JERRY GARCIA BAND
Arista

Four years before his death, Garcia sounds sharp and focused on this double CD of far-ranging cover songs. Jerry jams out a lot; his watery tone is in full effect, but he keeps the solos reined in. And the songs are fully rendered rather than half-heartedly blurted out. The program ranges from Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" and "Tangled Up in Blue" to The Temptations' "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and Peter Tosh's "Stop That Train." On this set, Garcia, backed by a five-piece band, seems intent on distancing himself from Grateful Dead wanking.

This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...