On a forum of which I am a part, poster Elliot makes a very interesting observation about our hero in 1995.
I suspect he was putting in as much effort as he was capable of. He
was definitely serious about that learning [Unbroken Chain]. Before the first
night of the May ’95 Seattle shows we could hear the sound check while
waiting in line. After running through a bunch of songs (including Tough
Mama), everyone left the stage except Jerry. As we were entering the
venue, Jerry was still on stage. He stayed there for about 15-20
minutes, running through every possible variation on his leads for UBC.
That was the only time I ever entered a venue to find Jerry on stage
practicing his leads.
This was certainly contrary to the image we have of him during this time period.
The man was dying, we now know, but he was also trying. It must have been very painful to witness this decline – I am glad I decided to do other things during the last five years of his life.
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