Jerry Garcia.

At age four, Jerry Garcia lost half his right middle finger in a woodcutting accident caused by his older brother. A year later, he watched his father drown in a river, and asthma left him bedridden for stretches. He grew up in San Francisco with his grandparents, listening to jazz and country on the radio. In 1957, at 15, he got his first guitar and taught himself to play along to Chuck Berry records. After a brief stint in the army, he returned home, studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute, and immersed himself in the beat and coffeehouse scene, befriending poet Robert Hunter who would become his lyricist.

In 1965, Garcia formed the Warlocks, soon renamed the Grateful Dead, with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Ron McKernan, and Bill Kreutzmann. The band gained a reputation for long, improvisational sets at legendary festivals like Monterey Pop in 1967, Woodstock in 1969, and Watkins Glen in 1973. Despite a cult following, their only commercial hit was Touch of Grey from the 1987 album In the Dark. Outside the Dead, Garcia released solo albums starting with Garcia in 1972 and formed the bluegrass band Old and In the Way in 1973. He also played pedal steel with New Riders of the Purple Sage and contributed to albums by Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, and others.

Garcia married three times: to Sara Ruppenthal in 1963 divorced 1967, to Carolyn Adams in 1981 legally separated but not divorced until 1994, and to Deborah Koons in 1994. He fathered four daughters: Heather, Annabelle, Theresa, and Keelin. Garcia struggled with heavy drug use, including cocaine and heroin, which led to a diabetic coma in 1986 that required him to relearn guitar. He died of a heart attack in 1995 while at the Serenity Knolls treatment center in Forest Knolls, California.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead, Garcia was ranked 13th on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists. His improvisational guitar style influenced a generation of musicians, and his banjo playing with Old and In the Way helped revive bluegrass for a younger audience. Posthumous honors include a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, Cherry Garcia named in 1987, and countless archival releases. He is most remembered as the soulful, ever-exploring lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.