Season 3, Episode 8: Jerry Stories — Steve Silberman

Acclaimed author and longtime Deadhead Steve Silberman shares his memory of meeting the Grateful Dead guitarist.

By Team JamBase Aug 3, 2023 • 1:42 pm PDT

Season Three of The JamBase Podcast continues with another installment of the “Jerry Stories” series about Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Acclaimed author and longtime Deadhead Steve Silberman shares his story of the lone encounter he had with Jerry.

Silberman’s “Jerry Stories” entry dovetails perfectly with the last podcast episode focusing on the 50th anniversary of Summer Jam at Watkins Glen as he was one of the 600,000 people in attendance in Upstate New York in 1973. Not only was Silberman there at the event featuring The Allman Brothers Band, The Band and the Grateful Dead, but it was also his first time seeing the Dead, who he would go on to see many more times over the next 22 years.

Silberman is a noted author and journalist who co-wrote the book Skeleton Key – A Dictionary for Deadheads, which is an encyclopedia of information related to the Grateful Dead. Silberman is also a best-selling author of the book NeuroTribes about autism and neurodiversity.

A press screening of So Far, a film co-directed by Garcia and Len Dell’Amico that blended artistic visual components with footage of the Grateful Dead in concert, was the setting of Silberman’s interaction with Garcia. The two spoke about a variety of topics, shared a joint and at the end of their meeting a memorable embrace that was close enough for Silberman to be left with a memory of the smell of Jerry’s beard.

Stream this episode and other past episodes of The JamBase Podcast via all major podcast services including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcast.