Jerry Garcia, interviewed by Bonnie Simmons on KSAN January 23, 1976:
Simmons: [A listener asked] whether you plan to do a lot more steel work.
Garcia: I don’t think so. The instrument is too difficult for me, frankly. I’d have to play it an awful lt, and I’d need about ten years to get to where I would want to be in relation to some control over it –
Simmons: Do you still practice at all?
Garcia: No. You can’t really practice it; it’s too hard. I can only play it, y’know.
Thank you for posting this!
That’s a pretty good, definitive statement there. I have a tendency to pursue the mysterious rather than accept the straightforward, but I think this is a case in which we can say pretty clearly *why* something happened. Garcia quite playing pedal steel because to play it well (i.e., to his own, probably pretty high standard of satisfaction), and to do so required more time and effort than he could devote to it.
Blair gives a related analysis in relation to why John McFee was brought in to do the steel parts for Mars Hotel: “Garcia deemed himself too rusty to handle any steel parts” (Jackson 1999, p. 251).
Thanks again for sharing this, David.
Very cool…thanks for posting. Happy Holidays!
This is what I always knew/assumed … BUT let’s not forget this: Garcia played what is arguably rock’s most recognized, and hot, pedal steel riff — on CSNY’s “Teach Your Children.” So if he was ready to call it a day on steel (and just be the greatest electric guitarist ever), that’s not a bad swan song.
thank yOu fOr the infO