Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia had Alembic Guitars' Doug Irwin custom build a new guitar to use in 1979 after his Travis Bean guitar. He named the guitar 'Tiger' for the unique mother-of-pearl inlay of a Japanese-style drawing of a Tiger. More details can be read on this page.

Jerry Garcia can be seen playing a Gibson SG Standard in this photo.

According to Jerry Garcia's official site, one of Jerry's guitars, nicknamed Alligator, was a 1957 Fender Stratocaster. Jerry's site writes "Over the years, the guitar was repeatedly customized and updated. Along with these structural modifications, this Strat was easily identified by its prominent stickers–namely the alligator holding a knife and fork, dancing across the pick guard."

Here he is playing a Starfire.

According to Guitar Aficionado's article about Jerry's guitars, Garcia picked up a Travis Bean while his custom Irwin guitar Wolf was being repaired. The TB500 was one he purchased later.

In 1976, while Wolf was being repaired, he discovered a new company making guitars in the San Francisco Bay Area: Travis Bean, named after its main luthier and founder. Garcia initially mocked the aluminum necks featured on Travis Bean’s guitars, but he was pleasantly surprised after trying one and eventually added two Travis Bean models — a TB1000A with humbuckers and a TB500 with single-coil pickups — to his arsenal. Garcia performed with these guitars often during the late Seventies and even had the TB500 modified with the same buffered effect loop installed in Wolf as well as a unity-gain buffer made by John Cutler.

Jerry Garcia used a Martin D-18 acoustic guitar during the recording sessions for "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty," as detailed in the guitar history on Dozin.

One of his favourite acoustic guitars. Played in this video on "Hard Time"

1967-Guild and then in the summer he switched to a black 1957 Gibsons Les Pauls with P90's with covers removed and Bigsby tremolo

According to Jerry Garcia's official site, one of Jerry's guitars, nicknamed Wolf, was a Doug Irwin Commission. Jerry's site writes "A bloodthirsty cartoon wolf sticker Jerry placed below the tailpiece served to name the guitar and was later inlaid in the body by Irwin."

1968 - Gold-top Les Paul with P-90 single coil p/u's. 3 Twin Reverbs, 2 Fender 4x12 cabinets, JBL D120 speakers

Rosebud was Irwin’s masterpiece, delivered in late 1989 with MIDI controls built in. Everything he learned about guitars went into Rosebud. It was named for the inlaid dancing skeleton on the cover plate that Irwin referred to as “The Saint,” but Jerry nicknamed “Rosebud”—possibly as a nod to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. It is almost the twin of Tiger, but two pounds lighter at 11.5 lbs. due to the hollowed-out flame-maple core. Rosebud immediately became Jerry’s main guitar for all but Jerry Garcia Band shows, where he still played Tiger for another year.

After spending years building custom interiors for Caribbean yachts, Stephen Cripe decided to try his hand at crafting guitars. He studied the "Dead Ahead" video until he wore it out, and replicated Irwin’s Tiger—with some flourishes of his own. In 1993 he sent the completed guitar off to the Grateful Dead offices. Jerry quickly pronounced the piece "the guitar I've always been waiting for" and began playing it exclusively.

Built totally by feel, the instrument honored Jerry’s interest in preserving the rainforests, using recycled rosewood originally harvested in Brazil for the fingerboard. Cripe constructed the neck with an unusual accuracy in the higher end, which allowed Jerry to play where he usually avoided. For the body, Cripe reused East Indian rosewood taken from a bed once used by opium smokers in Asia—acknowledging the irony, but insisting it was about the quality of wood. It came to be called Lightning Bolt due to the inlay that Cripe designed.

A jumbo style acoustic guitar with a cutaway was one of four custom guitars built by the Yairi luthiers for Jerry. All four feature graphite necks made by the Modulus Guitar Company of San Rafael, CA. This particular guitar became the basis for the GY-2 production model made by Yairi. (https://www.rukind.com/viewtopic.php?t=11489)

Jerry Garcia had the guitar in 1972 Custom build by Luthier Dan Earlwine https://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?17446-Question-for-Dan-Jerry-Garcia The guitar is a black walnut strat body with a deep belly cut, maple neck with Indian rosewood numbers inlays for fret markers, Gibson Stop Tailpiece, and Tune-o-Matic bridge. Guitar body came from the same slab of wood as Albert King's "Lucy"

Garcia seen playing a Martin 00-45 in this photo during filming of rehearsal of “Candyman” for American Beauty album. (From Amazon series “Long Strange Journey.”) In another photograph I have, Garcia (without beard) is playing the same beautiful Martin 00-45.

In 1979, Jerry Garcia used an Ibanez Musician guitar during his performances with the band Reconstruction, as documented in the Jerry Garcia guitar history on Dozin.

Jerry Garcia played a Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Deluxe in 1971, as documented by Dozin.

"Jerry sporting a Yamaha guitar, the only times he played it during these two shows at a hash bar in Amsterdam. (Omission) The first thing I noticed was that Jerry and Bob weren't playing their usual guitars. Since most of the band's equipment was on the way to the next scheduled show in Paris, they acquired a sunburst Yamaha SC 1000 for Jerry and a white Telecaster for Bob."

"Jerry Garcia is pictured using a Steinberger GL2 electric guitar in a photo available on Getty Images."

In this photo taken at the Festival Express Your, Jerry Garcia famously played George Harrison's Rosewood Telecaster briefly, which Harrison had gifted to Delaney Bramlett. Garcia used it at the Festival Express tour after Bramlett lent it to him.