When a Lymphoma Patient is Friends with Jerry Garcia

Noted guitarist Perry Lederman and Grateful Dead great Jerry Garcia met in the Berkeley, California, folk scene in the early 1960s. When a fire destroyed Lederman's home in 1979, Garcia gave him the Byrdland guitar at right so he would have an instrument to play. They stayed in touch, and around 1992, when Garcia sent Lederman documentation about his previous ownership of the guitar, he also contributed to Lederman's medical bills after he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.



Garcia last saw Lederman when he invited the family backstage for a Dead concert at the Boston Garden on September 27, 1994. Lederman passed away eight months later, in May 1995, and Garcia died three months after that. Both were 53.



The guitar is a typical 1960s Byrdland with Florentine cutaway, except for the obvious - the Bigsby tailpiece that came off a Gretsch. The instrument is being offered by the current owner for $100,000 here. Ouch.