On this day · 40 years ago · 1986
40 Years Ago Today: Jerry Garcia's Diabetic Coma, and the Long Road Back to the Stage
On July 10, 1986, Jerry Garcia slipped into a diabetic coma serious enough that no one was certain he'd play guitar again. Five months later, the Grateful Dead walked back on stage and opened with a song about survival.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia lapsed into a near-fatal diabetic coma on July 10, 1986. He survived, but had to relearn basic motor skills, including how to play guitar, with help from longtime friend and keyboardist Merl Saunders. Garcia eased back with low-key Jerry Garcia Band shows that fall, and the Grateful Dead returned to the stage on December 15, 1986, opening with Touch of Grey, whose chorus, I will survive, took on new meaning that night.
A crisis that came on fast
On July 10, 1986, Jerry Garcia lapsed into a diabetic coma that nearly killed him. Per JamBase's account of the crisis and recovery, the Grateful Dead's upcoming shows were canceled outright as Garcia began what turned into weeks and months of recovery, with old friend and keyboardist Merl Saunders at his side through much of it. Per ClassicBands.com's day-by-day account of rock history, Garcia was released from the hospital roughly three weeks later, on his 44th birthday.
Relearning the guitar, one chord at a time
Coming out of the coma left Garcia's motor skills scrambled, and picking a guitar back up wasn't automatic. Scribe Blair Jackson's account for Dead.net, republished by JamBase, quotes Saunders describing the process in granular detail: walking short distances together before Garcia could manage a guitar at all, then relearning chords from scratch. "It came back very slowly," Saunders said. "He had to learn chords all over again and he had a lot of trouble remembering how to do even the simplest stuff... it sometimes took an hour or two for him to get even a simple chord down." The first song Garcia worked to relearn, per Saunders, was "My Funny Valentine."
Back onstage, December 15, 1986
Garcia eased back into performing with a run of lower-key Jerry Garcia Band shows at The Stone in San Francisco that fall. The full Grateful Dead didn't return to the stage until December 15, 1986, at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, the first of a three-night stand. Per JamBase, the show was an emotional one from the moment the band walked out, and audience recordings capture the crowd roaring both at Garcia's return and through the show's opening song.
Touch of Grey becomes the Dead's biggest hit
That opening song was "Touch of Grey," and per JamBase's account, the crowd roared through its chorus, "I will survive," a line that took on obvious extra weight given what the room had just watched Garcia come back from. The song was released as a single the following year and, per JamBase, became the band's greatest commercial success, a strange, fitting footnote to a night that was never really about chart positions in the first place.
The strings behind the comeback
Garcia's own CYS profile documents GHS Boomers nickel-wound strings as his primary electric set across his career on his Doug Irwin custom-built guitars, Wolf, Tiger, and Rosebud among them.
Boomers GBL Nickel-Plated Steel (.010–.046)
Why this one: Garcia's documented primary string brand across his Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band career, per his own CYS rig breakdown.
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