It was a deja vu for Graham Nash last week when he was reunited with the 1955 Fender Stratocaster he gave to Jerry Garcia as a thank-you gift for him for playing pedal steel guitar on his 1969 recording of the 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song, "Teach Your Children."
The guitar was brought to the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley, California -- by way of the Grateful Guitars Foundation -- where Nash was performing, along with a Martin acoustic that Garcia used to record The Grateful Dead's American Beauty album.
Nash's guitarist Shane Fontayne played the Fender while Nash played the Martin during the encore of "Teach Your Children."
The Fender was known as the "Alligator" after Garcia put a sticker of an alligator on the pickguard. It was the main guitar during the Dead’s tour of Europe in 1972.
In an interview Garcia did with the British music newspaper Record Mirror, he said he recorded a series of pieces on the steel guitar and spliced them together to create the backing and solo.
He also made a deal that in return for playing on the song, CSNY would help members of the Grateful Dead improve their vocal harmony for their upcoming albums, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.
The "Alligator" sold at auction in 2019 for $525,000.
Nash now takes his tour to Europe starting on August 26th in Denmark before coming back to the U.S. for dates in the fall starting on October 27th in Atlanta.
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