A rig meant to inspire! Thatās Jerry Garcia with his Doug Irwin-built Tiger guitar, in front of his Twin Reverb + McIntosh + JBL amp rig.
āI met Jerry Garcia once, in 1992, at the bar at the Ritz Carlton in New York,ā Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson tells me over the phone. Nearly sixty-seven years old, Mattson is one of the longest-running members of the Grateful Dead tribute band scene, which encompasses hundreds of groups worldwide. The guitarist is old enough to have lived through most of the arc ofthe actual Grateful Deadās career. As a young teen, he first absorbed their music by borrowing their seminal records, American Beauty and Workingmanās Dead, brand new then, from his local library to spin on his turntable. Around that same moment, he started studying jazz guitar. Between 1973 and 1995, Mattson saw the Dead play live hundreds of times, formed the landmark jam bandZen Tricksters, and later stepped into theJerry Garcia lead guitarist role with the Dark Star Orchestra (DSO), one of the leading Dead tribute acts.
āAt the bar, I didnāt even tellGarcia I was a guitar player,ā Mattson explains. āI had just heard him play the new song āDays Betweenā and I told him how excited I was by it, and he told me he was excited too. It wasnāt that long of a conversation, but I got to shake his hand and tell him how much his music meant to me. Itās a very sweet memory.ā
The Grateful Deadās final studio album was 1989āsBuilt to Last, and that title was prophetic. From 1965 to 1995, the band combined psychedelic rock with folk, blues, country, jazz, and even touches of prog rock and funk, placing a premium on improvisation and pushing into their own unique musical spaces. Along the way, they earned a reputation that placed them among the greatest American bands in rock ānā roll historyāto many, the ultimate. Although no one member was more important than another, the heart and soul of the ensemble was Garcia. After his death in 1995, the surviving members retired the name the Grateful Dead.
āI think Jerry Garcia was the most creative guitarist of the 20th century because he had the widest ears and the sharpest instincts,ā opines historian, author, and official Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally, over the phone. āWhat we see after his death are the Deadheads coming to terms with his passing but indicating that itās the music that was most important to them. And who plays the music now becomes simply a matter of taste.ā
Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson, seen here with Garciaās Alligator Stratocaster (yes, the real one).
Photo by Susana Millman
This year marks 30 years since Garciaās passing and 60 years since the band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, the guitaristās musical vocabulary and unique, personal tone manifests in new generations of players. Perhaps the most visible of these musicians is John Mayer, anointed as Garciaās āreplacementā in Dead and Co. But dozens of others, like Mattson, Tom Hamilton Jr., and a young new artist named Bella Rayne, strive to keep the Dead alive.
The first few Grateful Dead tribute bands began emerging in local dive bars by the late ā70s. More than mere cover bands, these groups devoted themselves entirely to playing the Dead. A few of these early groups eventually toured the country, playing in college towns, ski resorts, and small theatres across the United States. Mattson started one on Long Island, New York. He tells me, āThe first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars. Then, in 1979, I joined a band called the Volunteers. We also played almost exclusively the Grateful Dead, and that was a much more professional outfitāwe had a good PA and lights and a truck, the whole nine yards.ā The Volunteers eventually morphed into the Zen Tricksters.
Garciaās death turbocharged the Dead tribute band landscape. Fanbases grew, and some bands reached the point where big-time agents booked them into blue-chip venues like Red Rocks and the Beacon Theatre. Summer festivals devoted to these bands evolved.
āThe first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars.ā āJeff Mattson
Dark Star Orchestra launched in 1997, and they do something particular, taking an individual show from somewhere out of Grateful Dead history and recreating that eveningās setlist. Itās musically and sonically challenging. They try to use era-specific gear, so on any given night, they may be playing through recreations of the Grateful Deadās backline from 1971 or 1981, for example. It all depends on the show they choose to present. Mattson joined DSO as its lead guitar player in 2009.
Something else significant happened after Jerry died: The remaining living members of the Grateful Dead and other musicians from Garciaās inner circle embraced the tribute scene, inviting musicians steeped in their music to step up and sit in with them. For Mattson, itās meant playing over the years with all the core members of the band, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, plus former members Donna Jean Godchaux, who sang in the band from 1971 to 1979, and Tom Constanten, who played keyboards with the Dead from 1968 to 1970.
Tom Hamiltonās Lotto custom built had a Doug Irwin-inspired upper horn.
In the newest post-Garcia tribute bands, many guitar players arenāt old enough to have seen Garcia perform liveāor if they did, it was towards the end of his life and career. One of those guys sitting today at the top of the Garcia pyramid, along with Mattson, is Tom Hamilton Jr. Growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, Hamilton saw Garcia play live only three times. Early on, he was influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, but Hamiltonās older brother, who was also a guitar player, loved the Dead and Garcia. āMy brother wanted to play like Jerry,ā he recalls, āso he roped me in because he needed me to play āBob Weirā and be his rhythm guitar sidekick.ā Eventually, Hamilton leaned more into the Jerry role himself. āThen I spent my entire twenties trying to develop my own voice as a songwriter and as a guitar player. And I did,ā Hamilton says. āAnd during that time, I met Joe Russo. He was not so much into the Dead then, but he knew I was.ā
A drummer from Brooklyn, by about 2006, Russo found himself collaborating on projects with members of Phish and Ween. That put him on the radar of Lesh and Weir, who invited Russo to be a part of their post-Dead project Furthur in 2009. (And on guitar, they chose DSO founding member John Kadlecik, opening that role up for Mattson.)
āWhen Joe played in Furthur, he got under the hood of the Grateful Deadās music and started to understand how special it was,ā Hamilton points out. āAfter Furthur wound down, we decided to form JRAD. We werenāt trying to do something academic, not some note-for-note recreation. We were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.ā
āWe were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.ā āTom Hamilton Jr.
Today, Joe Russoās Almost Dead (JRAD) is considered to be one of the premier Grateful Dead tribute bands. They formed in 2013, with Hamilton and Scott Metzger as the bandās guitar frontline, with Hamilton handling Garciaās vocal roles. Eventually, Hamilton, too, found himself jamming onstage with the ever-evolving Phil Lesh and Friends. That, of course, further enmeshed him in the scene, and in 2015, he started a band with Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann calledBilly and the Kids.
Now, thereās a new kid on the block, literally. Bella Rayne recently turned 18 and grew up in Mendocino, California. Her parents were into the Dead, but even they were too young to have really followed the original band around the country. At her age, they were big into Phish. By the pandemic, Bella started embracing the guitar out of boredom, woodshedding while social distancing in quarantine. She explains, āLike any other teen, I was bored out of my mind looking for anything to do.ā Rummaging through her garage, she came across her momās old Strat. āAt the time, I was really into ā90s Seattle grunge. I put new strings on the Strat, and then I tried to teach myself Pearl Jam songs, and I learned how to play them by watching YouTube videos. Then, I started posting videos of my journey online as I became more serious about it. I hit a point where I knew it would be my thing. The next thing I knew, one of the Bay Area Dead bands [China Dolls] reached out to me and asked me to sit in. I thought, āno way.āāMy parents are huge Deadheads,ā she continues. āThatās theirthing. I grew up with the Dead being pushed on me my whole life. But I ended up going, and itās just been this awesome spiral ever since.ā Bella calls her current Dead-related project Bella Rayne and Friends, and she, too, has been recognized not only by the new generation of Garcia players in the Dead tribute bands, but also by Melvin Seals, the Hammond organist who played for years in theJerry Garcia Band. āI was hired to just sit-in for a couple of numbers withMelvin and his JGB band,ā she recalls, āand we were having so much fun he said to me, āWhy donāt you just sit in for the whole second set.ā It was an amazing night.ā
Bella Rayne with her Alligator-inspired Strat, with a JGB Cats Under the Starssticker on the body.
Photo by Sean Reiter
Jerry Garcia played many different guitars. But for those guitarists wanting to emulate Garciaās tone, the focus is on four instruments in particular. One is a1955 Fender Stratocaster known as āAlligator,ā which Garcia had heavily modified and began playing in 1971. The other three guitars were hand built in Northern California by luthier Doug Irwin: Wolf, Tiger, and Rosebud. Garcia introduced them in 1973, 1979, and 1989, respectively. Sometimes, in a jam-band version of being knighted by the Excalibur sword, a chosen member of this next generation of Dead players is handed one of Garciaās personal guitars to play onstage for a few songs or even an entire set.
Although they started their journeys at different times and in separate ways, Mattson, Hamilton, and Rayne all have āknighthoodā in common. Rayne remembers, āIn March of 2024, I was sitting in one night with anall-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerryās actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. Itās something Iāll never forget.āWhatās it like to strap on one of Jerry Garciaās iconic instruments? Tom Hamilton recalls, āIt wasRed Rocks in 2017, and I played with Bob Weir, Melvin Seals, and JGB at a tribute show for Jerryās 75th birthday. I got to play both Wolf and Tiger that night. I was in my head with it for about one song, but then you sort of have a job to do. But I do recall that we were playing the song āDeal.ā I have a [DigiTech] Whammy pedal that has a two-octave pitch raise on it, real high gain that gives me a lot of sustain, and itās a trick I use that really peaks a jam. That night, while I am doing it, I had the thought of, āWow, I canāt believe I am doing this trick of mine on Garciaās guitar.ā Jerry would have thought what I was doing was the greatest thing in the world or the absolute worst, but either way, Iām cool with it!ā
āI was sitting in one night with an all-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerryās actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. Itās something Iāll never forget.ā āBella Rayne
Jeff Mattson has played Alligator, Wolf, Garciaās Travis Bean 500, and his Martin D-28. He sums it up this way: āI used to have posters up in my childhood bedroom of Garcia playing his Alligator guitar. I would stare at those images all the time. And sowhen I got a chance to play it and plug it in, suddenly there were those distinctive tones. Those guitars of his all have a certain mojo. Itās so great to play those guitars that you have to stop in the moment and remind yourself to take a mental picture, so it doesnāt just fly by. Itās just a tremendous pleasure and an honor. I never imagined I would get to play four of Jerry Garciaās guitars.ā
With young people like Bella Rayne dedicating herself at the tender age of 18 to keeping the Deadās music going, it feels like what the band called their ālong strange tripā will keep rolling down the tracks and far over the horizon. āPeople will be listening to the Grateful Dead in one hundred years the same way they will be listening to John Coltrane, too,ā predicts McNally. āImprovisational music is like jumping off a cliff. Sometimes you fly, and sometimes you land on the rocks. When you take that risk, thereās an opportunity for magic to happen. And that will always appeal to a certain segment of people who donāt want predictability in the music they listen to. The Grateful Dead is for people who want complete craziness in their musicāsometimes leading to disaster and oftentimes leading to something wonderful. Itās music for people who want to be surprised.ā
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