Furthur Festival Rock ‘N’ Roll Bands Bring Their Dead Connections Together For One Great Show

It’s perfectly clear in retrospect that there could have been no Grateful Dead without Jerry Garcia.

When Garcia died, the Dead did, too.

But Garcia’s death last year was followed by several days of intense speculation about the future of the band: Was it necessary to replace Garcia? Could he be replaced? If so, with whom?

Among the inside-trackers was David Hidalgo, the multitalented frontman for Los Lobos, the superb but under-appreciated Mexican American band.

On one level it made sense: Hidalgo is a consummate musician, every bit the guitar player Garcia was and a far better singer. Like Garcia, he has a wide-ranging love of music and an ear tuned to the subtleties of acoustic music, an essential quality in any great rock band and one of special value to a group like the Dead.

There was only one problem, said Conrad Lozano, bass player for Los Lobos. “It wouldn’t ever happen,” Lozano said last week, laughing. “He’s a Lobo, man!”

Indeed, the thought of Hidalgo breaking up Los Lobos for some other gig is as preposterous as Garcia leaving the Dead for, say, the Stones.

Sure, the money’s good, but these guys play from the heart, not for the pocketbook.

There’s a nice symmetry, then, to the Furthur Festival, the five-band rock ‘n’ roll road show that comes to the Gorge Friday evening. Essentially, it’s a family affair, with all the groups but one - Los Lobos - having had ties to the Dead.

The show is headlined by Ratdog who, with Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir at the helm, is a direct descendant of the Dead. Also on the bill is Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box, a percussion outfit led by Dead drummer Hart.

Bruce Hornsby, the pianist/vocalist who staked out a career of his own, once served time as the Dead’s pianist, and Hot Tuna, while it shares no lineage with the Dead, sprang forth from the demise of the Jefferson Airplane, the other eminent San Francisco rock band of the ‘60s.

That leaves Los Lobos, a Southern California rock band with nothing but a shared ethic to link it to the Dead.

Of course, Deadheads will happily point out that Los Lobos has played the Dead’s “Bertha” in concert for years.

Ratdog was a going concern long before Garcia passed away. It was Weir’s side project, a duo with bass player Rob Wasserman. In fact, Wasserman and Weir were on the road when word came of Garcia’s death.

“I left it up to Bobby whether he wanted to continue,” Wasserman said last week, “and he did. Jerry would have wanted us to: His spirit was about music.”

When the Dead called it quits, Weir and Wasserman built a band that includes Chuck Berry’s old piano player, Johnny Johnson.

The blues-oriented Ratdog revives a handful of Dead pieces and covers a wide range of blues and rock standards.

“The worst thing anyone can do is compare it to the Dead,” Wasserman said. “There’s no way you can compare anything to the Dead; it’s the only totally unique band to come out of the ‘60s.”

Some reviewers say the show’s best music is made by Los Lobos and Hornsby’s band.

Always difficult to pin down, Los Lobos has evolved in recent years into a pan-cultural melting pot that swings, rocks and choogles in equal degrees. Hornsby specializes in blues-based rock with soul, jazz and gospel underpinnings. Live, he rocks way harder than on record.

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MEMO: The Furthur Festival, with Ratdog, Los Lobos, Bruce Hornsby, Hot Tuna and Mystery Box, will perform at The Gorge Amphitheatre Friday beginning at 5 p.m. Tickets are $41.20 and $30.75, available through Ticketmaster outlets (Pay Less Drug Stores at University City, Northgate, downtown and South Regal) or call (509) 735-0500.