here's a Robert Zimmerman lyric that alludes to my namesake
I was riding on the Mayflower
When I thought I spied some land
I yelled for Captain Arab
I have yuh understand
Who came running to the deck
Said, "Boys, forget the whale
Look on over yonder
Cut the engines
Change the sail
Haul on the bowline"
We sang that melody
Like all tough sailors do
When they are far away at sea.
"I think I'll call it America"
I said as we hit the land
I took a deep breath
I fell down, I could not stand
Captain Arab he started
Writing up some deeds
He said, "Let's set up a fort
And start buying the place with beads"
Just then this cop comes down the street
Crazy as a loon
He throw us all in jail
For carryin' harpoons.
Ah me I busted out
Don't even ask me how
I went to get some help
I walked by a Guernsey cow
Who directed me down
To the Bowery slums
Where people carried signs around
Saying, "Ban the bums"
I jumped right into line
Sayin' "I hope that I'm not late"
When I realized I hadn't eaten
For five days straight.
I went into a restaurant
Lookin' for the cook
I told him I was the editor
Of a famous etiquette book
The waitress he was handsome
He wore a powder blue cape
I ordered some suzette, I said
"Could you please make that crepe"
Just then the whole kitchen exploded
From boillin' fat
Food was flying anywhere
And I left without my hat.
Now, I didn't mean to be nosy
But I went into a bank
To get some bail for Arab
And all the boys back in the tank
They asked me for some collateral
And I pulled down my pants
They threw me in the alley
When up comes this girl from France
Who invited me to her house
I went, but she had a friend
Who knocked me out
And robbed my boots
And I was on the street again.
Well, I rapped upon a house
With the US flag upon display
I said, "Could you help me out
I got some friends down the way
" The man says, "Get out of here
I'll tear you limp from limb"
I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too"
He said, "You're not Him
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain't your pop"
I decided to have him arrested
And I went lookin for a cop.
I ran right outside
And I hopped inside a cab
I went out the other door
This Englishman said, "Fab"
As he saw me leap a hot dog stand
And a chariot that stood
Parked across from a building
Advertising brotherhood
I ran right through the front door
Like a hobo sailor does
But it was just a funeral parlor
And the man asked me who I was.
I repeated that my friends
Where all in jail, with a sigh
He gave me his card
He said, "Call me if they die"
I shook his hand and said goodbye
Ran out to the street
When a bowling ball came down the road
And knocked me off my feet
A pay phone was ringing
It just about blew my mind
When I picked it up and said hello
This foot came through the line.
Well, by this time I was feed up
At tryin'g to make a stab
At bringin' back any help
For my friends and captain Arab
I decided to flip a coin
Like either heads or tails
Would let me know if I should go
Back to the ship or back to jail
So I hooked my sailor suit
And I got a coin to flip
It came up tails
It rhymed with sails
So I made it back to the ship.
Well, I got back and took
The parkin' ticket off the mast
I was ripping it to shreds
When this coastguard boat went past
They asked me my name
And I said, "Captain Kidd"
They believed me but
They wanted to know
What exactly that I did
I said for the Pope of Eruke
I was employed
They let me go right away
They were very paranoid.
Well, the last I heard of Arab
He was stuck on a whale
That was married to the deputy
Sheriff of the jail
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin' the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin'
There were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, "Good luck".
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 - January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician, and author of the book Two Years Before the Mast.
He was born into one of the first families of Cambridge, Massachusetts, grandson of Francis Dana, and attended Harvard College. Having trouble with his vision after a bout of the measles, he thought a voyage might help his failing sight. Rather than going on a Grand Tour of Europe, in 1834 he left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn to the then-remote California, at that time still a part of Mexico. He set sail on the brig Pilgrim (180 tons, 86.5 feet long), visited a number of settlements in California (including Monterey, San Pedro, San Juan Capistrano, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara), and returned to Massachusetts two years later as a deckhand on the Indiaman Alert, after making a winter passage around Cape Horn. He set foot back in Boston in September 1836.
He kept a diary, and after the trip wrote Two Years Before the Mast based on his experiences. The term "before the mast" refers to sailor's quarters -- in the forecastle, in the bow of the ship, the officers dwelling near the stern. His writing evidences his later social feeling for the oppressed. After witnessing a flogging on board the Pilgrim, he vowed that he would try to help improve the lot of the common seaman.
After his sea voyage, he returned to Harvard to take up study at its law school, completing his education in 1837. He subsequently became a lawyer, and an expert on maritime law, many times defending common seamen. Later he became a prominent abolitionist, helping to found the anti-slavery Free Soil Party in 1848. In 1859 Dana visited Cuba while its annexation was being debated in the U.S. Senate. He visited Havana, a sugar plantation, a bullfight, and various churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons, a trip documented in his book To Cuba and Back.
During the American Civil War, Dana served as United States District Attorney, and successfully argued before the Supreme Court that the United States Government could rightfully blockade Confederate ports. From 1867-1868 Dana was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and also served as a U.S. counsel in the trial of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In 1876, his nomination as ambassador to Britain was defeated in the Senate by political enemies, partly because of a lawsuit for plagiarism brought against him for a legal textbook he had edited.
Dana died of influenza in Rome, and is buried in that city's Protestant Cemetery.
His son, Richard Henry Dana III, married Edith Longfellow, daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The point and city of Dana Point, California, located on the Pacific coast about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, is named for him.
Herman Melville
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born: August 1, 1819
New York City, New York, United States
Died: September 28, 1891 (aged 72)
New York City, New York
Occupation: novelist, short story writer, teacher, sailor, lecturer, poet
Nationality: American
Genres: travelogue, Captivity narrative, Sea story, Gothic Romanticism, Allegory, Tall tale
Literary movement: Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, and Skepticism; precursor to Modernism, precursor to absurdism and existentialism
Influences: Shakespeare, Milton, The Bible, C. B. Brown, Montaigne, Camoens, Dana, Hawthorne, Thomas Browne, Emerson, Thoreau, Carlyle, Irving, Cooper
Influenced: Thomas Mann, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, Camus, Jean-Pierre Melville, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His earliest novels were bestsellers, but his popularity declined precipitously only a few years later. By the time of his death he had been almost completely forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick ?- largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and most responsible for Melville's fall from favor with the reading public ?- was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.
Atlantic Monthly's December 2006 list of "The 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time" ranked Melville at #100. The panel of historians who compiled the list called him "America's Shakespeare."
Life
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, as the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. (After Allan died, Maria added an "e" to the surname.) Part of a well-established if colorful Boston family, Melville's father spent a good deal of time abroad doing business deals as an importer of French dry goods and a commission merchant. His paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melvill, an honored survivor of the Boston Tea Party who refused to change the style of his clothing or manners to fit the times, was depicted in Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem "The Last Leaf". Herman visited him often in Boston, and his father turned to him in his frequent times of financial need. The maternal side of Melville's family was Hudson Valley Dutch. His maternal grandfather was General Peter Gansevoort, a hero of the battle of Saratoga; in his gold-laced uniform, the general sat for a portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart. The portrait appeared in Melville's later novel, Pierre, for Melville wrote out of his familial as well as his nautical background. Like the titular character in Pierre, Melville found satisfaction in his "double revolutionary descent."[citation needed]
The Melvills lived comfortably in New York. Allan Melvill had his children baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church and sent his sons to the New York Male School (Columbia Preparatory School). Overextended financially and emotionally unstable, Allan tried to recover from his setbacks by moving his family to Albany in 1830 and going into the fur business. The new venture ended in disastrous failure, and in 1832 Allan Melvill died of a sudden illness that included mental collapse, leaving his family in poverty. Although Maria had well-off kin and moved her family to her brother's farm, her family largely treated her and her children harshly for Maria's making such a poor choice of husband.[1]
Herman Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself independently of family assistance led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy in a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, visited London, and returned on the same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) is partly based on his experiences of this journey.
The succeeding three years (1837 to 1840) were mostly occupied with school-teaching. Near the end of 1840 he once again decided to sign ship's articles; on New Year's Day, 1841, he sailed from Fairhaven, Massachusetts on the whaler Acushnet, which was bound for the Pacific Ocean. The vessel sailed around Cape Horn and traveled to the South Pacific. Melville left very little direct information about the events of this 18 months' cruise, although his whaling romance, Moby-Dick; or, the White Whale, probably gives many pictures of life on board the Acushnet. Melville decided to abandon the vessel on reaching the Marquesas Islands. He lived among the natives of the island for several weeks and the narratives of Typee and its sequel, Omoo, tell this tale. After a sojourn to the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. He remained there four months, working as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American frigate United States, which, after stopping on the way at a Peruvian port, reached Boston in October of 1844. He would eventually experience overnight success as a writer and adventurer with the 1846 publication of Typee. For the next four years, he would have other successes, but none would be on the order of his very first one. Omoo (the sequel to Typee), Mardi (a disappointment for readers who wanted another rollicking and exotic sea yarn), Redburn, and White-Jacket had no problem finding publishers and were first serialized before being printed as books.
Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter of noted Massachusetts jurist Lemuel Shaw) on August 4, 1847. The Melvilles resided in New York City, where he became associated with New York University as an instructor.[2] In 1850 they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts that is today a museum. Here Melville remained for thirteen years, occupied with his writing and managing his farm. There he befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox. He wrote Moby-Dick and Pierre there (dedicating Moby-Dick to Hawthorne); however, these works did not achieve the popular and critical success of his earlier books. Following scathing reviews of Pierre by critics, publishers became wary of Melville's work. His publisher, Harper & Brothers, rejected his next manuscript, The Isle of the Cross, which has been lost.
For financial reasons, Melville was persuaded while in Pittsfield to enter the lucrative lecture field. From 1857 to 1860, he spoke at lyceums, chiefly on travel in the South Seas. Turning to poetry, he composed a collection of poems that failed to interest a publisher. In 1863, he and his wife resettled, with their four children, in New York City. After the end of the Civil War, he published "Battle-Pieces" (1866), a collection of over seventy poems that was generally panned by critics. His professional writing career was at an end and his marriage was dissolving when in 1867 his oldest son, Malcolm, committed suicide. Pulling his life together, he used his influence to obtain a position of customs inspector for the City of New York (then a lucrative and very coveted appointment, though not for a man of Melville's temperament or ambitions), and held the post for 19 years. (The customs house was ironically on Gansevoort St., which was named after his mother's prosperous family.) In 1876 he found a publisher for a limited edition of the massive epic poem, "Clarel," but his uncle Peter Gansevoort had to pay for its publication. Two volumes of poetry followed: John Marr (1888) and Timoleon (1891).
After an illness that lasted several months, Melville died at his home in New York City early on the morning of September 28, 1891, age 72. His New York Times obituary called him "Henry Melville." He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.
In his later life, his works were no longer popular with a broad audience because of their increasingly philosophical, political and experimental tendencies. His novella Billy Budd, Sailor an unpublished manuscript at the time of his death, was published in 1924 and later turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter Ustinov.
In Herman Melville's Religious Journey, Walter Donald Kring detailed his discovery of letters indicating that Melville had been a member of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City. Until this revelation, little had been known of his religious affiliation.
Publications and contemporary reactions
All of Melville's novels were published first in England and then in the U.S. Sometimes the editions contain substantial differences; at other times different printings were either bowdlerized or restored to their pre-bowdlerized state. (For specifics on different publication dates, editions, printings, etc., please see entries for individual novels.)
Moby-Dick has become Melville's most famous work and is often considered one of the greatest literary works of all time. It was dedicated to Melville's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. It did not, however, make Melville rich. The book never sold its initial printing of 3,000 copies in his lifetime, and total earnings from the American edition amounted to just $556.37 from his publisher, Harper & Brothers. Melville also wrote Billy Budd, White-Jacket, Typee, Omoo, Pierre, The Confidence-Man and many short stories and works of various genres.
Melville is less well known as a poet and did not publish poetry until late in life. After the Civil War, he published Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, which did not sell well; of the Harper & Bros. printing of 1200 copies, only 525 had been sold ten years later.[1] But again tending to outrun the tastes of his readers, Melville's epic length verse-narrative Clarel, about a student's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was also quite obscure, even in his own time. This may be the longest single poem in American literature. The poem, published in 1876, had an initial printing of only 350 copies. The critic Lewis Mumford found a copy of the poem in the New York Public Library in 1925 "with its pages uncut".[citation needed] In other words, it had sat there unread for 50 years.
His poetry is not as highly critically esteemed as his fiction, although some critics place him as the first modernist poet in the United States.[citation needed]
The Melville Revival
After the success of travelogues based on voyages to the South Seas and stories based on misadventures in the merchant marine and navy, Melville's popularity declined dramatically. In the later years of his life and during the years after his death he was recognized, if at all, as only a minor figure in American literature. However, a confluence of publishing events in the 1920s brought about a reassessment now commonly called the Melville Revival. The two books generally considered most important to the Revival[citation needed] were both brought forth by Raymond Weaver: his 1921 biography Herman Melville: Man, Mariner and Mystic and his 1924 version of Melville's last great but never quite finished or properly organized work, Billy Budd, which Melville's granddaughter gave to Weaver when he visited her for research on the biography. The other works that helped fan the Revival flames were Carl Van Doren's The American Novel (1921), D. H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature (1923), and Lewis Mumford's biography, Herman Melville: A Study of His Life and Work (1929).
Criticism and reputation in the wake of the Revival
The Revival spurred an earnest and contentious first wave of Melville criticism. Much of it centered on Billy Budd and Moby-Dick; much of his other work was shunted to the side because it was deemed too lacking in artistic merit (e.g., the poetry); too strange or obscure (e.g., Pierre and The Confidence-Man); too minor, especially since Melville viewed it that way (e.g., Redburn and Israel Potter); or some combination thereof.[citation needed]
Given its recent discovery and printing and thus its "true" novelty, Billy Budd was the text that most critics initially pounced on.[citation needed] Criticism largely fell into two camps, the "resignationists" (a.k.a. the "literalists") and the "ironists." The resignationists believed that Billy Budd was a fairly straightforward testament of Melville's resignation to his fate as an author and human being, whereas the ironists thought the work provided ample evidence that Melville meant the work to be taken as irony and thus a cry against injustice and the very opposite of resignation. This dispute over Melville's fundamental attitude?-was he a conservative or a radical??-would color the arguments for the rest of the first wave.
Other movements found in Melville a worthy precursor. For instance, many Existentialists and Absurdists saw "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a prescient exploration and embodiment of their concerns.
Many of the disputants in the critical battles over some of Melville's more provocative works ultimately realized that many of their questions and critical speculations would not be answered until more texts were discovered, further definitive texts were established, and more facts of Melville's life were unearthed.[citation needed] Biographical needs brought about such works as Jay Leyda's The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 1819-1891 (1951), Leon Howard's Herman Melville: A Biography (1951) and, most notably perhaps, the winner of the 1950 National Book Award for non-fiction, Herman Melville by Newton Arvin. The "correct version" of Billy Budd, however, was always in dispute; several different editors brought out their own versions in the decades after Weaver's appeared. It was not until Harrison Hayford and Merton Sealts, Jr., published a definitive text of Billy Budd in 1962 that scholars were generally agreed on the content and thrust of Melville's "final statement". Consequently, another reappraisal began, using this definitive version to look back on all of Melville's other production and his own apparent use of Billy Budd to take stock of it as he neared death.
Recent criticism and controversy
In recent years, a number of major biographies?-Laurie Robertson-Lorant's Melville: A Biography (1996), Hershel Parker's Herman Melville: A Biography (Vol. 1, 1996; Vol. 2, 2002), and Andrew Delbanco's Melville: His World and Work (2005)?-have confirmed Melville's status as one of American literature's most significant and representative figures. However, some researchers contend that Melville physically abused his wife and created an atmosphere at home that led to his eldest son Malcolm's suicide and his younger son Stanwix's settling on the opposite coast (San Francisco) and dying before the age of 40. Melville's daughter, Francis, despised him; she even burned all the letters he had sent to her.[citation needed]
More and more critical scrutiny is focusing on the elements in Melville's work impinging on a host of new areas, among them post-colonialism and imperialism, race and ethnography, internationalism, body criticism, and even ecology.[citation needed] For example, the 1855 short story "Benito Cereno" is one of the few works of 19th century American literature to confront the African diaspora and the violent history of race relations in America, while "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" and Billy Budd have been particularly rich for scholars of gender studies and queer studies, perhaps most notably Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
Jerry Garcia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Jerome John Garcia
Also known as Captain Trips
Born August 1, 1942
Origin San Francisco, California, USA
Died August 9, 1995 (aged 53)
Forest Knolls, California, USA
Genre(s) Folk rock, jam band, bluegrass, soul music, country rock, rock and roll, psychedelic rock, rhythm and blues
Occupation(s) Artist, musician, songwriter
Instrument(s) Piano, banjo, electric guitar, pedal steel guitar
Years active 1960 - 1995
Label(s) Rhino, Arista, Warner Bros., Acoustic Disc, Grateful Dead
Associated
acts Grateful Dead, Legion of Mary, Reconstruction, Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, New Riders of the Purple Sage
Website JerryGarcia.com
Notable instrument(s)
Gibson SGs
Guild Starfire
1957 Gibson Les Paul
Gold-top Les Paul with P-90
Fender Stratocaster "Alligator"
Doug Irwin Custom "Wolf"
Doug Irwin Custom "Tiger"
Doug Irwin Custom "Rosebud"
Stephen Cripe Custom "Lightning Bolt"
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia (August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead.[1][2] Garcia was viewed by the media as the leader or "spokesman" of the group.[1][2][3][4]
Performing with the Grateful Dead for its entire three decade career (which spanned from 1965 to 1995), Garcia participated in a variety of side projects, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and several solo albums.[1] He also contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician. He was very well known by many for his highly distinctive and original guitar playing and was ranked 13th in the Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time cover story.[5]
Later in life, Garcia was sometimes ill due to his unstable weight.[3][4] After experiencing a diabetic coma that nearly cost him his life in 1986, Garcia endeavored to live on healthier terms until his sudden death in a rehabilitation facility in August of 1995.[2][4]
Early years
Jerome John Garcia was born in San Francisco, California, on August 1, 1942, to Jose Ramon Garcia and Ruth Marie Clifford.[6][7] His parents named him after the famous composer Jerome Kern.[6] Garcia was their second and final child, preceded by Clifford "Tiff" Garcia, who was born in 1937.
Garcia was influenced by music at an early age,[8] taking piano lessons for much of his childhood.[9] His father, Jose, was employed as a professional musician,[2] and his mother, Ruth, a hospital nurse,[10] enjoyed playing the piano.[6] Also, his father's extended family (he had emigrated from Spain in 1919) would often sing during reunions.[8]
At the age of four,[10] Garcia experienced the amputation of two-thirds of his right middle finger.[6] Given the chore of steadying wood while his elder brother chopped, he inadvertently put his finger in the way of the falling axe, producing what would later be used as almost a signature for his art and music.
Garcia had quite a few traumatic or tragic events occur during his youth. Less than a year after losing a segment of his finger, he witnessed the death of his father. While camping with his family near Arcata in 1947, his father brought him along for the hike when he went fly-fishing; his father soon slipped, plunged into the deep rapids of the Trinity River,[10] and drowned, much to Garcia's shock and horror.[6]
Having listened to music by Chuck Berry,[9] Buddy Holly, and Eddie Cochran during his youth, Garcia's one wish was to have an electric guitar. On his 15th birthday, his mother purchased him an accordion, which he pleaded with her to exchange for a guitar.[6][8] She eventually relented, buying a Danelectro with a small amplifier.[8]
During the following summer, Garcia took up an art program at the San Francisco Art Institute in order to further his burgeoning interest in the visual arts.[10]
Around 1958, Garcia attended tenth grade at Balboa High School. During this period, he was introduced to marijuana.[8] Garcia would later reminisce: "Me and a friend of mine went up into the hills with two joints, the San Francisco foothills, and smoked these joints and just got so high and laughed and roared and went skipping down the streets doing funny things and just having a helluva time."[8]
Garcia frequented a Victorian-style house during the early sixities, then commonly known by its address at 710 Ashbury Street. It was situated in the midst of the Haight-Asbury district, most famous for being the center of the counterculture movement in San Francisco. He performed at 710 Ashbury during his early years, and would, within a few years, live with the rest of the Grateful Dead there. In 1962, Garcia met Phil Lesh, the eventual bassist of the Grateful Dead, during a party at 710 Ashbury. Lesh would later write in his autobiography that Garcia resembled the "composer Claude Debussy: dark, curly hair, goatee, Impressionist eyes."[10]
Garcia later dropped out of Balboa High School in his junior year and enlisted in the United States Army.[1][8] After completing Basic Training and Service School Training as an auto maintenance helper at Fort Ord, Garcia was stationed at Fort Winfield Scott in the Presidio of San Francisco.[8] Garcia was still spending his hours at his leisure picking up the acoustic guitar.[citation needed] He was given a general discharge on December 14, 1960, after accruing two courts martial and eight AWOLs.[citation needed]
After his discharge, Garcia traveled to Palo Alto to experience the alternative scene then surrounding Stanford University.[8] It was at this time that Garcia began to realize that he needed to begin playing the guitar in earnest?-a move which meant giving up his love of drawing and painting. This decision was softened when Garcia recognized the impressive talent of his friend Paul Speegle.
Garcia soon meet Robert Hunter in April of 1960. Hunter would go on to become a long-time lyrical collaborator with the Grateful Dead.[1][6] Living out of his car next to Robert Hunter in a lot behind 710 Ashbury, Garcia and Hunter began to participate in the local art and musical scene, sometimes playing at Kepler's Books.[6] Garcia performed his first concert with Hunter, each earning five dollars. Garcia and Hunter would also play in a band with David Nelson, a contributor to a few Grateful Dead albums, labeled the Wildwood Boys.[10]
The corner of Haight and Ashbury, the neighborhood in which 710 Ashbury was located.In 1960, Garcia and his friend Paul Speegle were involved in a car accident. Garcia was thrown from the vehicle, resulting in a broken collarbone. Speegle, however, was fatally wounded by the crash. The accident served as an awakening for Garcia, who later elaborated: "That's where my life began. Before then I was always living at less than capacity. I was idling. That was the slingshot for the rest of my life. It was like a second chance. Then I got serious."[11]
While attending another party at 710 Ashbury, Phil Lesh approached Garcia suggesting that they record some songs, with the intention of getting them played on the radio station KPFA.[10] Using an old Wollensak tape recorder, they recorded "Matty Groves" and "The Long Black Veil", among several other tunes. Their efforts were not in vain, later landing a spot on the show, where a ninety-minute special was done specifically on Garcia. It was broadcast under the title "'The Long Black Veil' and Other Ballads: An Evening with Jerry Garcia".[10]
Garcia soon began playing and teaching acoustic guitar and banjo during this time.[10] One of Garcia's students was Bob Matthews, who later engineered many of the Grateful Dead's albums.[12] Matthews went to high school (and was friends) with Bob Weir, and on New Year's Eve 1963, he introduced Weir and Garcia to each other.[12]
Between 1962 and 1964, Garcia sang and performed mainly bluegrass, old-time and folk music. One of the bands Garcia was known to perform with was the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, a bluegrass act. The group consisted of Jerry Garcia on guitar, banjo, vocals, and harmonica, Marshall Leicester on banjo, guitar, and vocals, and Dick Arnold on fiddle and vocals.[13] Soon thereafter, Garcia joined a local bluegrass and folk band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, whose membership also included Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.
Around this time, the psychedelic LSD was beginning to gain prominence. Garcia first began experimenting with LSD in 1964; later, when asked how it changed his life, he remarked: "Well, it changed everything [...] the effect was that it freed me because I suddenly realized that my little attempt at having a straight life and doing that was really a fiction and just wasn't going to work out. Luckily I wasn't far enough into it for it to be shattering or anything; it was like a realization that just made me feel immensely relieved".[8]
In 1965, Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions evolved into the Warlocks, with the addition of Phil Lesh on bass guitar and Bill Kreutzmann on percussion. However, the band quickly learned that another group was already perfoming under their newly selected name, prompting another name change. After several suggestions, Garcia came up with the name by opening either an old Oxford[8] or Britannica World Language Dictionary.[10] He was then promptly greeted with the "Grateful Dead".[8][9][10] The definition provided for "Grateful Dead" was "a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial."[14] The band's immediate reaction was disapproval.[8][9] Garcia later explained the group's feelings towards the name: "I didn't like it really, I just found it to be really powerful. [Bob] Weir didn't like it, [Bill] Kreutzmann didn't like it and nobody really wanted to hear about it. [...]"[8] Despite their dislike of the name, it quickly spread by word of mouth, and soon became their official title.
Career with the Grateful Dead
Garcia served as lead guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Grateful Dead for their entire career. Garcia composed such songs as "Dark Star",[15] "Franklin's Tower",[15] "Ripple",[15] and "Scarlet Begonias",[15] among many others. Robert Hunter, an ardent collaborator with the band, contributed lyrics to all but a few of Garcia's songs.
Garcia was well-noted for his "soulful extended guitar improvisations",[2] which would frequently feature interplay between himself and his fellow band members. His fame, as well as the band's, arguably rested on their ability to never play a song the same way twice.[3] Oftentimes, Garcia would take cues from rhythm guitarist Bob Weir on when to solo, remarking that "there are some [...] kinds of ideas that would really throw me if I had to create a harmonic bridge between all the things going on rhythmically with two drums and Phil [Lesh's] innovative bass playing. Weir's ability to solve that sort of problem is extraordinary. [...] Harmonically, I take a lot of my solo cues from Bob."[16]
Jerry Garcia in concert on December 31, 1976. He is performing with a Travis Bean guitar. His principle instrument at the time, named Wolf, was receiving repairs.When asked to describe his approach to soloing, Garcia commented: "It keeps on changing. I still basically revolve around the melody and the way it's broken up into phrases as I perceive them. With most solos, I tend to play something that phrases the way the melody does; my phrases may be more dense or have different value, but they'll occur in the same places in the song. [...]"[17]
Garcia and the band toured almost constantly from their formation in 1965 until Garcia's in death in 1995, a stint which gave credit to the name "endless tour". Periodically, there were breaks due to exhaustion or health problems, often due to unstable health and drug use of Garcia. During their three decade span, the Grateful Dead played 2,314 shows.[3]
Garcia's mature guitar-playing was marked by an unusual emotional honesty and a clear, bell-like tone. He often stepped boldly into a solo like a ship at full sail. He melded elements from the various kinds of music that had enthralled him. Echoes of bluegrass playing (such as Arthur Smith and Doc Watson) could be heard. But the "roots music" behind bluegrass had its influence, too, and melodic riffs from Celtic fiddle jigs can be distinguished.[citation needed] There was also early rock (like Lonnie Mack, James Burton and Chuck Berry), contemporary blues (such as Freddie King and Lowell Fulson), country and western (such as Roy Nichols and Don Rich), and jazz (like Charlie Christian) to be heard in Jerry's style. Don Rich was the sparkling country guitar player in Buck Owens's "Buckaroos" band of the 1960s, but besides Rich's style, both Garcia's pedal steel guitar playing (on Grateful Dead records and others) and his standard electric guitar work, were influenced by another of Owens's Buckaroos of that time, pedal-steel player Tom Blumley.
Garcia later described his playing style as having "descended from barroom rock and roll, country guitar. Just 'cause that's where all my stuff comes from. It's like that blues instrumental stuff that was happening in the late Fifties and early Sixties, like Freddie King."[8] Garcia's style varied somewhat according to the song or instrumental to which he was contributing. His playing had a number of so-called "signatures" and, in his work through the years with the Grateful Dead, one of these was lead lines making much use of rhythmic triplets (examples include the songs "Good Morning Little School Girl", "New Speedway Boogie", "Brokedown Palace", "Deal", "Loser", "Truckin'", "That's It for the Other One", "U.S. Blues", "Sugaree", and "Don't Ease Me In").
Side projects
In addition to the Grateful Dead, Garcia had numerous side projects, the most notable being the Jerry Garcia Band. He was also involved with various acoustic projects such as Old and in the Way and other bluegrass bands, including collaborations with noted bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman (the documentary film Grateful Dawg chronicles the deep, long-term friendship between Garcia and Grisman).
Other groups of which Garcia was a member at one time or another include the Black Mountain Boys [1], Legion of Mary [2], Reconstruction, and the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. Jerry Garcia was also an appreciative fan of jazz artists and improvisation: he played with jazz keyboardists Merl Saunders and Howard Wales for many years in various groups and jam sessions, and he appeared on saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1988 album, Virgin Beauty.
Garcia also spent a lot of time in the recording studio helping out fellow musician friends in session work, often adding guitar, vocals, pedal steel, sometimes banjo and piano and even producing. He played on over 50 studio albums the styles of which were eclectic and varied, including bluegrass, rock, folk, blues, country, jazz, electronic music, gospel, funk, and reggae. Artists who sought Garcia's help included the likes of the Jefferson Airplane (most notably Surrealistic Pillow), Tom Fogerty, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, David Bromberg, Robert Hunter, Peter Rowan, Warren Zevon, Country Joe McDonald, Ken Nordine, Ornette Coleman, Bruce Hornsby, Bob Dylan and many more. He was also one of the first musicians to really cover in depth motown music in the early-1970s and probably the most prolific coverer of Bob Dylan songs.
Throughout the early-1970s, Garcia, Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, drummer Mickey Hart, and David Crosby collaborated intermittently with MIT-educated composer and biologist Ned Lagin on several projects in the realm of early electronica; these include the album Seastones (released by the Dead on their Round Records subsidiary) and L, an unfinished dance work.
Garcia also lent pedal-steel guitar playing to fellow-San Francisco musicians New Riders of the Purple Sage from their initial dates in 1969 to October 1971, when increased commitments with the Dead forced him to opt out of the group. He appears as a band member on their debut album New Riders of the Purple Sage, and produced Home, Home On The Road, a 1974 live album by the band. He also contributed pedal steel guitar to the enduring hit "Teach Your Children" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, likely the most recognizable piece of music to feature the guitarist. Jerry also played steel guitar licks on Brewer & Shipley's 1970 album Tarkio. Despite considering himself a novice on the pedal steel and having all but given up the instrument by 1973, he routinely ranked high in player polls. After a long lapse, he played it once more with Bob Dylan in 1987.
An avid reader and cinefile, Garcia was particularly fond of Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan and owned the novel's film rights for many years, struggling to adapt it with the likes of Al Franken.
Having studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute, Garcia embarked on a second career in the visual arts. He offered for sale and auction to the public a number of illustrations, lithographs, and water colors. Some of those pieces became the basis of a line of men's neckties characterized by bright colors and abstract patterns. Even in 2005, ten years after Garcia's death, new styles and designs continue to be produced and sold.
Personal life
Garcia met his first wife, Sara Ruppenthal Garcia, in 1963.[10] She was working at the coffee house in the back of Kepler's Bookstore where Garcia, Hunter, and Nelson performed. They married on April 23 of the same year, and had their only child together, a girl, whom they named Heather, on December 8, 1963.[18]
Garcia was subjected to a handful of drug busts during his lifetime. On October 2, 1967, 710 Ashbury was raided after police were tipped off by an informant.[10] The police action resulted in most of the Grateful Dead being apprehended (sans Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, and Garcia's future wife Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams). Strangely, Garcia and Adams were led out of the residence by the very same informant shortly before it was raided.
Another seizure was experienced in January of 1970, after the Grateful Dead flew to New Orleans from Hawaii.[10] After returning from a recent performance, the band checked into their rooms, only to be quickly raided by police. Around fifteen people were arrested on the spot, including many of the road crew, management, and nearly all of the Grateful Dead (except Garcia, who arrived later, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who wasn't doing substances at the time).[10] A month later on February 2, 1970, Adams gave birth to a girl named Annabelle Walker Garcia.[18]
During August of 1970, Garcia's mother Ruth was involved in a lurid car accident near Twin Peaks in San Francisco.[10] Garcia, who was recording the album American Beauty at the time, often left the sessions to visit his mother with his brother Clifford. She later died on September 28, 1970. That same year, Garcia participated in the soundtrack for the film Zabriskie Point.
On September 21, 1974, Adams gave birth to Garcia's third daughter, Theresa Adams Garcia.[18] In 1975, around the time Blues for Allah was being created, Garcia met Deborah Koons, the woman who would much later become his third wife and widow.[10] He began seeing her while he was still involved with Adams, with whom Koons had a less-than-perfect relationship. Garcia and Koons eventually went different ways.
Influenced by the stresses of creating and releasing The Grateful Dead Movie in 1977, Garcia began using cocaine, later progressing to smokable heroin. This, combined with the drug use of several other members of the Grateful Dead, produced turbulent times for the band; starting in 1981, the band's chemistry began "cracking and crumbling,"[10] resulting in poor live performances and group cohesion. The so-called "endless tour," the result of years of financial risks and mistakes, also became extremely taxing. During the same year, Garcia married Adams, making her his second wife.
Garcia's use of heroin increased heavily over the next seven years, eventually culminating in the rest of the Grateful Dead holding an intervention in 1984.[10] Given the choice between the band or the drugs, Garcia readily agreed to check into a rehabilitation center in Oakland, California. In 1985, nearing the completion of his program in Oakland, Garcia was arrested for drug possession in Golden Gate Park; Garcia subsequently attended a drug diversion program.
Precipitated by an unhealthy weight, bad eating habits, and drug use, Garcia collapsed into a diabetic coma in 1986, waking up five days later.[3][4] Garcia later spoke about this period of unconsciousness as surreal: "Well, I had some very weird experiences. My main experience was one of furious activity and tremendous struggle in a sort of futuristic, space-ship vehicle with insectoid presences. After I came out of my coma, I had this image of myself as these little hunks of protoplasm that were stuck together kind of like stamps with perforations between them that you could snap off."[9] Garcia's coma had a profound effect on him: it forced him to have to relearn how to play the guitar, as well as other, more basic skills. Within a handful of months, Garcia quickly recovered, playing with the Grateful Dead again in 1987.[10] Garcia frequently saw a woman named Manasha Matheson during this period, despite being married to Adams. Garcia produced his fourth and final child with Matheson, a girl named Keelin Garcia, who was born December 20, 1987.[18]
During the creation of Built to Last in 1989, Garcia relapsed. In 1991, Garcia was confronted by the Grateful Dead with another intervention. After a disastrous meeting, Garcia invited Phil Lesh over to his home in San Rafael, California, where he explained that after the meeting, he starting attending a methadone clinic, citing that he simply wanted to clean up in his own way.[10]
After returning from the Grateful Dead's 1992 summer tour, Garcia became extremely sick, evidently a throwback to his diabetic coma in 1986.[10] Refusing to go to the hospital, he instead enlisted the aid of an acupuncturist and a licensed doctor to treat him personally at home. Garcia recovered over the next following days, despite the Grateful Dead having to cancel their fall tour to allow him time to recuperate. Following his episode, Garcia began losing weight to better himself.
In the beginning of the Grateful Dead's 1993 tour, Garcia and his girlfriend Barbara Meier separated after meeting during December of 1992. In 1994, Garcia encountered Deborah Koons, whom had been involved with him around 1975; she married Garcia on February 14, 1994, in Sausalito, California, the wedding of which was attended by family and friends.[10] Garcia previously divorced Adams in January of 1994.
During the beginning of 1995, Garcia's condition, both physically and mentally, began to decline. His playing ability suffered to the point where he would turn down the volume of his guitar, and he often had to be reminded of what song he was performing.[10]
In light of his drug relapse in 1989 and current condition, Garcia checked himself into the Betty Ford Center during July of 1995. His stay was limited, however, lasting only two weeks. Garcia, motivated by the experience, then checked into the Serenity Knolls treatment center in Forest Knolls, California.[4][20]
Death
One month later on August 9, 1995, Garcia's body was discovered on the floor of his room at the rehabilitation clinic at 4:23 a.m.[4][20] The cause of death was a heart attack exacerbated by sleep apnea.[4] Garcia had long struggled with tobacco, drug addiction,[4] weight problems, and sleep apnea,[4] all of which contributed to his physical decline. Phil Lesh, upon hearing of Garcia's death, remarked in his autobiography: "I was struck numb; I had lost my oldest surviving friend, my brother."[10] Senator Patrick Leahy, a longtime Deadhead, stated that he felt as though he had been "kicked in the stomach."[20]
On the morning of August 10, Garcia was rested at a funeral home in San Rafael, California. On August 12, at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Belvedere, Garcia's funeral was held.[10][20] It was attended by his family, the remaining Grateful Dead and their friends, including former basketball player Bill Walton and musician Bob Dylan, and his widow Deborah Koons,[20] who, unceremoniously, disallowed two of Garcia's other widows admittance.[10]
On August 13, a municipally-sanctioned public memorial took place in the Polo Fields of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and was attended by about twenty-five thousand people.[10] The crowds produced hundreds of flowers, gifts, images, and even a bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace"[20] in remembrance.
On April 4, 1996, Bob Weir and Deborah Koons spread half of Garcia's cremated ashes in the Ganges River in India,[10] a sacred site to the Hindu. Then, according to Garcia's last wishes, the other half of his ashes were poured into the San Francisco Bay. Deborah Koons disallowed one of Garcia's widows, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, from attending once more.
Guitars
Garcia played many guitars during his career, which ranged from Fender Stratocasters and Gibson SGs to custom-made. During his thirty-odd years of being a musician, Garcia used about twenty-five different guitars.[21]
In 1965, when Garcia was playing with the Warlocks, he used a Guild Starfire,[21] which he also used on the debut album of the Grateful Dead. Beginning in late 1967 and ending in 1968, Garcia played various colored Gibson Les Pauls. In 1969, he picked up the Gibson SG and used it for most of that year and 1970, except for a small period in between where he used a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster.
In 1972, Garcia used a Fender Stratocaster nicknamed Alligator for its eponymous sticker on the pickguard.[21] The guitar was given to him by Graham Nash. He continued using Alligator until May of 1973, when he received his first custom-made guitar from luthier Doug Irwin.[21] The guitar was nicknamed Wolf for its memorable sticker.[22]
Wolf was built for Garcia at the cost of $1,500.[22] The guitar was made with an ebony fingerboard and featured numerous embellishments like alternating grain designs in the headstock, ivory inlays, and fret marker dots made of sterling silver. The body was composed of western maple wood which had a core of purpleheart. The electronics inside the guitar were similar to a Fender Stratocaster. It included a system of two plates for configuring pickups: one was made for strictly single coils, while the other accommodated humbuckers. Quickly after receiving the instrument, Garcia requested another custom guitar from Irwin with the advice "don't hold back."[22]
During the Grateful Dead's European Tour, Wolf was dropped on several occasions, one of which caused a minor crack in the headstock. Garcia returned it to Irwin to fix; during its two-year absence Garcia played predominantly Travis Bean guitars. On September 28, 1977, Irwin delivered the renovated Wolf back to Garcia.[22] The wolf sticker which gave the guitar its name had now been inlaid into the instrument; it also featured a few new electronics as well as a new coat of finish.
Nearly seven years since he first requested it,[21] Garcia received his second custom guitar from Irwin in 1979. It was named Tiger from the inlay on the preamp cover.[23] The body of Tiger was of rich quality: the top layer was cocobolo, with the preceding layers being maple stripe, vermillion, and flame maple, in that order.[23] The neck was made of western maple with an ebony fingerboard. The pickups consisted of a single coil DiMarzio SDS-1 and two humbucker DiMarzio Super IIs which were easily removable due to Garcia's preference for replacing his pickups every year or two.[23] The electronics were composed of an effects bypass loop, which allowed Garcia to control the sound of his effects through the tone controls, and an amplifier which rested behind a plate in the back of the guitar. In terms of weight, everything included made Tiger tip the scales at an impressive 13½ pounds. However, this didn't deter Garcia from using it as his principal guitar for the next eleven years.
In 1990, Irwin completed Rosebud, Garcia's third custom guitar.[24] It was similar to his previous guitar Tiger in many respects, but featured different inlays and electronics, tone and volume controls, and weight. Rosebud, unlike Tiger, was configured with three humbuckers; the neck and bridge pickups shared a tone control, while the middle had its own. Inside of the guitar, a Roland GK-2 synthesizer was used in junction with GR-50 rack mount, producing the MIDI effects heard during live performances of this period.[24] Sections of the guitar were hollowed out in order to bring the weight down to 11½ pounds. The inlay, a dancing skeleton holding a rose, covers a plate just below the bridge. The final cost of the instrument was a striking $11,000.[24]
In 1993, carpenter-turned-luthier Stephen Cripe tried his hand at making an instrument for Garcia.[21] After researching Tiger through pictures and films, Cripe set out on what would soon become known as Lightning Bolt, again named for its inlay.[25] The guitar used Brazilian rosewood for the fingerboard and East Indian rosewood for the body, which, with admitted irony from Cripe, was taken from a 19th century bed used by opium smokers.[25] Built purely from guesswork, Lightning Bolt was a hit with Garcia, who began using the guitar exclusively. Soon after, Garcia requested that Cripe to build a backup of the guitar. Cripe, who hadn't measured or photographed the original, was told simply to "wing it."[25]
Cripe later delivered the backup, which was known by the name Top Hat. Garcia bought it from him for the price of $6,500, making it the first guitar that Cripe had ever sold.[25] However, infatuated with Lightning Bolt, Garcia rarely used the backup.
After Garcia's death, the ownership of his Wolf and Tiger was in question. According his Garcia's will,[18] his guitars were to go to Doug Irwin, who had constructed them.[26][27] The remaining Grateful Dead members disagreed?-they considered his guitars to be property of the band, leading to a lawsuit between the two parties.[26][27] In 2001, Irwin won the case. However, due to being a victim of a hit-and-run accident in 1998,[27] Irwin was left nearly penniless. This forced him to set Garcia's guitars up for auction in hopes of being able to start another guitar workshop.[26]
On May 8, 2002, Wolf and Tiger, among other memorabilia, were placed for auction at Studio 54 in New York City.[26] Tiger was purchased for the astonishing price of $957,500, while Wolf was bought for $789,500. Together, the instruments were bought for 1.74 million dollars, setting a new world record.[27]
Legacy
In 1987, ice cream manufacturers Ben & Jerry's came out with Cherry Garcia, which is named after the guitarist and consists of "cherry ice cream with cherries and fudge flakes." It made history as the first ice cream flavor named after a musician, and it quickly became the most popular Ben & Jerry's flavor. For a month after Garcia's death, the ice cream was made with black cherries as a way of mourning.
Garcia was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead in 1994.
In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Jerry Garcia 13th in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.[5]
On July 21, 2005, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission passed a resolution to name the amphitheater in McLaren Park "The Jerry Garcia Amphitheater."[28] The amphitheater is located in the Excelsior District, where Garcia grew up. The first show to happen at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater was Jerry Day 2005 on August 7, 2005. Tiff Garcia was the first person to welcome everybody to the "Jerry Garcia Amphitheater." Jerry Day is an annual celebration of Jerry in his childhood neighborhood. The dedication ceremony (Jerry Day 2) on October 29, 2005 was officiated by mayor Gavin Newsom.
On September 24, 2005, the Comes a Time: A Celebration of the Music & Spirit of Jerry Garcia tribute concert was held at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California.[29] The concert featured Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Bruce Hornsby, Trey Anastasio, Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, Michael Kang, Jay Lane, Jeff Chimenti, Mark Karan, Robin Sylvester, Kenny Brooks, Gloria Jones, and Jackie LaBranch. Two of Garcia's longtime bandmates and friends, Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter did not attend. Phil Lesh stated that "my son went away to college and we had all kinds of family things going that week."[citation needed]
About a thousand people have gathered annually since 2002 to celebrate Jerry Garcia's life on the first Sunday of August with an event known as Jerry Day.[30]
Well, my goodness, listeners. Don't we love to see all the animals at one time?
Love our Raggedy pup's cartoon and photo's. Thanks, PA, and M.D.'s Bob Dylan song is fabulous. Thanks, Mr. Island Man. Wow! The hawk has left us with a candy bar double entendre. Hey, BioBob. What happened to "butterfingers." ?
Interesting background on Herman Melville, Boston. I read it with a sense of discovery and awe, but I still like the scrimshaw. I do believe, folks, that an Episcopal priest introduced me to The Grateful Dead. Such a pity about Jerry Garcia.
Well, it is indeed an Ahab day so let's continue with a funny one by a funny man of song who does NOT intend to be serious at all.
Ray Stevens
(intro: Arabian flute)
Let me tell you about Ahab the Arab
The sheik of the burning sand
He had emeralds and rubies just drippin' off 'a him
And a ring on every finger of his hand
He wore a big ol' turban wrapped around his head
And a scimitar by his side
And, every evenin', about midnight
He'd jump on his camel named Clyde, and ride
[Spoken] Silently through the night to the sultan's tent where he
would secretly meet up with Fatima of the Seven Veils,
swingingest grade "A" number one US choice dancer in
the sultan's whole harem, 'cause, heh, him and her had
a thing goin', you know, and they'd been carryin' on
for some time now behind the sultan's back and you
could hear him talk to his camel as he rode out across the
dunes, his voice would cut through the still night desert
air and he'd say (imitate Arabic speech and finish with "Sold! American)
which is Arabic for, "Stop, Clyde!" and Clyde'd say, (imitate camel
sound), which is camel for, "What the heck did he say anyway?"
Well, he brought that camel to a screechin' halt (verbal screeching sound)
In the rear of Fatima's tent
Jumped off Clyde, snuck around the corner
And into the tent he went.
There he saw Fatima layin' on a zebra skin rug
With
[Spoken in falsetto and possibly with female backups] "Rings on her fingers and
bells on her toes and a bone in her nose ho, ho."
[Spoken] There she was, friends, lyin' there in all her radiant
beauty, eating on a raisin, grape, apricot, pomegranate,
bowl of chittlin's, two bananas, three Hershey bars,
sipping on a RC co-cola listenin' to her transistor,
watchin' the Grand Ole Opry on the tube, readin' a Mad
magazine while she sung, "Does your chewing gum lose
it's flavor?" Yeah, Ahab walked up to her and he say,
(imitate Arabic speech), which is Arabic for "Let's twist
again like we did last summer, baby.!!" Ha, ha, ha!!
You know what I mean! Whew! She looked up at him from off the rug,
give him one of the sly looks,
She said (suggestive giggles, then outright laughter) "Crazy, crazy, crazy baby!"
('round and around and around and around, and around and around and around)
Yeah, and that's the story 'bout Ahab the Arab
The sheik of the burnin' sand
Ahab the Arab, the swingin' sheik of the burnin' sand
.
!