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UPDATE December 20, 2008: Guitar sold.

Original Post: No, it is not one of the famous Garcia Irwin guitars, unfortunately. Jerry Garcia gave the guitar on the left to Perry Lederman, one of my best friends and deepest influences. Perry died in 1995 of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. In the period Perry was sick and, "living on borrowed time," as he put it, he got back in touch with some of the musician friends of his past.

Perry claimed he was an unattributed guitar player on two Dylan albums; I never knew Perry to utter a false word, and he was a fine, fine guitar player. (He used to play Berkeley with Al Young, who is now California's Poet Laureate.) Perry told me he taught Bob Dylan to hitchhike, and they hitched from Greenwich Village to Boston and back in the 60s. After Dylan came through Massachusetts in 1994, Perry showed me the back stage picture he took of Bob and Perry's daughter.

The for-sale details of the Perry-Jerry guitar are here, along with a recounting of Perry and Jerry's last meeting, backstage at Boston Garden on September 27, 1994. Perry had arranged backstage passes for his wife and daughter and, generously, for me and my wife. For a brief moment, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Perry and Jerry as Perry introduced me and Jerry delayed the second set to catch up with his old friend. It was my last Grateful Dead concert.

If you can't afford the $100,000 guitar, you might want to hear Perry's only solo album. It is deep. Perry's friends Elijah Wald and Tom Renshaw produced it. My photo of Perry is on the inside front cover. I have a few left. Write me for details.

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