Easily one of the more famous personalities of his time, Studs Terkel found himself in a pickle when he was called upon to interview Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead guitarist was about to appear on The Studs Terkel Show, so Terkel frantically called his pal Abe Peck, a former Rolling Stone editor, to add some color to the conversation.
What resulted was certainly one of the more engaging half hours in radio history, as Terkel, Peck, and Garcia discussed the nature of music and the Grateful Dead’s influences throughout the interview. Garcia astutely pegs Elvis Costello as someone who was going to survive past the initial surge of “New Wave” artists, and even comments on the rising popularity of Bruce Springsteen in the chat.
You can listen to the full conversation below, via Rolling Stone:
The old interview was unearthed as part of a fundraising campaign to preserve and transcribe one thousand of Terkel’s most noteworthy interviews. The Kickstarter page mentions Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, Janis Joplin, Michael Moore, Frank Zappa, Pete Seeger, Jacques Cousteau and more. What a legacy!