Shubb Capos' first customer.
That's right, none other than good ol' Captain Trips himself.

Our first product was our fifth string capo, and the first one I installed (besides my own) was on Jerry's Weymann banjo. And later, in addition to our 5th string and regular banjo capo, Jerry also used our guitar capo. As far as I know he never used a capo on electric, but of course he had an entire separate career playing acoustic. And his capo of choice was a Shubb.

I knew Jerry Garcia since the early 60s. We were roommates, along with a few others, in two different houses in Palo Alto, for about a year and a half. This was during the time when his jug band became a rock band. I drew the art for their drumhead. I remember well the night he came home from a practice, sat down on the couch, and told me he'd renamed the band. "To what?" I asked. I thought Warlocks was pretty good. He grinned on the verge of a laugh, as he did when he was about to lay something fun on you, and said "the Grateful Dead." I may have been the first outside the band to learn its new name.

Our paths led in different directions, and I never got back in touch with him during the last several years of his life. No particular reason; it just didn't happen. I wish I had. There are plenty of people around who knew him much better than I did, but I knew him pretty well in those early years. Was he as charismatic as people say? Yes indeed.

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