Encounters

Justin and Jerry Garcia

When Justin Kreutzmann was growing up in the Grateful Dead world (his dad is drummer Bill Kreutzmann) he used to get yelled at to turn the Beatles music down that blasted from his room, "Granted, they were trying to rehearse at the time". But Justin recalls the other Dead drummer, Mickey Hart, coming to his room and declaring "the Dead need to get that punch the Beatles have." Here Justin recalls for Lennon.Net the story told to him by Jerry Garcia of his meeting with John Lennon.

In the early 70’s Jerry Garcia was starting to make solo records when the Grateful Dead weren’t working. On one of those first efforts he recorded ‘Imagine.’ Before a Jerry Garcia Band show, in New York, John Lennon came by to thank him. Lennon told Jerry that his version of ‘Imagine’ was the first time someone had covered one of John’s solo tunes. After the show they talked for a while and Jerry invited John to come back the next night to join him on stage. John said he would return the following day and do a sound check with the Garcia Band so they could work up a few tunes. Lennon never came back and Garcia thought that all the imposing Hell’s Angel’s hanging out backstage might have “scared him off.”

Justin Kreutzmann

 

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