"The Music Never Stopped"
Jerry Garcia Wives Trial
I will be posting various collections of my own articles, pics etc. of my Dead Head days, that I have clipped and saved and others that I have found on the net. No particular order of course. What fun would that be?
Jerry Garcia Wives Trial
Alters Public Image
By Jeordan Legon
San Jose Mercury News
January 15, 1997
SAN RAFAEL, California -- Trippy music and unparalleled kindness are the best-known legacies of Grateful Dead patriarch Jerry Garcia, who died from a heart attack at a Marin drug treatment center almost a year and a half ago.
But closely guarded details of the affable millionaire-hippie's turbulent life have emerged during a four-week trial in Marin County Superior Court pitting the last of Garcia's wives, Deborah Koons Garcia, against his second wife, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia.
A judge is expected to rule this week whether Carolyn Garcia is entitled to a $5 million divorce settlement she drafted in 1993. Attorneys for Koons Garcia allege that a drug-fogged Jerry Garcia was coerced by his manipulative ex-wife to sign the one-paragraph agreement.
His marriage to Carolyn, they said, was a tax sham hastily arranged to keep the Internal Revenue Service from dipping deeper into his millions.
Those insights and more revealed during the trial largely contradict Garcia's public image as a feel-good, middle-aged flower child. Mourned by legions of "Deadhead" fans around the world when he died Aug. 9, 1995, at the age of 53, Garcia was worshiped as much for his electrified, improvised guitar music as for his unwavering devotion to the psychedelic, countercultural hippie movement he helped spark in San Francisco in the '60s.
"He would have been surprised that this ensued after his passing," said Sandy Troy, author of "Captain Trips: A Biography of Jerry Garcia."
"I think he tried to have his affairs resolved in the whole ethos of the Grateful Dead - peace, love and harmony, which . . . runs squarely against litigating an issue like this," Troy said.
Debts had piled up
In the last months of his life, lawyers say, Garcia continued to support present and past wives and girlfriends to the tune of $50,000 a month, even though he was saddled with debts.
"Dad was very generous with all of us," said daughter Trixie Garcia, 22, an art student in San Francisco. "It was his way of trying to make up for not being there a lot of the time."
Robert Greenfield, author of "Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia," said the guitarist felt he needed to keep earning money not only to support his family but also to help his band members and their relatives.
'People were depending on him'
"He was the CEO of a huge corporation," Greenfield said. "Without him, there was no Grateful Dead. He had to go out on the road. A lot of people were depending on him."
But in his last years, it became increasingly difficult for him to perform. Garcia's emphysema, diabetes and heroin addiction sometimes made playing more of a chore than a joy, Greenfield said.
"At the end of his life, he was living like Elvis," Greenfield said. "He was really in terrible physical shape. He had spent a lot of his life on the road playing hard, and he wore himself out."
Despite an estimated $38 million in claims made against his estate and the posthumous bickering over his money, lawyers say Garcia's fortune may exceed $10 million. And the merchandising of his name and his eclectic drawings stands to earn the estate a fortune. Ben and Jerry's ice cream, for example, which produces a flavor called "Cherry Garcia," pays $250,000 in annual royalties to his heirs, court records show.
The characters in the courtroom saga reflect the unconventionality of Garcia's life and the burden that fame exerted on them all.
Described as rivals
The two principal players in the lawsuit, who avoided all eye contact in court and are said to be longtime rivals, stand in sharp contrast to each other. Koons Garcia, 47, a Mill Valley filmmaker who had been married to Garcia 20 months when he died, wears dark designer business suits and pearls and drives a BMW.
Carolyn Garcia, or "Mountain Girl," a name she earned as a member of author Ken Kesey's drug-happy clan known as the Merry Pranksters, was Garcia's partner off and on for almost three decades until their divorce in 1993. She wears love beads, has two daughters by the late rock star and drove down from Oregon for the trial in a motor home.
Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia's relationship dates to the first public Acid Test, which was held in San Jose on Dec. 4, 1965. The event, organized by Kesey and his followers, provided free LSD to anyone who came. About 400 people showed up to what is often described as the start of the psychedelic revolution in the United States. He met Koons Garcia during a tour stop in her hometown of Cincinnati in 1973.
While Carolyn Garcia lived in the couple's Stinson Beach home, the musician set up a house for Koons Garcia in nearby Bolinas. After several tumultuous years, Koons Garcia split up with the musician, and their romance wasn't rekindled until 1993, when they had a chance encounter at a Mill Valley health food store.
It was Koons Garcia who forced the matter into the courts, said Trixie, Jerry and Carolyn Garcia's daughter. She said her mother, Carolyn, had to file the suit because Koons Garcia "didn't want to deal at all."
'Willing to take less'
"If Deborah wasn't in control, we wouldn't have been in court right now," she said. "My mother was willing to take less, but Deborah wouldn't go for anything like that."
Another of Carolyn and Jerry Garcia's daughters, Annabelle Walker Garcia, 26, has been as outspoken during the trial as she was at her dad's funeral, where she eulogized him as a genius but a "shitty father."
"This is all a big joke," she told a Court TV reporter outside the Marin County Hall of Justice.
"The problem is that Mom and Dad had a real hippie relationship, and you cannot explain a '60s relationship in legal terms," she told a New York Times reporter during a separate interview.
Garcia left one-third of his estate to his widow, Koons Garcia. The remainder will be split among his four daughters; his brother, Clifford Garcia, of Fairfax; and Carolyn Garcia's daughter by another man.
Koons Garcia's lawyer, Paul Camera, said the widow felt a responsibility to protect the estate against what she felt were fraudulent claims.
"I think (Deborah) feels that (Carolyn) took advantage of Jerry," Camera said.
Still to be resolved is a lawsuit brought by Manasha Matheson, a groupie who became Garcia's lover in 1987 and has a 9-year-old daughter by the singer.
Sorting out the details of Jerry Garcia's very unorthodox life is expected to take several years. The task is made more difficult because - as Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh put it under oath - "The last 30 years have been one big, smoky haze."
Jerry Garcia Wives Trial
Alters Public Image
By Jeordan Legon
San Jose Mercury News
January 15, 1997
SAN RAFAEL, California -- Trippy music and unparalleled kindness are the best-known legacies of Grateful Dead patriarch Jerry Garcia, who died from a heart attack at a Marin drug treatment center almost a year and a half ago.
But closely guarded details of the affable millionaire-hippie's turbulent life have emerged during a four-week trial in Marin County Superior Court pitting the last of Garcia's wives, Deborah Koons Garcia, against his second wife, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia.
A judge is expected to rule this week whether Carolyn Garcia is entitled to a $5 million divorce settlement she drafted in 1993. Attorneys for Koons Garcia allege that a drug-fogged Jerry Garcia was coerced by his manipulative ex-wife to sign the one-paragraph agreement.
His marriage to Carolyn, they said, was a tax sham hastily arranged to keep the Internal Revenue Service from dipping deeper into his millions.
Those insights and more revealed during the trial largely contradict Garcia's public image as a feel-good, middle-aged flower child. Mourned by legions of "Deadhead" fans around the world when he died Aug. 9, 1995, at the age of 53, Garcia was worshiped as much for his electrified, improvised guitar music as for his unwavering devotion to the psychedelic, countercultural hippie movement he helped spark in San Francisco in the '60s.
"He would have been surprised that this ensued after his passing," said Sandy Troy, author of "Captain Trips: A Biography of Jerry Garcia."
"I think he tried to have his affairs resolved in the whole ethos of the Grateful Dead - peace, love and harmony, which . . . runs squarely against litigating an issue like this," Troy said.
Debts had piled up
In the last months of his life, lawyers say, Garcia continued to support present and past wives and girlfriends to the tune of $50,000 a month, even though he was saddled with debts.
"Dad was very generous with all of us," said daughter Trixie Garcia, 22, an art student in San Francisco. "It was his way of trying to make up for not being there a lot of the time."
Robert Greenfield, author of "Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia," said the guitarist felt he needed to keep earning money not only to support his family but also to help his band members and their relatives.
'People were depending on him'
"He was the CEO of a huge corporation," Greenfield said. "Without him, there was no Grateful Dead. He had to go out on the road. A lot of people were depending on him."
But in his last years, it became increasingly difficult for him to perform. Garcia's emphysema, diabetes and heroin addiction sometimes made playing more of a chore than a joy, Greenfield said.
"At the end of his life, he was living like Elvis," Greenfield said. "He was really in terrible physical shape. He had spent a lot of his life on the road playing hard, and he wore himself out."
Despite an estimated $38 million in claims made against his estate and the posthumous bickering over his money, lawyers say Garcia's fortune may exceed $10 million. And the merchandising of his name and his eclectic drawings stands to earn the estate a fortune. Ben and Jerry's ice cream, for example, which produces a flavor called "Cherry Garcia," pays $250,000 in annual royalties to his heirs, court records show.
The characters in the courtroom saga reflect the unconventionality of Garcia's life and the burden that fame exerted on them all.
Described as rivals
The two principal players in the lawsuit, who avoided all eye contact in court and are said to be longtime rivals, stand in sharp contrast to each other. Koons Garcia, 47, a Mill Valley filmmaker who had been married to Garcia 20 months when he died, wears dark designer business suits and pearls and drives a BMW.
Carolyn Garcia, or "Mountain Girl," a name she earned as a member of author Ken Kesey's drug-happy clan known as the Merry Pranksters, was Garcia's partner off and on for almost three decades until their divorce in 1993. She wears love beads, has two daughters by the late rock star and drove down from Oregon for the trial in a motor home.
Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia's relationship dates to the first public Acid Test, which was held in San Jose on Dec. 4, 1965. The event, organized by Kesey and his followers, provided free LSD to anyone who came. About 400 people showed up to what is often described as the start of the psychedelic revolution in the United States. He met Koons Garcia during a tour stop in her hometown of Cincinnati in 1973.
While Carolyn Garcia lived in the couple's Stinson Beach home, the musician set up a house for Koons Garcia in nearby Bolinas. After several tumultuous years, Koons Garcia split up with the musician, and their romance wasn't rekindled until 1993, when they had a chance encounter at a Mill Valley health food store.
It was Koons Garcia who forced the matter into the courts, said Trixie, Jerry and Carolyn Garcia's daughter. She said her mother, Carolyn, had to file the suit because Koons Garcia "didn't want to deal at all."
'Willing to take less'
"If Deborah wasn't in control, we wouldn't have been in court right now," she said. "My mother was willing to take less, but Deborah wouldn't go for anything like that."
Another of Carolyn and Jerry Garcia's daughters, Annabelle Walker Garcia, 26, has been as outspoken during the trial as she was at her dad's funeral, where she eulogized him as a genius but a "shitty father."
"This is all a big joke," she told a Court TV reporter outside the Marin County Hall of Justice.
"The problem is that Mom and Dad had a real hippie relationship, and you cannot explain a '60s relationship in legal terms," she told a New York Times reporter during a separate interview.
Garcia left one-third of his estate to his widow, Koons Garcia. The remainder will be split among his four daughters; his brother, Clifford Garcia, of Fairfax; and Carolyn Garcia's daughter by another man.
Koons Garcia's lawyer, Paul Camera, said the widow felt a responsibility to protect the estate against what she felt were fraudulent claims.
"I think (Deborah) feels that (Carolyn) took advantage of Jerry," Camera said.
Still to be resolved is a lawsuit brought by Manasha Matheson, a groupie who became Garcia's lover in 1987 and has a 9-year-old daughter by the singer.
Sorting out the details of Jerry Garcia's very unorthodox life is expected to take several years. The task is made more difficult because - as Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh put it under oath - "The last 30 years have been one big, smoky haze."
Comment
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Comment by Clance' McClannahan on August 2, 2008 at 2:50pm - It's also proof to be careful who you marry just before you die.
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Comment by Revvin Jim G on August 2, 2008 at 1:35pm - Yes, it was all rather sordid. It's proof that you can't keep everybody in your life happy no matter who you are.
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Comment by Clance' McClannahan on August 2, 2008 at 12:15pm
- I wish I had.
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Comment by Revvin Jim G on August 2, 2008 at 12:35am
- Interesting article. I seem to have missed all this.
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