ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 shows the characters of Uncle John and Stella Blue as poles of Garcia’s situation with the Grateful Dead, enlightened pied piper and lonely working musician, both struggling to redeem darkness with light through songs shaped by fateful circumstance. “Uncle John’s Band,” “New Speedway Boogie,” and “Black Peter” are examined in their historical context around the disastrous Altamont concert in December 1969 and their subsequent relevance after Garcia’s brushes with death in the 1980s and the chaotic concert scenes of the 1990s. Garcia’s sympathetic musical settings and delivery of monologues by characters tragically deluding themselves in “Loser” and “Wharf Rat” are analyzed, along with Garcia’s treatment of Robert Hunter’s tragic William Faulkner-inspired song “It Must Have Been the Roses” and the suicide-dialogue of “China Doll.” “Stella Blue,” his most personally cathartic song, is shown to be emblematic of the Apollinian image in tension with Dionysian darkness.
