The late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s estate has recreated his voice using AI in partnership with Eleven Labs. The singer-songwriter’s voice can now read to ElevenReader app users their choice of audiobooks, articles, poetry, PDFs, and more through what Eleven calls the Iconic Listening Experience, Billboard reported. Garcia’s voice is available in 32 different languages.
This is not the first voice added to the list of personalities available to use through the AI company’s app, as its repertoire also includes Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier. Garcia’s recent vocal replication was possible through a collaboration between Garcia’s estate and ElevenLabs. The Jerry Garcia Foundation, co-founded by his daughter Keelin Garcia, is also considering Garcia’s voice model for narrated documentaries or audio art exhibits.
Dustin Blank, Head of Partnerships at ElevenLabs, told Billboard, “By bringing voices like Jerry Garcia to our platform, we’re not just enhancing our app – we’re creating new ways for people to experience content. This project has been a labor of love, and we couldn’t be happier with how Jerry’s voice has been recreated. It’s a beautiful thing to bring his sound to life again for both longtime fans and a new generation of listeners.”
Bringing late artists’ voices back for new projects has become a trend recently. Paul McCartney used AI to extract and perfect John Lennon’s vocals for the “Last Beatles Record,” released earlier this year. Edith Piaf’s estate partnered with Warner Music to bring her voice back so it could be used in an upcoming biopic about the famous “La Vie En Rose” singer.
Keelin Garcia said the voice replication and production was done with the goal of continuing her late father’s legacy. “My father was a pioneering artist who embraced innovative audio and visual technologies,” said Garcia. She recounted stories about her father’s appreciation for digital art and video games and keeping up with new technologies. Garcia continued, “Now, as technological landscapes expand, ElevenLabs AI Audio technology will offer fans the first opportunity to hear and stream a replica of my father’s voice reading their favorite books and other written content.”