Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia's love letters going up for auction

1993. Jerry Garcia, the leader and inspiration of the San Francisco-based rock band, Grateful Dead, performing at Rich Stadium, Buffalo, N.Y. (Reuters)

Two rare love letters from Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia to a female companion he met in the ’80s are going up for sale.

Garcia wrote the letters, which include a phone number and a sketch of the band performing at an amphitheater, to a former Vogue model he met at an Upper West Side party in 1980 during a run of shows at Radio City Music Hall.

The musician and the model had a two-year friendship, but were never intimate.
“He was a person who you felt you knew. Very easy to be with,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the newspaper.

After several meetings during tour gigs over the two years, a bashful Garcia wrote her a nervous letter: “I feel like it’s sort of our first ‘official’ communication somehow. I’ve been hoping we could get together ever since we first met at Al’s that winter nite so long ago (sigh) — I hope it doesn’t seem like I’ve been avoiding you, although I admit I’ve kind of been waiting for the opportunity (that is, the ‘right’ opportunity) for us to meet in some kind of neutral context that would be comfortable and relaxed and free of any pressure.”

He also wrote a follow-up letter on stationery from the Le Parker Meridien hotel after waiting so long to send the first letter: “It’s sort of mail fright, like stage fright, and partly editorial misgivings.”

The model is selling the notes to pay medical bills.

They are being listed through New Hampshire-based RR Auctions, which expects them to sell for between $10,000 and $15,000.

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