Melvin Seals is an American musician, best known as a long time member of the Jerry Garcia Band. 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. In 1980 Melvin Seals joined the Jerry Garcia Band and remained a member until Jerry Garcia's untimely death in 1995.