Jerry Garcia's early studio material to launch

Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia (Image credit: Getty)

Jerry Garcia’s studio recordings will be released as a new record Folk Time on November 11.

Dating back to 1962, it sees the late Grateful Dead guitarist, then 20, on lead vocals, banjo and guitar in his folk and bluegrass band, Hart Valley Drifters. It also features his longtime Grateful Dead collaborator Robert Hunter on bass, David Nelson on guitar, Norm Van Maastricht on dobro and Ken Frankel on banjo, fiddle and guitar.

Listen to their cover of folk classic Roving Gambler below.

They recorded the songs during autumn of that year at Stanford University’s KZU radio station in two sessions named Folk Time and Flint Hill Special, which were organised by DJ Ted Claire. They covered tracks by American songwriters including the Stanley Brothers, Dock Boggs and the Mississippi Sheiks along with a variety of traditional folk songs.

Folk Time is available for pre-order in various bundles via Garcia Family Provisions. The artwork and tracklist can be viewed below.

Folk Time artwork

Folk Time artwork

Hart Valley Drifters’ Folk Time Track List

  1. Band Introductions
  2. Roving Gambler
  3. Ground Speed
  4. Pig In A Pen
  5. Standing In The Need Of Prayer
  6. Flint Hill Special
  7. Nine Pound Hammer
  8. Handsome Molly
  9. Clinch Mountain Backstep
  10. Think of What You’ve Done
  11. Cripple Creek
  12. All The Good Times Have Past And Gone
  13. Billy Grimes, The Rover
  14. Paddy On The Turnpike (Boys, My Money’s All Gone)
  15. Run Mountain

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Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.