Written by Jonathon Norcross on . Posted in Education, Featured.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Before Jerry Garcia stumbled upon the term in a dictionary, “Grateful Dead” originally referred to a folktale about a person who received karmic repayment for the good deed of resolving the debt of someone who had died. Perhaps it’s fitting then that the family and friends of Justin Kreider, a Grateful Dead and jam band fan who passed away in 2022, have honored his memory by providing scholarship money to student-musicians.
“[Justin] had this crazy memory,” said his wife Melissa Kreider. “He would memorize setlists. He knew all the lyrics, all the stories of where the lyrics came from and who wrote the songs.”
“We’d be at shows in the 90s and he would just be able to meet people,” said Justin’s friend Mark Scirocco. “He’d get their addresses and be trading [cassette] tapes with people. Next thing you’d know, he’d have hundreds of tapes.”
Justin’s love of music led to Melissa and Mark co-founding the Justin Kreider Music Never Stopped Fund, which began its mission in earnest earlier this month with a cornhole tournament at the Saratoga Winery that raised $1,500. The money will go to a graduating Saratoga Springs High School student-musician who is looking to further their music education in college. The school’s music department will be nominating students for the prize.
Justin grew up in Saratoga Springs and graduated from the city’s high school in 1993.
His first job at the Trattoria Restaurant resulted in a nearly three-decade-long career in the restaurant business that took him to Park City, Utah and Portland, Oregon. He became the head chef of his own family in 2009, when his first child, Allison, was born. He also had a son, Dylan.
The Music Never Stopped Fund’s logo sums up much of Justin’s interests, incorporating a dancing turtle (his nickname was Turtle), a Yankees cap (he was a devoted baseball nerd), and of course the Grateful Dead’s signature “Stealie” skull and lightning bolt design.
Justin’s love of the Grateful Dead also helped to sum up his life philosophy, which in turn led to the creation of the music scholarship that bears his name. He’d often listen to Big Steve Parish, a former Grateful Dead crew member who now hosts a radio show devoted to the Dead.
“We’d be driving around town and you know the way Saratoga traffic can be, you’d be grumpy or whatever and Justin would be like, ‘hey, you gotta be like Big Steve and be a little nicer to everybody,’” said Scirocco. “For me, [the Music Never Stopped Fund is] like fulfilling that part of things. It’s like, let’s make things a little bit nicer for some people. I don’t want to be too tree hugger-ish or whatever, but it’s like let’s spread the love around. So it’s trying to live up to that ideal a little bit while remembering him.”
The Justin Kreider Music Never Stopped Fund will next host a Mandala Drawing Workshop at Next Door Kitchen & Bar on November 24. For more details, visit the charity’s Facebook page.
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New Music Scholarship Honors Beloved Jam Band Fan – Saratoga TODAY newspaper
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