In recognition of his lifelong musical legacy and support of the Grateful Dead community, Steve Kimock will receive a custom recreation of Jerry Garcia‘s famed “Wolf” guitar. The Grateful Guitars Foundation will award the instrument to Kimock, who Garcia famously once called one of his favorite guitarists, during his band Zero‘s sold-out 40th-anniversary run at Petaluma, CA’s Mystic Theatre on November 8th and 9th.
In the years since Garcia died in 1995, Kimock has played alongside surviving Grateful Dead members in post-Jerry projects The Other Ones, Phil Lesh & Friends, and RatDog. To celebrate his unlimited devotion to the Golden Road, Kimock will receive a custom-built, Doug Irwin-certified Wolf 2.0 #4 guitar crafted by Bill Asher and inspired by Garcia’s iconic instrument he played onstage with the Dead from 1973 to 1979.
“It’s an extraordinary instrument and a really touching vote of confidence that I’d be worthy of such a gift,” Kimock said. “I’m humbled and truly grateful. Beyond that, it’s an inspiration to hold and play, and it’s sure to advance my playing. It’s a very special gift at this point in my life.”
For decades, Kimock has intertwined his history with the Grateful Dead. He was a member of Keith and Donna Godchaux‘s Heart of Gold Band—a group that performed only one show before former Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux tragically died in a car accident—and the lineup for Kimock’s Bay Area institution Zero has seen a revolving door of participants connected with the Dead including keyboardist Vince Welnick, Garcia’s longtime collaborators John Kahn and Melvin Seals, and, perhaps most notably, lyricist Robert Hunter, who penned lyrics for the band’s 1994 album Chance in a Million.
“I think Hunter said something like, ‘You guys ever think of having some songs with words?’” Kimock said of collaborating with Hunter in a 2022 interview with Live For Live Music. “You know, cause we just, we didn’t. I mean, at some point somebody must have stepped up to a microphone and said something, but for the most part, we just played, you know, like some kind of prototype jam band kind of setup. And Greg [Anton, drummer] says, ‘Yeah, how about some words?’ and that was it.”
In addition to crafting unique instruments for legendary musicians, the Golden Guitars Foundation supports music education for the next generation of players. Founded in 2019 by Andy Logan, the GGF recently established a partnership to directly support the Blue Bear School of Music’s outreach programs in San Francisco. These programs will provide free music instruction to San Francisco youth from low-income housing units and in underserved neighborhoods throughout the city school district.
This announcement follows a flurry of activity for the GGF, which earlier this year hosted its second annual benefit concert at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Staged on August 13th–the 49th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s famed concert at the same venue later released as One from the Vault—the show featured performances by Melvin Seals, John Kadlecik (Dark Star Orchestra), Barry Sless (Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros), David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), and more. Prior to that, the foundation released the compilation Grateful: The Music Plays the Band composed of Dead classics performed by celebrated members of the greater Dead community like Oteil Burbridge, Dark Star Orchestra, BERTHA, David Nelson Band, and more. Learn more about the Grateful Guitars Foundation here.
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