Reviews

Just in time for the enduring, canonical Grateful Dead's 30th anniversary next year, Troy has written the first complete biography of bandleader Garcia, the only rock guitarist to have an ice cream flavor named after him. The author examines Garcia's life and career up to and including his surprisingly staid wedding this past February. Included are Garcia's adventures with Ken Kesey during the mid-Sixties, his recurring health problems and revolving drug difficulties, and his creative pursuits, both within and without the Grateful Dead. Because Troy (author of the Dead biography One More Saturday Night, LJ 5/15/91) traces not only Garcia's own musical career but the development and evolution of the Dead through the past 30 years, his book can also be considered a worthy collective biography of the band. Given the Dead's continuing popularity, their importance in 20th-century popular music, and the growing recognition of Garcia as an individual artist, this should be seriously considered for academic as well as public library music collections. [See also the review of David Shenk and Steve Silberman's Skeleton Key on page 70-Ed.]-Bill Piekarski, Southwestern Coll. Lib., Chula Vista, Cal.

What brand was Jerry Garcia's first guitar? What went wrong with the Grateful Dead's set at Woodstock? These esoterica sustain Troy's (One More Saturday Night) biography of Garcia, the Grateful Dead's famed guitarist and leader. As a celebration of the Garcia legend, Troy's book is a total success-seemingly every detail of the musician's career is catalogued. Other elements of the 52-year-old Garcia's life-such as his three marriages and four children-are given shorter shrift, reflecting perhaps the reality of life in a band renowned for its ceaseless touring. Troy has a pedestrian narrative style and the pace is often slow. Not even Garcia's diabetic coma in 1986 earns dramatic urgency. In tracing the guitarist's life, Troy does little to explore beyond his myth, but his interviews and anecdotes supply fodder to expand on it. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)