Grateful Dead’s former front man. That title featured shots from across the country, including the former Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco – where Garcia "looked right a" Minkin and into his camera – and Hershey Park Stadium in Pennsylvania – where Minkin said "the whole area smells like chocolate."
Minkin said Garcia was one of a kind – smart, talented and funny.
"Jerry was a great, humble guy," Minkin recalled. "I asked him, 'What's it like to be Jerry Garcia?'
"He just cracked up," Minkin recalled. "He says, 'Well, I just slip into my Jerry Garcia outfit in the morning, zip up the back.' "
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