Thank You
GRATEFUL GUITARS
What Grateful Guitars is doing, in his view, is partly about guitars but also about something larger: preserving a model of community, creativity, and shared experience that actually works on people in ways that social media cannot replicate.
“ If you have a difficult memory,” he says,“ maybe about something that happened to you as a child, sometimes you’ re at a show and it comes up. You’ re in the middle of this jam and you’ re having such a positive experience that you now hold that memory a little differently. Maybe you even think,“ I know my dad was being harsh, but I know he loved me and he was trying to help me.” You hold it in a more positive light. You have a positive association with a negative memory. And in that way, you are healed, a little bit, bit by
Thank You
Special thanks to Dennis McNally( www. dennismcnally. com) for making this story possible, and to the following photographers for their generous contributions:
• Bob Minkin: www. minkinphotography. com
• Jamie Soja: www. jamiesoja. com
• Rosie McGee: www. rosiemcgee. com
• Jon Luini: www. jon. luini. com, www. chimeinteractive. com
• Ron Delany: https:// www. instagram. com / rondelanyphotography
• Susana Millman: www. mamarazi. com Andy Logan thanks his team, his family, and the GGF board for making the Grateful Guitars Foundation possible. bit, as you do this.” He pauses.“ I think that’ s part of why people go back.”
The foundation’ s music education partners, Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco, Elevate Oakland, Youth on Record, The People’ s Music School, and others, are where Logan places the longer-term bet. Every instrument gift is paired with $ 5,000 directed to one of these organizations. The scene needs new players, and new players need access to instruction before they can access instruments.“ Obviously, you cannot give a Wolf replica to someone who has never learned to play,” Logan says.
The recent losses of Phil Lesh and Bob Weir have given the whole project a sharper urgency.“ When Jerry died in‘ 95, I was 25, and it was like losing a parent,” Logan says.“ And now we’ re in the moment of Phil passing and Bobby passing, and it’ s a scary time.” He saw the scene survive Garcia’ s death by going underground for a few years before resurfacing through the work of Dark Star Orchestra, Phil & Friends, Bob Weir’ s Rat Dog, and the bands that refused to let the catalog go dormant. He believes the infrastructure is actually stronger now than it was in 1995. He also believes it requires active stewardship, people willing to make sure the instruments are in the right hands, the education funding is there, and the ethos of sharing— which is really what all of this comes down to— keeps moving forward.
To learn more about the foundation, visit www. GratefulGuitars. org
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