Melvin Seals

Melvin Seals (born 1953 in San Francisco, California) is an American musician, best known as a longtime member of the Jerry Garcia Band.

Early life and career

Melvin Seals began playing piano at age eight and began his musical adventure playing gospel music for his local church. Over the next years he joined a few different bands in San Francisco and became good at playing other keyboards, particularly the electric organ, which he would play for the majority of his musical career. He went on to record and perform with artists such as Charlie Daniels, Elvin Bishop and Chuck Berry.

Projects

In 1980 Melvin Seals joined the Jerry Garcia Band and remained a member until Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. He had the third-longest tenure in the band next to Garcia and bassist John Kahn, who had been members for the band's entire history. After Garcia and Kahn's deaths in 1995 and 1996 respectively, Seals formed JGB which he performs with to this day. JGB is essentially the Jerry Garcia band without Jerry and aims to continue the group's legacy.