Photo Melvin Seals and JGB will perform Sept. 16 and 17 in Paia. Courtesy photo Photo “I’m doing the best I can to keep his legacy in music alive,” says keyboardist Melvin Seals, who has played Jerry Garcia’s iconic music for more than 45 years. Courtesy photo

Performing with the Jerry Garcia Band for 18 years, keyboardist Melvin Seals kept the iconic musician’s legacy alive when the Grateful Dead’s guitarist died in 1995 by fronting the JGB band.

Seals and JGB were recently part of the Dead’s 60th anniversary in San Francisco. “I had three sold-out shows,” said Seals, who has been playing Garcia’s music for over 45 years and will perform Sept. 16 and 17 on Maui. “Jerry and the Grateful Dead were legendary. It still lives on, and it gets greater and greater every year.”

Asked about his favorites, he cited “My Sisters and Brothers.” “I like the gospel ones,” he added. “‘Throw Out the Lifeline,’ ‘Mighty High,’ ‘Sugaree,’ ‘Cats Under the Stars,’ just a lot of them.”

The Garcia Band was also known for covers.

“Motown is part of Jerry,” Seals continued. “Second That Emotion,’ ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’ and ‘The Harder They Come’ — I love that stuff.”

Beginning his career playing church organ, Seals backed Chuck Berry and played with Buddy Miles and Elvin Bishop before he was invited to team with Garcia.

“My father played piano for one of the church choirs,” he recalled. “You sit there and you tap your feet and something comes to you. He started talking to me, and I got the message. I first started on the piano. One day I started hearing the church organ, and I remember hearing Billy Preston on ‘American Bandstand’ and ‘Shindig!’ and other organs played in popular bands. I heard this amazing organ solo on the radio and it was like, ‘Whoa. You can do some things on the organ you can’t do on the piano.’ It’s an organ thing — a whole other feel. And of course, I love Billy Preston. He came out of the church doing exactly what I did.”

Vaguely aware of the Grateful Dead, a friend asked Seals if he would like to audition for a local Bay Area band.

“I had no idea what I was walking into, but it was a beautiful thing,” Seals said. “I didn’t even know who Jerry Garcia was. I wasn’t a Deadhead. I’m a boy fresh out of the church. I knew the name Grateful Dead because I lived in San Francisco all my life, but I didn’t know the members or the music. And boy, was I shocked because our first rehearsal with Jerry Garcia was in their warehouse on Front Street.”

This was the era of Jim Jones and the San Francisco-based Peoples Temple and the suicide cult.

“You walk in there and everything was a skeleton,” Seals recalled. “A skeleton with a violin in his hand, with roses in his hair, everything was a skeleton, and I didn’t know what to think. You had that massacre from Jim Jones, and that whole church went over to Guyana. I remember that, and so I walked into a world that looked like a cult to me. But as I learned and went on the road with Jerry, they’re the most beautiful people in the world. Since Jerry, this is all I’ve done. I had a life in a whole other field, and since Jerry, I’ve been doing this music.”

Playing with Garcia, Seals said he was free to play whatever he wanted. “A lot of freedom. I wish they had given me guidelines. It’s so much easier. Sometimes you wonder, ‘Am I doing the right thing? Does this feel right? Is this what they want? I don’t know.'”

Among favorite memories of playing with Garcia, he said, “Jerry would look over at me and he’d do a lick and I would copy that lick. And then he would do another lick and I’d copy that lick. And then he’d say enough of that. He would go off with some licks. ‘Where did that come from? I can’t do that, sorry.’ But it was so fun.”

After Garcia passed, bassist John Kahn initially carried on the Jerry Garcia Band legacy. “When he passed, John Kahn got some gigs. It was a very emotional time because people were still tearful. They wanted to hear the Jerry Garcia Band, but they missed Jerry being there. You could see tears in their eyes. They were just kind of looking prayerful. Even though it was a hard time hearing the material, they wanted to hear Jerry’s songs.”

When Kahn died a few months later, the mantle was passed to Seals.

“I was always just a musician in the band,” he said. “I never proceeded being a bandleader or running the band or having my name out front. Never. And so we kind of took a look at it, and we did do it. There was a lot of pushback. I think most of the pushback was because we were called JGB. So after a year or so, I’m going to get off this. I decided I don’t want people to think that I’m trying to take or get rich off of the name JGB. So I said, ‘Let’s put Melvin Seals in front of it. This is not the JGB that Jerry had.’ That’s how the name came Melvin Seals and JGB. That kind of calmed the waves down some. They’re past the syndrome of, ‘Well, that ain’t right.’ The wives, the girlfriends, I know them all. I’m no threat to Jerry. I’m doing the best I can to keep his legacy in music alive.”

Seals was most recently heard playing on “Live at the Warfield,” a six-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band, released in August.

Proud to be carrying on the legacy, he said, “I’m not the biggest thing. There’s a lot of other things that come out that are huge. But for the portion that I am able to offer, I am quite proud of it. I never saw myself doing this, and I didn’t see that coming. But it’s what I still do today. And probably what I will do until I leave here too.”

Melvin Seals and JGB will perform at 6 p.m. Sept. 16 and 17 in Paia. Tickets are $65 per show at https://jamminonmaui.ticketspice.com/melvin-seals. The location of the show will be provided to ticketholders.