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Jerry Garcia Cause of Death: A Musician Died of A Heart Attack at 53

jerry garcia cause of death

Jerry Garcia, the founding member of the venerable San Francisco rock band the Grateful Dead and a counterculture icon to two generations of music lovers, passed away early yesterday, reportedly from a heart attack, at a drug rehab facility in Marin County. He was 53.

Jerry Garcia Salary

$20 Million

How Much Money Did Jerry Garcia Make?

At the time of his passing on August 9, 1995, Jerry Garcia was a well-known American musician with a $15 million fortune. In today’s money, that is equivalent to about $25 million. To be fair, a large portion of his fortune was not liquid at the time of his passing.

His estate reportedly did not have enough money to keep giving his second wife $250,000 in alimony every year. When you factor in intellectual property, his art collection, guitar collection, future income stream, and other non-liquid assets, litigation against his estate estimated Jerry Garcia’s true overall net worth to be $50 million within a few months of his passing. In today’s money, that is almost equivalent to $85 million. The conclusion of this article contains much more information about his estate and the legal dispute over his assets.

Biography of Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia was born in San Francisco, California, on August 1, 1942, and died in Forest Knolls, California, on August 9, 1995. He was of British and Spanish heritage. He was a guitarist, vocalist, and composer best known as a co-founder of the rock group The Grateful Dead. From 1960 to 1995, he worked in the entertainment industry.

young life

On August 1, 1942, in San Francisco, California, he was given the name Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia. Garcia, a Spanish immigrant whose father was also a retired musician, started off studying the piano when he was young. In his teen years, he began playing the guitar.

Garcia’s right middle finger had two-thirds of it accidently severed when he was four years old by his brother while they were splitting wood. Less than a year later, while on vacation with the family in Northern California near Arcata, his father was killed while fly fishing.

At the age of 17, he dropped out of high school and served in the American Army for nine months before being dishonorably discharged. Following his discharge from the Army, Jerry started performing folk and blues guitar in bars all over the San Francisco Bay Area while still working as a salesman and a music instructor.

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Work in Music

Garcia was in a catastrophic car accident with a group of pals in 1961, following his discharge. He was physically thrown out of his shoes and landed in a nearby field after being violently thrown through the car’s window. Later, he was unable to remember the ejection. The crash was a wake-up call for Garcia, who subsequently remembered: “The driver was fatally hurt.”

“My life started then. Prior to that, I was constantly living below my means. While doing nothing, I was sitting still. That served as my life’s slingshot moving forward. Like a second opportunity, it was. I then became grave.” At that point, he decided to give up his love of painting and drawing since he knew he intended to start playing the guitar seriously.

Private Life

Sara Ruppenthal, Garcia’s first wife, and he were blessed with a daughter named Heather in 1964. In 1967, they got divorced. Garcia eventually married Carolyn Adams and divorced her in 1994, but not before they had two more kids together. In the spring of 1993, Garcia restarted his relationship with an ex, Deborah Koons. Until Koons’s death in 1995, Garcia and Koons were wed in February 1994.

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What Led to Jerry Garcia’s Demise?

At a Marin County drug rehab facility, the guitarist suffered a heart attack and died on August 9, 1995. At the time of his passing, Garcia was 53 years old.

He started the Grateful Dead band in the 1960s, at the height of the counterculture. The psychedelic age had only begun at this point, and the band’s music broke down many “sociologic and generational barriers,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

This week marks 25 years since Jerry Garcia’s death from a heart attack at the age of 53, drastically altering the Grateful Dead’s musical landscape. Many people were shocked, from band members to Deadheads, but none more so than Garcia’s bandmates. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Dead & Company drummer Mickey Hart, who joined the band in 1967, discussed his memories of that day and what transpired after.

I constantly recall where I was when I heard. Such things stick with you forever. Jerry had health issues, to begin with and was getting tired. On borrowed time, he was. Everyone was prepared for it, but you can never truly be prepared for anything.

I visited my yoga teacher, who resided in a small cabin across the hill from my home [in Sonoma County, California], in the morning. I once took a redwood grove-lined path to get there. We always attempted to make it a bit more zen even though he never played music. However, he began playing music as I got closer to his house. It was also Jerry Garcia Band music. I was immediately taken off by that. I immediately sensed something was off. I was aware that there was a serious problem.

Jerry Garcia passed dead in a Marin County drug rehab facility on August 9, 1995, which was this past Sunday. Although the legendary Grateful Dead guitarist, vocalist, and composer was only 53 years old, he outlived other rock icons like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison by more than two decades.

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