The Road To Recovery: The Dead's Mark Karan

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AS A FIRST-rate jam band guitarist, Mark Karan was always prepared to handle any musical situation, whether that meant filling Jerry Garcia's giant shoes in the post-Grateful Dead band the Dead or playing long, winding, on-the-fly solos in Bob Weir's Ratdog. But one thing he wasn't prepared for was the throat cancer diagnosis he was saddled with in 2007.

Soon after the diagnosis, Karan found himself off the concert trail and in and out of hospitals. Fans rallied, raising $5,000 through Dead.net, and eventually, Karan rallied — and changed his direction in life. Instead of staying a sideman, he stepped into the spotlight and recorded his first solo CD, "Walk Through the Fire." He also launched his first solo mini-tour, which brings him to the State Theatre fronting the band Jemimah Puddleduck.

"You get news that you have a potentially fatal disease and it makes you examine what's going on," Karan explains. "And you start thinking, 'Wow, this death thing that they're talking about — this limited time on the planet — it's real.'"

To that end, once Karan got a clean bill of health, he unearthed some half-completed Jemimah Puddleduck band recordings, and decided to finish them off and also write some new songs to create his CD.

"I'd never really taken the opportunity to do much of my own music when it wasn't part of a group effort," Karan admits. "A lot of what I'd done in the past had been in support of someone that was a primary singer and songwriter."

"Walk Through the Fire" adds a twist to the usual jam band recipe in that Karan sautes his songs in New Orleans funk rhythms. His muscular voice also sounds way stronger than you'd expect from someone who was struggling to speak a mere year ago. Karan says he was more shocked than anyone to learn how his voice had held up after 24-hour-a-day chemotherapy.

"My expectation was that after all the radiation, there would be a huge amount of damage," he says. "But no, it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of difference."

» State Theatre, 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church; Thu., Aug. 6, 7 p.m., $16; 703-237-0300. (East Falls Church)

Written by Express contributor Tony Sclafani
Photo courtesy Bob Minkin